The Gordon Music Learning Theory, often referred to as simply Music Learning Theory, is one of a number of theoretical models of music learning. Developed by Edwin E. Gordon and based on research and field testing, it is a stage specific model of how students learn music and how it should be taught. It was first presented in his 1971 The Psychology of Music Teaching and has been revised and clarified in his subsequent texts.[1] The teaching method is sequential and uses the concept of audiation, Gordon's term for mentally hearing and comprehending music.[2] Music Learning Theory has many characteristics in common with rote-first methods such as those developed by Suzuki, Dalcroze, Kodaly, and Orff. Students build a foundation of aural and performing skills through singing, rhythmic movement, and tonal and rhythm pattern instruction before being introduced to notation and music theory.[3]
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Music Learning Theory uses three basic learning sequences - skill learning, tonal content, and rhythm content.[4] As a method of instruction, the learning sequences are combined in various learning sequence activities which, in turn, can be combined with classroom activities. In this method a skill level cannot be achieved except in combination with a tonal or rhythm content level.[5]
Audiation is fundamental to Music Learning Theory,[6] and knowledge of its role is considered basic to an understanding of the learning sequences involved.[7] The theory proposes that audiation is a cognitive process and the musical equivalent of thinking in language. In contrast to aural perception, audiation takes place when music is mentally heard and understood when the physical sound is no longer present (or never has been). Although Gordon was the first to coin the term audiation in relation to music learning theory,[8] the subjective experience of hearing in the absence of physical sound (often referred to as auditory imagery) has long been studied by psychologists and neuropsychologists.
Music Learning Theory explicitly takes into account students' differing potentials for musical achievement when designing their individual learning programs. In this theory, musical aptitude is considered to be normally distributed in the population, with relatively few people having high or low aptitude and the majority having average aptitude.[9] Gordon devised several instruments for testing musical aptitude in children – most notably the Primary Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA) and the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA) and emphasises the need to develop whatever aptitude the child has from an early age:
"The fact is, music aptitude is something we're born with; it's an innate capacity, and unless it's nurtured at an early age, by age 9 nurturing will no longer help." – Edwin Gordon [10]
The IMMA and PMMA aptitude tests have been frequently used in studies on the development of children's musical abilitities,[11] including those by Peter Webster (1987) and Sam Baltzer (1990) which found no relationship between measures of music aptitude per se and measures of creative thinking in music.[12]