Guided practices of musical (re)creation in Higher Education

Sound as a creative element

Abstract

During the 2021/2022 academic year, students majoring in Music Education on the Degree in Primary Education at the University of Cordoba put into practice a guided transformation process for pre-existing melodic material that they had previously selected based on their musical journeys. This transformation process was sequenced into three levels: “Form and text”, “Rhythm” and “Harmony”. The second, centring on the rhythmical aspect, was organized into two steps: one explored the audio possibilities of small percussion instruments, the body, the voice, and any instruments made from everyday objects; the other consisted of creating rhythmical accompaniment. During the time dedicated to manipulating the audio material, they had to pay attention to timbre, agreement, technique and emission of sound. For the design, they also had to consider a series of simple compositional procedures, as well as paying attention to questions such as instrumental monotony, form, character and technique. The final level was to do with designing a harmonic accompaniment to be interpreted on instruments with bars. On this occasion, considerations included technique, organization of sounds, type of rhythmic and melodic motif, harmonic rhythm, capacity to establish general character, and function in relation to rhythm and melody. During their development, the student had to complete a series of individual questionnaires with a view to understanding how they articulate ideas around the perception of sound to detect possible shortcomings and establish suggested improvements. Subsequent data analysis reveals the need to continue to implement activities that encourage the development and perfection of their auditory education in order to train them to think about sound.