Teaching and Learning Undergraduate Music Theory at the Keyboard

Abstract

Music making at the keyboard can be of significant value to students learning music theory and aural skills, but an instructor must clear several logistical hurdles in order to integrate it fully into an undergraduate curriculum and capitalize on its aural, visual, and tactile advantages. Most music majors have only modest technical facility at the keyboard, and opportunities for individual coaching and assessment are often constrained by large class sizes, one-piano classrooms, and limited contact hours. This article describes a classroom-tested solution to these challenges in which students work outside of class at keyboards linked toSmartMusicsoftware, record snapshots of their work, and submit them online for immediate and detailed feedback. The software supports novel and interactive learning formats that give even non-keyboardists access to activities such as guided improvisation, play-along, echoing, sing-and-play, transposition, and fill-in-the-blanks. In addition to sharing samples of student work, the article also substantiates the effectiveness of this curricular intervention with qualitative and quantitative data collected during a formal impact study with 37 second-year undergraduates during fall 2013. Following research methodologies common in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, students participated confidentially in interviews, surveys, and practice journals that documented their experiences with this learning format. The results show powerful positive impacts on how, what, and how well students learned in the music theory course; to their attitudes about music theory; and to their ability to apply what they learned to their musical endeavors outside the theory classroom. Thus, this study offers both a practical method and a strong justification for placing hands-on music making at the center of students’ engagement with music theory.