Abstract:

Project background:
This project was part of a much larger initiative, the Center for the Performing Arts Classical Music Project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The goals of the three-year Classical Music Project (CWP) were to provide increased opportunities for students, faculty and community members to engage with classical music artists and programs.

To prepare students to benefit more strongly from the performances attended, the Center and the School of Music modified an existing course, Music 5: An Introduction to Western Music, to dovetail with scheduled Center performances. A new course module based on genre-specific active listening would be included each semester, augmented by interactive listening guides for opera, symphonic, and classical music.

Perceived barriers to guided listening:
John Packard, lead faculty for the development of the new Music 5 modules, cited a number of issues he encountered previously in teaching non-music majors in Music 5: incomplete/passive listening, inadequacy of available listening guide designs (from the web or textbook publishers), lack of visual reference to music structure, lack of precise player control for in-class demonstration, and a “disjointedness” between the students’ real-time listening and his commentary meant to guide that listening.

Instructional design:
We intend to show a solid pedagogical foundation for the listening guide approach as it exemplifies Mayer’s SOI (Selecting/Organizing/Integrating) model for constructivist learning.

Authoring system technology solution:
We chose SuddenlySmart’s SmartBuilder web-based authoring system as our development tool for the guides. SmartBuilder proved to be a powerful authoring system, although somewhat cumbersome to develop with.

Initial design and refinement:
The Opera module and associated listening guides were built first and piloted in the spring semester of 2013. Significant design revision occurred in summer of 2013, in time for creation of the symphonic and chamber music guides. The version 1.0 opera guides were later updated to the new design.

Takeaways and implications:
While no formal evaluation was conducted, several observations can be made that may prove valuable to an INTED audience. Among them are:
- Once refined, these interactive listening guides proved to be instructionally effective
- While aimed at non-music majors, School of Music faculty agreed that these guides could also play a role for music majors as well
- Aspects of leveraging the investment of time and money across a whole curriculum
- Discussion of barriers to leverage
- Exploration of “parallel” initiatives at audience institutions—what might this look like for them?

Keywords:

Interactive courseware, music education, music listening guides.