Goal 4 – The Appreciation of Music [MUSC 224] {Honors Course}
The Appreciation of Music is an Honors course I took in order to meet my General Education Goal 4. I chose to reflect on my final project for which I had to somehow connect my major (Elementary Education) to a piece of classical music from the 19th century.
Picking a topic for this project was very overwhelming for me. I ended up getting very frustrated and flustered and was disappointed that every time I asked my professor for guidance, he only offered encouragement that he was sure I would come up with something. I finally spoke with him a few days before the deadline for our proposals and admitted that I would have no proposal to turn in on the due date because I was still stuck. After seeing the desperation written all over my face, he suggested we get coffee after class to discuss why I was having so much trouble coming up with a topic.
Over coffee, I discovered several things about my creative block. First of all, I learned that simply talking things through with someone who knows more than I know is not only conducive to eliminating creative blocks, but it is also extremely cathartic. I also discovered that music is something I’m simply not the best at, but that I was nevertheless determined to learn as much as my brain was capable of comprehending.
Over the next few weeks of working on my final project, I spent a great deal of time in my professor’s office getting help understanding how to go forward with and improve my project. I ended up with a lesson plan for elementary students connecting classical music with emotions. It is one of the projects I am most proud of because I worked so hard to revise it over and over again (which is something I still need to improve on doing more often) and because it turned out better than I expected it to turn out. For someone who had never written a formal lesson plan before without guidance, I was very proud of myself.
Below you will find a copy of the PowerPoint that accompanied what I presented to my music class, showing how I chose to connect my major to classical music, as well as the lesson plan I wrote for a potential elementary lesson on emotions. The lessons plan is embedded, but please click the pink link to view the PowerPoint.
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