18036116: Jasmine Breeze

Learning Strategies are important in shaping the way a student perceives and learns vital
information. As teachers we need to understand our students, the curriculum and the way we
can use particular learning strategies to create effective learning goals that contribute towards
the students ‘thought and action’ process in order of becoming proficient musicians (Reitan,
Bergby, et.al., 2013).

Through various learning theories we are able to draw strategies that contribute to the
delivery of sequential understanding of choices around teaching aural skills. Aural musicality
as explored through many theorists can provide students with a sensory experience of music
education but prominently is defined through the multiple learning strategies combined to
achieve learning that is adaptable to the individual students learning needs.
An example is Jean Piaget who focuses on ‘learning through experiences’ (Holmberg,
2010), these experiences involve learning through “cognitive, meta-cognitive, auditory and
affective strategies” (Blix, 2013), and relate to teaching music theory through sequences of
expressive listening that involves structural, discriminative and reflective listening to activate
our brain into a state of “hemispherical connectivity” where all parts of our brain are
activated within the learning process (Sweetnam, 2008). Teachers can create logical,
organised and explicit activities for learning musicality to allow students to individually
interact actively through the construction of their thought processes, and build new
knowledge from these experiences as suggested by Piaget.
Another theorist, Lev Vygotsky follows the ideology of Piaget with focus on
experiences being vital to the development of a student’s learning and therefore suggests the
involvement of both the social context and the individual’s personal experience. (Holmberg,
2010) Vygotsky aims to guide students through internal and external experiences to both
music and it’s literacy through development within the following learning strategies;

a) Affective
b) Direct Learning (Rubin, 1975)
c) Task Specific (Blix, 2013)

These three learning strategies demonstrated in an aural perspective can work coincidently
with each other to contribute towards effective learning experiences for all students.
For example, students need to be confident and able to clarify their understanding, in some
cases this means taking chances and reasoning possibilities. This typically relies on the
essential need of ‘practice’ to retain and memorise past musical experiences. This can be
taught through tasks like ear training, reflective writing and any task that has a related
purpose, is explicit and well defined for the student’s understanding.
Lastly, Bruner allows for expansion within each developmental stage of Piaget theory
by creating the addition of mode language. These modes being; “Enactive, Iconic and
Symbolic” (Holmberg, 2010) draw on learning strategies like “memory, compensatory”
(Blix, 2013) and “audiation” (Gordon, 1993). In particular, these learning strategies focus
around the three modes to create “active attention, conception and aural image” (Sweetnam,
2008), a holistic view of this approach provides all students with an individual experience
through sensory, visual aural and oral experiences with abstract reasoning.

Overall the learning strategies, language modes and experiences mentioned, allow students to
gain a better understanding of aural musicality which is important in the consecutive process
of understanding ‘music’ and its creation. As Gordon (1993) highlights the sequential music
vocabulary consists of “listening, speaking, reading and writing”. In reflection of my teaching
pedagogy, I believe it is important as a teacher to consider all learning strategies when
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teaching aural as music is a culture in itself. It has its own language with a variety of
experiences that are controlled by society and individuals that recognise themselves to the
culture. To understand music, we must be able to actively engage with the music culture.

References
Blix, H. (2013). Learning Strategies in ear training. In I. Reitan, A. Bergby, V. Jakhelln, G.
Shetelig & I. Fanavoll Oye, Aural Perspectives: On musical learning and practice in
higher music education (10th ed., pp. 98-116). Norwegian: Norges musikkhogskole:
Norwegian Academy of Music.
Gordon, E. (1993). Learning sequences in music; skill, content, and patterns; a music
learning theory. Chicago: GIA Publication.
Holmberg, S. (2010). Music Teachers’ Perceptions: The role of Music Education in early
literacy (pp. 25-32). Manhattan, Kansas: ProQuest Dissertation Publishing. Retrieved
from https://search-proquest-
com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/education/docview/753916976/fulltextPDF/6C620A2F4BF646
E2PQ/21?accountid=36155
Reitan, I., Bergby, A., Jakhelln, V., Shetelig, G., & Fanavoll Oye, I. (2013). Aural
Perspectives: On Musical learning and Practice in Higher Music Education (10th ed., p.
97). Norwegian: Norges musikkogskole: Norwegian Academy of Music.
Sweetnam, P. (2008). Effects of applying an aural participation procedure while note
reading and learning unfamiliar music excerpts (pp. 14, 18, 21-23). Los Angeles,
California: University of Southern California.