Storytelling Preferences

8th graders: here is the link to let me know what you're thinking of using for your character and project style!

Even more on music and language...

Click here for an interesting NPR story on the place of conductors within orchestras! Below is an excerpt that is related to what we talked about around the time of the (8th grade) rap assignment. 

The article mentions a relation between the music parts of the brain, and communication! So cool. Plus, if you believe that conductors are not necessary in an orchestra (what the article explores)...maybe you as students can help teach yourselves and each other. Think about it - if you taught yourselves more, and could learn about whatever you wanted (related to the subject still), what would you investigate?

If you think of what you would teach each other and yourself in French, let me know on Thursday or Friday, and we will try to work it in to class next week!

Miss G

"You have a signal that is originating from the conductor, because he is moving his hands and his body," Aloimonos explained. "And then the players, they perceive that signal, and they create another signal by moving the bows of the violin appropriately. So you have some sort of sensorimotor conversation."

(The research study is part of a larger project where Aloimonos is trying to figure out if human movements share something in common with human language; he suspects both are not only governed by a grammar, but that both may be based on similar processes in the brain.)

Music, Language and the Brain

Hello, class!

(This post is most related to what the 8th graders are working on now, but I think it's a fantastic subject for any age: music, language, and the brain.)

Borrowed from another teacher's blog for educational use, from : http://www.pianimation.com/2012/07/23/this-is-your-brain-on-music-part-1/

Here is a cool 5 minute snip of a TED-Ed video that legendary bass player Victor Wooten narrated.
Wooten seems to be a man that has practiced what he preaches: check out his biography if you are interested in how he got into the music scene.

He talks about the way we learn our first language as babies, and the way music should be taught. Think about the connections between what he says about learning music and the process of learning second or additional languages.

If you're interested in learning more, a lot of fantastic stories about music and the brain are in one of my favorite books, Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. Stories involving language come into play for several chapters. It gets a little technical at times with brain-related words, but if you are up for the challenge, it is a great read!

                                                  

Miss G