Six Months Since Launch - August 2024
Thursday 15 August 2024
August 2024 Updates
Sumer is icumen to its end! For all of the May assessment schools, the time to have a break, re-charge the batteries and reflect on the year is slowly coming to its end. Here in Vietnam, the summer season is still upon us and brings with it heavy downpours, picturesque evening hues, and, as many travel, an appreciative lull in the regular chaos of traffic. The medieval rota representing summer is a wonderful analogy for the inevitability of the seasons, demonstrating that regularity and repetition manifest themselves in both life and music.
Photo of the famous Lippo Centre taken on a recent trip to Hong Kong
This month's updates to the site include:
A series of free lessons for students who are about to embark on the DP music and what they can do to prepare for the course, namely:
- a creative task on utilising environmental sounds to produce a sonic landscape (see the STUDENT CHAPTER Environmental Sound Project for Students),
- an introduction to basic recording skills and features associated with DAWs (see Creating Canons for Students), AND
- a series of self-access activities for students to hone their music theory skills in the areas of research, exploring, experimenting and presenting (see Music Theory Necessities under Preliminary Work (Pre-IB) for Students).
There have also been updates to the page entitled Student Access and Setting up Tasks.
There was also a lesson offered that may be of use to many. I use this as an introduction to Presenting as a Creator and what the concept of "original work" means. It provides an opportunity to understand the concept of "copyright" and its implications, as well as plagiarism and how this helps students unpack the IB's Academic Integrity policy (see Copyright - Understanding & Implication). It also contains a real-life court case and places students in a position of judgment.
Time. There is never enough of it. As the academic year is about to begin again for many, the anxiety and frustration of the previous year may tend to rear their ugly heads. Time management is one of the topics music teachers most often cite when compiling component requirements. You may want to take a look at a new sub-page on the site regarding assessment and time management, Assessment and Time Management. In it, there is a discussion of linking the process to assessment.
Photo taken on June 6 in Ho Chi Minh City in District 2 Showing that the Heat had no Intention of Disapating Even at Twilight
Podcasts. A series of podcasts have recently been released as well (click Podcasts), but they are also available on my YouTube pages:
Mr Jim Yarnell has had the opportunity to chat with leading musicologists, authors, composers, musicians, and more. Their discussions have been an inspiration and thought-provoking. Our latest podcast is with well-known educator and musicologist, Jennifer Walden, We hope you find this helpful. Let us know (click Shifting Paradigms in Global Music Education: An Interview with Jennifer Walden)
Here are some other student-specific pages that will be released shortly:
- understanding the importance of creating an individual playlist to reveal one's "personal" context (again this will be released shortly),
- guidance to writing reflections and how the experience of listening to live music is considered to have a far greater emotional effect than listening to music from a device, AND
- more student work with detailed comments from the recent May 2024 assessment period.
There was also a fascinating question on the definition of "absolute music" and what this means for vocalists in the context of Area of Inquiry 2. If you would like to see and contribute to the discussion, click HERE.
Student-Access to InThinking
We strongly encourage you to provide access to the site for your students, affording them the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the course themselves and therefore allowing you to better focus on content, rather than many of the fundamentals that students can digest independently. There are tasks that you can assign to help them better prepare for a lesson OR reflect on one that has just been delivered.
This is easy to set up and it will help you track progress as well. See HERE for a YouTube video on this and HERE for a step-by-step guide to giving your students access.
The canon "Sumer is icumen in" for 6-voices transcribed circa 1240 is a remarkable example of prophecy, as its polyphonic texture, advancements made in harmonic terms, and the adoption of F major, not to mention the secular nature of the material, formed the basis of much of the Western canon that followed. Although many features of this work suggest folk-like qualities, within the context of the Abbey, this would have been truly 'original'.
The opening portion of Sumer is Icumen In taken from IMSLP transcribed by a monk at Reading Abbey in the middle portion of the 13th century (see HERE for more).
Perhaps a wonderful opportunity for students to discuss the notion of originality and the importance of determining origin and context. We hope that having your students complete preparation work for their IB journeys will help them navigate the waters ahead.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, summer is indeed coming to an end. The warmth of the sun, beaches, terraces, and downtime was hopefully wonderful. This picture was taken on one of my bike rides in Holland and created a wonderful opportunity for a cup of coffee and some needed reflection time.
THANKS to all of you in the Global Music Community.
August sees the official commercial launch of the In-Thinking IBDP Music Website. We've had over 300 subscribers since the launch on Valentine's Day and the numbers keep going up. We would like to thank you for your input, comments, and encouragement. We hope this site becomes a source to serve and further foster our international music community.
Our very best regards,
Jim and Anton