Nicholas Busch

Dr. K. Veblen
Music 1800
25/10/2015
Tobias, E. S. (2013). Toward convergence: Adapting music education to
contemporary society and participatory culture. Music Educators Journal,
99(4), 29-36. doi: 10.1177/0027432113483318
The premise of this article interests me quite a bit. The idea of using
aural skills in relating music to popular music is a fantastic idea. I like the
sass Tobias throws at school administrators when he says in the context of
analysing Katy Perrys Roar: it is not likely they are engaging in Roman
numeral analysis or singing using solfege. He continues to say that
professionals that compare songs that could potentially violate copyright
laws sometimes do their job without even using the terms aural skills, music
theory, or analysis.
Tobias suggests that exposing students to the technicalities of audio
recordings and mixing while in middle or high school could broaden their
analyses, as well as interest in music. I think this is a great idea, since not
only would it help with their analyses, but it could introduce a new hobby or
even a career path to the students, which some of them might decide to
pursue. The idea of focusing on stylistic attributes is a great idea as well,
since it could be an introduction to learning about genres and what define
them. Exposing children to digital forms of music and music production at an
early age would also be very helpful for the students, since it would expose

them to many different types of music. This would do very well in the
classroom since the majority of popular music has some kind of electronic
element to it.
I found the section about introducing DJing into schools very
interesting. Tobias lists many factors of being a DJ and the type of aural skills
required that are not typically taught in schools, none of which I even
considered to take into account when thinking about DJing. Incorporating
these into the classroom would be difficult, but overall useful. I enjoyed the
subtle encouragement Tobias adds when he says Though it requires
planning, creative music teachers may find places to incorporate these
approaches in any of the classes or ensembles they teach, implying that if
you do this in your lesson you are a creative teacher. I cannot say that I
disagree with this encouragement (since I agree with the importance of all
the skills listed in this article), but it is a rather sneaky move by Tobias well
played.
If I could have a conversation with Tobias I would at first congratulate
him on the subtle encouragement I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I
would then ask how he would incorporate each of the examples into his
lectures with more detail, since I am having trouble placing the ideas of DJing
into a lesson. I would also ask him which he finds most important: aural
learning skills or notation learning skills. Both are important obviously, but as
of now I feel that he is leaning more toward the importance of aural learning
over score reading.