Music Fluency for Music Creation and Composition
In this chapter the author argues that music teachers should focus less on having students become readers and writers of standard music notation (i.e., literacy) and more on teaching whatever music “language skills” will allow students to freely communicate their ideas in music – i.e., to have them become fluent in the language of music. The author also demonstrates how, when using software to facilitate music creation teaching, the piano keyboard and various graphical visualizations of sound helps to teach and understand chord progressions, accompaniment patterns, bass lines from chords, melody writing, and music theory in ways more meaningful than traditional instruction. Through the intelligent use of technology, students who have never played piano or studied another instrument suddenly create, of their own volition, music of increasing sophistication.