Now would be a good time to ask the essential question "Why should anyone learn to read music?"

Break into small group discussions and see what answers students come up with. Hopefully they can come up with one. In case they don't here are some ideas about why learning reading music is worthwhile.

Two easy definitions from Google

TWO WORDS THAT YOUNG STUDENTS SHOULD LEARN

Improvisation. "created without preparation."

Virtuoso: "a person highly skilled in music or another artistic pursuit"

MELISMA

In the past composers would write music that allowed singers to improvise melodies. In our world today you hear examples of this whenever the National Anthem is sung on television. The writer may have indicated a melody with fixed pitches & duration, but that doesn't stop the army of pop singers assaulting us with their own interpretation of what might have been a well written song. Taking liberties in singing melodies is referred to as MELISMA. In the world of well paid singers the talent of the artist to improvise with inventive and challenging MELISMATIC flourishes often is the highlight of the performance. Imagine how great a singer you would have to be to perform like that when a composer like Handel was listening. You had to be really, really good to get away with changing a great composers intentions!

More often than not, in our time singers are infusing their performance with a layer of "SOUL". Great R&B singers and singers steeped in the American Gospel tradition use MELISMA naturally.

INTONATION

If the songwriter writes a note, the expectation is you will actually sing that note. Not anymore. Listen to any song and you will likely hear singers swooping up to the pitch, or swooping down...whatever!?! They do it out of habit as a part of their style. Maybe they think it sounds better.

In the world of trained singers this inability to intone the correct pitch as written is considered a major fault and is to be avoided lest the audience will shake their heads in disbelief that the performance is so weak.

QUESTIONS:

Listen to a song and see if the singer engages in weak intonation, i.e. little extra notes before the expected melodic note.

Have you ever noticed someone hitting the wrong note before they get to the right note?

Do you ever hit the wrong note?

Should singers be free to change the songwriter's melody as they please?

Do you think singers today read music?

Do you think the songwriters write the music out for the artists?

Should singers sing The Star Spangled Banner as written?

Have you ever heard anyone sing The Star Spangled Banner as written?

Two of America's greatest songwriters had opposite attitudes about performers improvising their songs.

George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers were both popular and serious composers. Their work has endured in our culture for a century. You hear their music today on television, radio, movies and in live performances. The reason is that their talent and genius was so great that their music lives on. Gershwin loved hearing his tunes improvised, while Rodgers was adamantly opposed.