Learning to write, learning to play? It ain't all about the scales and finger placement.

How my music degree has inspired a thought or two about being a teacher In a meeting today my Assistant Principal made a comment about encouraging creative writing while also making sure the students have skills that allow them to be able to do so more freely and thoughtfully.

This made me think about learning to write's relationship to learning music and how my personal experience links to my teaching philosophy and how it may relate to how I choose to inspire and motivate my children in the classroom.

We don't expect much from a piano composition if we simply ask a child to play the piano. While some piano students are quickly put off by weekly lessons when they are learning dry scales and finger techniques. I believe there needs to be a balance of teaching skills while also allowing some opportunities of creativity as they are learning. Let them explore the sounds of a piano while also listening to how other inspiring artists play well.

While studying music at university, I was not much of a piano player. Trained in singing, I dabbled with teaching myself piano skills here and there. What I found inspiring though, was how my university tutors would teach us a musical theory skill and encourage us to explore this through an instrument and compose something around it, even if we didn't have all the standard skills perfectly in place. Tone Clusters like Word Choice and Creating a Mood. For example one of my tutorial sessions focused on tone clusters. We learnt the theory behind tone clusters, listened to music that feature them and were encouraged to apply them into a composition. Tone created a mood in music the way that voice or word choice can create a mood in writing. While I didn't have all of my piano finger technique down, I still succeeded in composing an expressive song that I was proud of. While children may still be working on punctuation, grammar, spelling and structure in their writing, delving into one of the 6+1 writing traits and allowing freedom to explore, may still lead to an authentic writing piece in which they develop the particular skill you are teaching. If they feel a sense of accomplishment after their writing session, that learning session may stick longer in their memory and they will be intrinsically motivated to apply it another time, without being reminded, alongside the next writing trait they are focusing on.

Speech Singing like Fluency Another example is when we learnt the concept of speech singing (turning spoken words into music by applying music).

Exploring this musical technique, it encouraged me to record my Nan, telling her famous ghost stories and then attempt to apply music in the background to make it sound like she was rapping or singing. Once again, my piano skills were at a beginners level, but I had a musical area to explore and the task was engaging, I practised piano to match the pitches of my nan's voice and further developed my rhythmical and recording skills to create an musical/soundtrack atmosphere behind her. It was important that my Nan's voice flowed effortlessly alongside the music.

Children can enjoy practising the same thing when learning to apply sentence structures in writing and fluency. By showing them the beauty of it in quality mentor texts with the focus on fluency, they will be able to explore the trait creatively even if they too don't have all of the other skills completely down, and once again, if the experience is memorable enough, they will once again continue it on the future even when they aren't explicitly shown or guided to.

Musical articulation like Gramma and Phrasing.

During one memorable university tutorial, we explored different ways we can apply articulation in music. I began to realise that lesson that it is not just about what emphasis we play the rhythm of a note, or how loud we play it. It can also be how we emphasis a rhythm in accordance to pitch. There were a variety of other things we learnt about articulation, before being encouraged to compose a song while thinking about the concept of articulation. I chose my lyrics, 'Don't you lie to me' and played around with repeating them while articulating the pitch of a word/rhythm in the phrase and then changing the articulated note through the song as the words are being repeated. I also changed the length of some words to emphasis those particular notes. For example listen to a live version of the song and here how similar lyrics are repeated, but articulated differently each time: Don't you lie to me, Don't you lie to me,

Don't you lie to me,

Don't you lie to me,

Don't you, don't you,

Lie to, lie to me,

Don't you, don't you,

Lie to me, lie to me. Don't you lie to me,

Don't you lie to me,

Don't you lie to me,

Don't you lie to me,

Don't you lie to me now, Don't you lie to me now, Don't you lie to me now, Don't you lie to me.

I never would have thought I'd get so much enjoyment out of articulation. I believe this same feeling of enjoyment and sense of accomplishment can be taught in writing when shaped with a creative articulation task. And while I haven't tested this out...I now will find a way to do so. Cover Songs and Writer's Voice

My Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll lecturer, Steven Dillon encouraged us music students to be authentic show our true selves and voice through our music. For one task, he told us to pick a song that is completely different to our usual style, and then do a cover of it that showed our authentic selves as a songwriter. I was trying to discover my unique voice as a musician at the time time and found it to be a very valuable task. I picked a heavy rock song by Social Distortion, learnt the chord progression and experimented with sound and soundscapes that felt more suitable for my artistic voice. I've since learnt that artistic voice develops and changes over time, but this was the outcome.

1st Song. Original Song 'Angel's Wings' Social Distortion.

2nd Song. 'Angel's Wings' My Cover

I found a way to portray my musical voice, and now my mission is to find a way to help the children in my class find their writing voice.

Writing seeds One time when were learning about the impact synaesthesia can have on people's musical abilities, we were encouraged to find and image and try to compose a song that reflected the colour of the image. I went to an op shop and found a purple painting of a house in the woods. Basically it had a very purpley mood about it and it inspired musical ideas, tones and lyrics.

I managed to still create authentic, original pieces. These small steps of personal achievements encouraged me to keep on learning more musical composition techniques and continue exploring on multiple instruments and composing new pieces. The more I practised the better and more confident I became at my instruments. I also showed more interest in learning more technical skills and I bettered my overall musical craft. I believe a similar approach to teaching writing traits applies. Students need to enjoy the writing process as they learn. They need to focus in on writing traits and feel a sense of accomplishment as they explore how these traits creatively. As long as we teach explicit skills, and set creative tasks around them that allow them freedom and keep them involved and engaged they will intrinsically want to develop all skills in a well rounded way in order to express themselves better each time.