Abstract
Music literacy continues to be widely equated with competency in decoding staff notation, despite longstanding expansion of the term’s range outside of music. Additionally, aesthetic literacy has made some inroads into thinking about literacy in music education. However, the primacy of staff notation in conceptions of literacy can dull perception of the diversity of priorities in different genres, and overlook the complexity and pluralism of competencies in reading and writing representations of music in contemporary contexts. The chapter examines these issues in light of student experiences of a music theory course that attempts to reflect the multiplicity of contemporary literacies.
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Notes
- 1.
I was invited by Abhinaya Theatre Research to compose the score for their 2012 production Sagara Kanyaka.
- 2.
Sa is the tonic note in any South Indian raga. Pa is the note a perfect fifth higher.
- 3.
The exact wording of this comment may have varied from what I’ve written – I write the sense of his statement as I remember it.
- 4.
Audiation typically refers to mental hearing, particularly of musical pitch and rhythm.
- 5.
Popular DAW software includes Avid Pro Tools (1991–2013), Apple Logic (2009–2013), Ableton Live (2001–2013) and Steinberg Cubase (1989–2013) .
- 6.
While identifying this eclecticism as a positive means of addressing fragmentation, he also warns against the dangers of failing to recognise differences in styles.
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Davidson, R. (2014). Music Literacies: Teaching Diversity. In: Barton, G. (eds) Literacy in the Arts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04846-8_10
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