Browsing by Author "Kuhanen, Miia"

The purpose of this study was to examine how a music teacher can build an informal lear- ning environment by using popular music pedagogy in a rock band playing by using 5.–6. grades music book as its’ material. First, I separated the rock band material from music books. Then I analysed the keys and the chords used in the songs. Finally I described how the basics of the rock band instruments are being taught in the books. The theory that is used in this study is based on a constructive learning, an informal learning and a popular music pedagogy. This study was a qualitative research where the corpus was described in using both qualita- tive and quantitative methods. The corpus of the research consisted of two series of music books: ”Musiikin mestarit 5–6” by Otava and ”SOI 5–6” by WSOY. Both book series consis- ted music books for the pupil and for the teacher. The rock band material represents approximately 25 percent of the contents of the music books. Every band instrument had special material regarding basic playing techniques. D- major was the most used key in both series. The next frequently used key in ”Musiikin mes- tarit 5–6” music book was C-major. Correspondingly, ”SOI 5–6” music book had exactly equal amount of A-minor and G-major keys after D-major. The most frequently used chords in rock band material were D, G, C, A, G7, A7, Am, Dm and Em. This study confirmed the view that teacher may build a learning environment by using music books. Learning may happen informally. However, the classroom as a formal learning envi- ronment must include suitable material that meet the needs of rock band playing. Finally, This study pointed out that teacher should use his/her pedagogic understanding when eva- luating suitable material for rock band playing to use.