What is Music Integration?
Music is rigorous yet beautiful but it can invoke comprehensive discipline or maybe intimidate you to your inner core. Either way music has endless ways to be integrated which is a main reason that the topic may be so complex. Music contains seven elements which are rhythm, dynamics, melody, timbre, harmony, texture, and form. Though they all revolve around music and sound, the elements involved can often times depict the genre one is listening to. There are many genres such as classical, traditional, cultural, and children's music but they may be broken down into subcategories such as nursery rhymes or rock and roll. Something I never thought of is what music integration is not because it seemed simple and self explanatory. Adding music to the background is not considered integration of music and neither is having students remember a song to help remember area content, such as "School House Rock" and "Nifty Fifty United States".
Why Study Music?
Music integration is purposeful and builds connections through music and academic content. It is carefully looking into the music standards of singing, reading and notation, playing instruments, and critical response and pairing it with the benchmarks of literacy, math, science, and social studies to create lessons enriched with novelty and challenge for both student and teacher. Music integration is not just helpful to remember a bit of information but instead it is changing the way your brain works. Music is helping increase and strengthen the neural connections the brain makes due to the triggering of different areas of the brain. Music not only helps the brain but helps students in the classroom with things like cooperation, social skills, and engagement. One thing for teachers to keep in mind is the time and effort that will go into integrating music correctly. It is easy to make a song to remember things but this is not correct. If the students are not learning content addressed in benchmark standards, then start over. Get creative!
It's A Snap!
It is not only general education students that should understand music integration and experience it first hand. Students with disabilities are not given a fair variety of the arts on a daily basis and there are ways to do so that does not compromise their learning or daily struggles they may face. Special ed teachers should consider music in their classrooms to supplement visuals, teach through students' favorite songs, emphasize rhythm, and generalize lessons into non-musical settings. More times than not, music will open new ideas and creations for students that seem misunderstood but in reality, they are thinking outside of the box. Music therapy is even recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and states such as California as a related service which may be required for a student to benefit from his or her educational program. A few great strategies would be music and visual supports to increase comprehension, favorite songs as a teaching tool, rhythm is your friend, and generalization is key.