Purpose: To explore in a sample of older African Americans how religious songs were used to cope with stressful life events and to explore the religious beliefs associated with these songs. Design and Methods: Sixty-five African American older adults residing in the Southeastern US participated in a qualitative descriptive study involving…

Mnemonics and songs are used to help students excel and build are their knowledge in all content areas. This method of teaching and reinforcement of information helps students to commit new information to memory and continue to use this material throughout their lives. Using mnemonics is a lessons way to teach and make the classroom a unique…

The concept of brain hemisphere dominance serves as the basis for many educational learning theories. The dominant brain hemisphere guides the learning process, but both hemispheres are necessary for true learning to take place. This treatise outlines and analyzes the dominance factor, a learning theory developed by Dr. Carla Hannaford, which…

In this article, the author examines the use of songs to improve the listening skills of young learners. He first provides a theoretical discussion about listening skills and YLs, and about songs and YLs in general; second, he provides a sample lesson for what can be called "Listen and Do" songs for YLs at the beginning level. These are the songs…

Teachers might ask students to hum the tuning pitch, chant rhythms and scat articulations, or sing melodies from the repertoire to better understand musical inflection and nuance. In addition, singing can develop skills in music reading and audiation. If students sing out loud before playing a line of music, they are able to prehear the pitches…

Purpose: Difficulties with intonation and vibrato control during the menstrual cycle have been reported by singers; however, this phenomenon has not yet been systematically investigated. Method: A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial assessing effects of the menstrual cycle and use of a combined oral contraceptive pill (OCP) on pitch…

Just as humming a merry tune helped Snow White and her furry animal friends to quickly clean a filthy cottage in the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (Disney & Cottrell, 1937), singing can be an effective way to help keep young children fully engaged during classroom transitions. The purposes of this article are to: (1) consider why…

Songbirds and humans share many parallels in vocal learning and auditory sequence processing. However, the two groups differ notably in their abilities to recognize acoustic sequences shifted in absolute pitch (pitch height). Whereas humans maintain accurate recognition of words or melodies over large pitch height changes, songbirds are…

The purpose of this study was to describe choristers' perceptions of Welsh men's choir participation. Four choirs were observed in concert and rehearsal settings across Wales. Focus group interviews were conducted with between 4 and 10 members in each of the 4 choral settings for a total of 24 total interview respondents. The interviewees had a…

Participation in community music ensembles is an important and popular form of music education--with members of ensembles that perform within religious services having the opportunity of experiencing a possible extra dimension of a spiritual experience. Thus the intent of this study was to survey adult choir and band members at Temple Emeth in…

This article explores cooperative learning in choral conducting education. The five characteristics of cooperative learning identified by Adams and Hamm ((1996). "Cooperative learning: Critical thinking and collaboration across the curriculum" (2nd ed.). Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas Publishers): positive interdependence; face-to-face…

In this article I discuss children's everyday uses of recorded music (such as CDs, Mp3-files) in the light of sociological notions of "children" and "childhood". The discussion provides perspectives on musical engagement and musicality that supplement perspectives within developmental psychology. The study is based on…

This qualitative case study examines the affordances and constraints of an intergenerational multimodal arts curriculum that was designed to expand communication and identity options for children and elder participants. The authors drew on actor-network theory to conceptualize curriculum as a network effect and refer to literature on multimodal…

The narrative of an eminent Filipino singer-songwriter, Noel Cabangon, provides a description of an alternative pathway to musical talent development. Most theories on talent development assume that a young artist would have access to the resources required for one to advance in the domain. The results of multiple in-depth interviews suggested…

Teaching with song lyrics has many popular variations. The Common Core State Standards discourage pre-teaching, leaving students somewhat adrift. Song lyrics possess the potential to scaffold students' schema in select social studies topics. Using reciprocal teaching (Palinscar & Brown 1984) within the reading workshop students ponder…