Student-driven notation at a technical high school
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Citation
Abstract
Traditional Western music notation is commonly taught in high school music classrooms as the only notational option. However, the inherent challenge of reading this notation discourages some students from wanting to participate in school-based musicking. The process of learning the complex and unintuitive language of traditional music notation causes some students to become cognitively overwhelmed. Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) was developed by John Sweller in 1988. CLT is constructed on the idea that when the intrinsic load of a task is high, extraneous elements should be eliminated to lessen the overall cognitive load of the learner. In personal experience teaching technical high school students, it has been noticed that many become cognitively overwhelmed by the seemingly arbitrary rules of traditional music notation.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the creation of student-driven notation as a method to lessen the perceived extraneous cognitive load for technical students during music transcription activities. I also sought to examine how, if at all, student-driven notation made music notation accessible to a wider group of learners. The research questions were as follows:
1. How do participants respond to the creation and usability of novel music transcription activities presented with teacher guidance and connections to prior knowledge?
2. In what ways are the participants’ responses to a novel notation task similar and different to one another?
This study was completed using Action Research (AR) at a technical high school in Massachusetts where I have taught music for over 10 years. The use of AR afforded me the chance to facilitate this new music transcription activity with the students and make alterations to better suit the needs of the students in class. The students were provided an initial lesson and then created their student-driven notations with varying levels of assistance from peers and me, including alterations to the second half of the study to help streamline the transcription process.
The findings of the study showed that most of the students, through lessening their perceived cognitive loads, were able to create meaningful useable personal notations. Most of the students were also able to recall how to read their notations two months after the initial study, which indicates that the information moved from their working memory to their long-term memory, a key component of CLT. Some students did prefer to use a pre-existing method of notation such as tablature, and a few participants did not find student-driven notations to be helpful. However, the results of this study suggest that student-driven notation could be beneficial for this student population possibly for other populations in music education.