Tag Archives: Music Learning Theory

An Open Letter To Dr. Gordon

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Edwin E. Gordon, primary author of Music Learning Theory

Edwin E. Gordon, primary author of Music Learning Theory

Dr. Gordon and associates’ research on how children learn music addresses many of my questions on how music communicates and is meaningful to us and how I can help myself and others to gain fluency in music as if it were a language. The research gets into the nuts and bolts of music learning processes. Nevertheless, my questions that it answers are fundamental life questions because I learn how to live life more fully through the interactions with the other that music provides. Art is life, and life is art, as Bakhtin would agree. I am so grateful to Dr. Gordon!

–Carla J. Seibert

Eric Bluestine's avatarThe Ways Children Learn Music

Dear Dr. Gordon,

You know, of course, that your many students all over the world are thinking of you, and we trust that you are receiving the best of care. But perhaps we haven’t told you often enough how greatly your work and your thinking have guided our teaching.

Because of you, we teach with direction, purpose, and logic.

Because of you, we design and revise tests and rating scales with confidence.

Because of you, we guide our students through the stages of music babble, rather than plunge them into formal instruction before they are ready.

Because of you, we joyfully encourage our students to create and improvise (even as the students themselves have no idea that we diligently prepared them for such tasks.)

Because of you, we know what to say to parents who ask why we do what we do.

You have been the guiding force in our…

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Attending the 5th International Conference on Music Learning Theory

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From August 4 to 9, 2015, teacher Carla Seibert will be in Chicago for the 5th International Conference on Music Learning Theory: Audiation from the Inside Out, held by the Gordon Institute for Music Learning Theory. Dr. Gordon, 87 years, will not attend the conference this year, but many music educators and researchers dedicated to developing the music potential of each person will present. At this conference Carla hopes to gain insights into helping students to develop musically as if they were learning a native language, through movement, singing and playing the piano.

“Music Learning Theory is an explanation of how we learn when we learn music. Based on an extensive body of research and practical field testing by Edwin E. Gordon and others, Music Learning Theory is a comprehensive method for teaching audiation, Gordon’s term for the ability to think music in the mind with understanding. Music Learning Theory principles guide music teachers of all stripes–early childhood, elementary general, instrumental, vocal, the private studio–in establishing sequential curricular goals in accord with their own teaching styles and beliefs. The primary objective is development of students’ tonal and rhythm audiation. Through audiation students are able to draw greater meaning from the music they listen to, perform, improvise, and compose.”

— from giml.org/mlt/about/, emphasis Carla’s

piano instructor seabrook tx

I have Music Learning Theory colleagues from Brazil and the US, in piano and in early childhood music!