Introduction to literacy in Music

This section is focused on literacy in Music.

The information and resources address the reading and viewing, writing, and creating, and speaking and listening modes across Music.

Literacy in Music and musical literacy

Literacy in Music and musical literacy offer two complementary, but distinct, ways of understanding literacy.
Literacy in Music refers to:

• the listening, speaking, reading, viewing, writing, and creating practices that students use to access, understand, analyse, and communicate their knowledge about music as listeners, composers, and performers.

Musical literacy involves:

• interpreting and making meaning from aural and written musical texts, drawn from a range of cultures, times and locations which use conventional (Mills & McPherson, 2015) and graphic notation
• reading, composing, improvising, and performing musical texts using a range of acoustic and electronic instruments and digital technologies and modes.

Literacy in music and musical literacy are learned simultaneously and build on each other for wholistic literacy and disciplinary learning in the school subject of music. For example, reading about a song and discussing its meaning using key concepts such as the elements of music leads to a deeper understanding of the effect of the sound on the audience and the ways that this effect has been created. Conversely, musical notation communicates the sound to be performed and the sound itself speaks to the audience.

Literacy in Music Video: Explained

Neryl Jeanneret

Literate demands in Music Education

In music, students must:

• develop an aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of music from diverse cultures, times, and locations
• plan, compose and perform musical works
• interpret, analyse and communicate their ideas about their own compositions and those of others.

To do this, students must be able to:

• decode and make meaning from live and recorded music, music notation systems and graphic representations of music
• use the subject-specific language of music to express ideas, analyse music practices and respond to and interpret music
• decode and make meaning from texts—written, aural and multi-modal—about musical ideas, practices, histories, cultures, and artists (for example, biographies, podcasts, histories, reviews)
• create and produce both musical 'texts' and texts in English that demonstrate understanding of the field and discipline of music.

At the level of words, subject-specific terminology, often appropriated from European languages, is encountered. Language in music also structures understanding and provides concepts for comprehending music.
Students also encounter the 'language of music' in three dominant forms:

• written language
• notation
• sound as communication.

Thus, the 'texts' that students encounter in music are often multimodal and non-traditional, containing written language (English and/or notation), as well as aural and visual elements. Texts students might encounter include:

• performances (live and recorded)
• musical scores
• reviews
• musical histories
• biographies
• podcasts
• interviews.

Explicitly teaching students the features of such texts allows students to understand musical style, opening the way for accurate performance practices.
In addition to writing traditional texts, other common communicative forms that students encounter and produce include:

• musical notation (conventional, rhythmic, tablature, etc.)
• recordings and live performances
• communicating to an audience through performance.

Finally, in Music students often move between receptive and productive forms of communication. For example, a student may read from notation while performing. The audience then reads both the visual and the aural qualities of the performance. Teaching students about the interaction of modes allows them to use each mode to purposefully to enhance communication.

Using targeted literacy teaching strategies in Music classrooms teachers support students to:

• increase musical appreciation, understanding, analysis and communication through the integration of vocabulary and specialist language of music with reference to context and culture
• apply this language, orally, in writing, and multimodally in students' responses to, analysis and creation of music
• think and respond critically and creatively with reference to principles of "power, ideology, representation, seduction, gaze, intertextuality, and multimodality" (Duncum, 2010, p.6).

Literacy in the Victorian Curriculum: Music

Music in the Victorian Curriculum is underpinned by this combination of musical literacy and literacy in music. Integral to practising music, and an aim of the curriculum, is to develop the ability to 'listen, improvise, compose, interpret, perform, and respond with intent and purpose' (VCAA, n.d., n.p.). Music is 'uniquely an aural art form' and 'listening underpins all music learning' (VCAA, n.d., n.p.).
Within Music, students undertake reading and viewing, writing, speaking, and listening, and performing to:

• explore and express ideas
• develop knowledge and understanding of skills, techniques, and processes for listening, composing, and performing
• present and perform
• respond and interpret (VCAA, n.d.).

The Victorian Curriculum: Music is structured around four independent strands, each of which involves making and responding to music. The first three strands focus on the ways to use, compose, and perform music. These strands are:

• Explore and express ideas
• Music practices
• Present and perform.

The final strand, 'Respond and interpret,' emphasises reflecting, questioning, and analysing multimodal texts as composer, performer, and audience. To do this, students must:

• use listening skills to identify and describe qualities of sound and features of music
• select and use appropriate music vocabulary to provide oral and written responses
• refine their work—composed, performed, written—in response to feedback
• evaluate and refine their own and others' performances (VCAA, n.d.).