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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
Tobias values contemporary music, even his previous article, From
Musical Detectives to DJs: Expanding Aural Skills and Analysis Through
Engaging Popular Music and Culture also touches on the involvement
of popular music. In this article, he points out that learning about
contemporary music cultures and knowing how students engage with
out-of-school music can help evolve music educators. There are many
different ways that people know and do music and the music education
from K-12 represents a narrow range of that.
Tobias uses Henry Jenkins to define participatory culture; he uses key
points such as low barriers to artistic expression and informal
mentorship. He also gives a table of 11 different ways of how many
people interact with popular music. Some examples include making
covers and arrangements with technology, remixing, and creating
tutorials. Adding on to this, there are many people who make a living
simply by posting covers/arrangements/originals on YouTube. Today,
technology makes it very easy to make covers and engage in popular
music. As mentioned in previous papers, a friend of mine (Chris) is
highly involved in the contemporary culture of popular music. He uses
a lot of technology because he composes electronic music and posts
them on Soundcloud.com.
Contemporary musical practices are not limited for only pop music.
Tobias mentions that the Berlin and Brooklyn Philharmonics hosted
remix contests of Mahlers 1st Symphony and Beethovens 9th
Symphony. Another example is Eric Whitacre: he used social media and
technology to produce his Virtual Choir. I took part in his choir and he
made it very easy for us: we simply had to record ourselves singing
whatever part (I sang soprano I and II) and his crew did the rest to put
it all together to form a virtual choir.
Tobias displays a few scenarios where music education can get
creative. One of them is putting contemporary musical practices into
the classroom. Music teachers would help students reflect on their
engagement with music; it would work with or without technology and
the teacher could ask question like what aspects of the original are
you highlighting or changing? This scenario is very interesting
because it calls for creativity in the students.
Another scenario he mentions is to engage in contests and
opportunities. Music teachers could look at Soundcloud.com and have
the students create musical projects and have them posted. Tobias

displays good scenarios to have students engage in popular music; I


enjoyed reading this article very much because I agree that music
education should evolve and be constantly changing as a result of
societys rapid flow. Such activities where students engage in
contemporary musical practices can make their love of music grow and
grow.

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