CREATIVE STRATEGY APPLIED TO MUSIC TEACHING PROBLEM:
Problem: getting class to play the right notes, in time with the conductor
To play the right notes, the student also needs to be able to read music, translate it into finger chords on their instrument, and play the finger chord in time with the conductor.
In the old days, the mantra was 'practice'. I learned that when taking piano lessons in grade 3. I remember being in after-school bands in my early teens -clarinette and tenor sax- and in public school classroom, something called a recorder or recorder-flute - something The Friendly Giant played - a plastic flute-like instrument with finger holes, no reed, relying on a whistle aperature to make the sound, and tube pointing foreward like a clarinet.
We were country boys, in a small country school where all weird teachers -kicked out by PTAs elsewhere- would end up. Our math teacher -who rejected new math, and taught us good old algebra instead- loved music and played an organ in his own house. He wanted us to learn music via recorders.
After school we would feed the cows, swill the hogs, plow snow out of the driveway with the diesel tractor. Then we would practice the recorder? It didn't seem to fit the lifestyle. Many of us lived in small, crowded farm houses, and the parents might not have appreciated their quiet time being drown with recorder sounds.
I was a bit lucky on a few of those measures, and with the clarinet coming first, the recorder didn't take too much of my time to learn. But some of the others showed up un-practiced, unable to hit notes. Not that the teacher minded - he would be waving his wand and appearing to enjoy the nearly random squeeks and honks, perhaps hearing in his mind what the music should have sounded like, rather than the actual noise.
I'd say slow progress.
Remember creative strategy:
1) break it down into elements
2) search other domains for solutions to each element
3) creatively select element solutions and combine
Breaking the problem into elements:
1. read - learning to read music to get the note
2. chord - learning finger chords for a note
3. sequence - learning to change chords quickly
4. time - learning to keep time / steady time
5. home noise - practice at home versus disturbing others with noise in the home
6. shame - practice at hom and feeling social shame at the bad playing initially "squeeky honky nonsense" when redneck farmer parents hear it
7. culture - culture of school peers of accepting the musical instruments and music class as 'cool'
8. sync - learning to sync with the conductor
Problem: getting class to play the right notes, in time with the conductor
How to get other domains: brainstorm, guess. For example, I guessed Military and Baking without knowing if they had any solutions to elements I needed. I made columns for them. Then I went down the list of elements seeing what baking and military do that's related to an element. Then after writing the Baking or Military activity I would guess what the music equivalent would look like and write it in (parentheses).
Feel free to guess some different domains, and combine the solution elements you like into a final solution.