Folk Songs Teaching Approaches - Essay Example

Folk Songs Teaching Approaches Address Town 20 October 2006 To The Director of Aesthetics' Address Town Dear Sir/Madam RE: APPROACH TO INTRODUCE MUSIC STYLES TO SCHOOLS NATION-WIDEThere has been a great concern in the way music has been perceived by our schools. For this case, I have come up with an approach that can be adopted for by our school in teaching music. My emphasis will be the approach that will be used to teach folk songs. Many people do not take folk songs as a serious or even worthwhile endeavour as they know that they did not originate from the theatre.

They have a notion that they were not meant to entertain but served as set of functions within a rural society. For this case they see them as not worth to be allocated our scarce resources. This should not be the case as we have to preserve our culture and for this to be taken seriously, then, there has to be better approaches for teaching folk songs to students. There are a number of levels and methods for teaching folk songs whereby the method used coincide with the purpose of the students in learning the folk song or the purpose of the teacher in teaching the folk dance.

The main aim of the teacher when it comes to teaching folk songs is to maintain quality with limited resources. The main components in teaching folk songs are steps and styles. The steps are easier to learn but the styles can take some times before they are understood. Another component which is important in teaching folk songs is to understand folk song in the context; the creator of the song, which particular occasion is the song sang by the those who created it, the customs and traditions surrounding the occasion of the song, other elements of the culture that spawned it of which the song is but single element.

The teacher teaches the steps, the style and the context of the folk song as he has mastered them. It is easier to teach the steps and it is difficult to teach the style while on the other hand the context has not been fully researched to be adequately learnt. However, it becomes difficult for even the best dancer to teach the styles of each different region. The teachers must admit to their students that it is difficult for one master styles of every folk songs they dance in order to encourage them.

The students must seek augmentation to folk song class instructions they wish to master styles. In order for a teacher to succeed in teaching styles is ensure the students attend master classes at dance seminars which are usually given instructors familiar with the region in which the folk song originate and are members of that ethnic community. Since the folk song seminars are not frequent enough, and then the students should be attended to on weekly basis by the folk song instructor. I strongly believe that if the above recommendations are adopted to introduce music style styles in schools, folk songs will be appreciated by all and we will be in a position to preserve our culture.

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