Brazilian music education: proposals for planning and playing during music classes

Abstract

Overview

This workshop focuses on our practices and explores two main themes: the way we have been conducting these practices in Brazil, and the repertoire we put children in contact with during the classes. Music and movement practitioners will engage in a variety of music activities for kids, just like we do in Brazil, and will get to know some traditional Brazilian songs. Also, we will explore music produced for babies and children from recent music albums in the country.

In 2013, invited by Dr. Beatriz Ilari, Vivian and Tiago Madalozzo have published a chapter for Dr. Ilari’s book “Music and early childhood”, edited in Brazil, about the way music activities for children were planned as part of a collaborative model they had developed with peers on a former practice of music education they had taken part. Since 2013, this research has been applied also at Alecrim Dourado, a music school of Curitiba, where the work with babies has been improving new practices each semester.

The considerations in the book will be the first resource to support the practices for the workshop, especially regarding the way activities during the class are organized in different sections, and how teachers engage parents and caregivers in music exploration with their babies. The workshop will focus on how children can explore and be sensitive and creative to the musical environment of the class on listening, composing and performing music, and how this pyramid can also organize musical practices with parents at home, after the class. Finally, the Active music teaching methods, especially Orff, Willems, Dalcroze, Schafer and brazilian recent proposals will be revisited, showing how each music class for babies is constructed under a principle of coherence and unity of musical themes, but at the same time under a variety of approaches and repertoires.

In between music activities, we will explain how we plan music classes for children, how we choose repertoire for the classes, and how we engage children, parents and caregivers to participate and promote, also at home, a musically rich environment for their kids. We will show ways music education research in Brazil has been discussing the planning of music activities, and how we have been conducting our practices in the last years.

Participants will be engaged by getting to know repertoire used in music education courses for children in Brazil, from traditional songs to recent albums designed for children. They will finally reflect about the way we organize the planning of the music practices with children, while taking part in the music activities.

Attendees will get to know the way Brazilian music educators have been employing concepts from theories like the active music teaching methods to engage children and parents in music activities. They will explore repertoire from Brazilian traditional songs and modern albums designed for children. They will also get information about our system of organizing the sections and aims of each class and semester planning.