Victor Stec

October 4, 2015
Rodriguez,C.(2009).Informallearninginmusic:Emergingrolesofteachersandstudents.Action,
Criticism,andTheoryforMusicEducation8/2:3545.
http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Rodriguez8_2.pdf
Rodriguez explains his thoughts and concerns he has with informal learning and the
difficulties of teaching students, with a formal music learning background,
informally in his article Informal Learning in Music: Emerging Roles of Teachers and
Students. Through the majority of the article, Rodriguez discusses his experience
with a band of formally trained musicians who attempt to learn in an informal style
and the difficulties that emerge because of this. Some of these difficulties include
the inability for students to follow rigid guidelines, which is a part of the formal
pedagogy, and being unprepared for the many musical freedoms the informal
pedagogy offers. Many of these difficulties also arise not only with the students, but
with the teacher as well. Rodriguez noticed the complications he had with
attempting to teach the students informally, such as, suggesting different strategies
to improve how each of the students played without insulting them or degrading
their confidence in playing their instruments. Overall, he notices it takes a lot of
hard work and flexibility to teach students informally but there are also benefits to
this style of pedagogy since it allows students to explore music with more freedom
therefore allowing them to see music more creatively.
This article highlighted the two ways of teaching music, formally and informally; two
very different pedagogical styles of teaching which I was not aware of before
reading Rodriguezs article. What interested me most in this article was the fact
that, first of all, there existed two different pedagogies in teaching music, as I
mentioned previously, some of which that even have characteristics that are

Victor Stec
October 4, 2015
displayed in one another. The one problem I had about this article, after reading it,
which shocked me most, was the fact that people have put a label on what they
consider as two different musical pedagogies and are focusing on studying each
independent one instead of discovering a way to efficiently educate teachers on
how to intertwine the two to enhance students comprehension of music. If people
have already gathered significant amounts of research on formal and informal
pedagogies, I find it logical to invest more time on figuring out how to combine the
two pedagogies together to improve the quality of learning for students interested
in music. If I were to speak to Mr. Rodriguez I would ask him, why not investigate a
method of teaching that implements the two pedagogies jointly rather than
examining them independently; because I believe that music teachers would be
much more interested in teaching one new, improved pedagogical style rather than
two separate ones.
Wayne D. Bowman, Wayne D. (2004). Pop goes...? Taking popular music seriously
In Rodriguez, C.

(Ed.). Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education. US:

MENC
This is an article where, Wayne D. Bowman clarifies his opinion on how the music
education system in North America must include popular music studies into its
curriculum. Bowman continues to explain what the definition of popular music is in
his article and states that [it] depends on the person. Everyone conceives the
term popular music differently and many think that popular music is mostly for
youth which he believes is not true. Further on in the article, Bowman articulates
that the education of popular music is essential since it can provide students with a
deeper understanding of what a certain piece of popular music is stating. For

Victor Stec
October 4, 2015
example, it will allow students to distinguish if the purpose of a specific song is to
serve as a means of propaganda. He also believes that a large reason for which
popular music isnt being implemented in the curriculum is because it is not being
treated seriously. If it were to have been treated like any other piece of music, no
matter what age or type, schools would have implemented it years ago.
Mr. Bowman attempts to persuade readers to support the idea of implementing
popular music into the music curriculum of North American schools in his article
Pop goes...? Taking Popular Music Seriously.
I believe that Bowman fails to deliver his message through his article since he
provides little to no factual proof to support his arguments, which are almost all
opinionated assertions. All throughout his article Bowman gives very little factual
proof for his arguments which are all mostly supported by observations of his. As a
result of this, the article becomes very dry, repetitive and an overall frustrating,
unpleasant read. Nevertheless, his article did encompass some logical points which
managed to gain my interest, such as, how it is important to teach popular music in
order for students to be effective at determining if a song serves as propaganda or
not as well as, how people do not take popular music seriously. If I were to speak to
Mr. Bowman I would tell him, and I apologize for being so blunt, to please do more
research and add more factual proof in his article rather than reinforcing his
arguments with observations. I would also tell him that his article used too much
word vomit and needed to be more concise. Because of this, the article tended to
drag on forever making it very unsatisfying to read.