Pop Cultural Film in the Music Classroom

Movies are everywhere today. With the uprising of streaming services, it is easier than ever to access this form of popular media. Pop cultural movies and references are a fantastic way to relate to students. Allander (2004) argues pop media and culture is an effective way to engage students and has significant academic value in the classroom.

This blog post looks at my experience of how pop cultural movies and film music can engage and spark interest in the classroom. By reading this post, you will be able to draw on some of my ideas to better incorporate pop cultural movies in the music classroom, helping you to engage your students.

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Whilst on my final Professional Experience, I spent time with the Year 10 music class looking at film music. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to relate with students and discuss our favourite movies and their relating film scores.

To begin with, I picked two study pieces from two of the most well-known movie composers – John Williams and Hans Zimmer. ‘The Lion King’ (score by Hans Zimmer) engaged the Disney-loving demographic in the room, sparking excitement in them to discuss and analyse the piece. As a class, we watched ‘The Circle of Life’ theme and collaboratively discussed the use of the six musical elements and how they were manipulated to fit what was happening on the screen.

During this time, I brought in one of my own resources that I had purchased previously to demonstrate further the genius of Han Zimmer’s work. His MasterClass videos discussed just how he scores to picture and how he writes character themes. I found this video resource was a great opportunity to open student’s eyes to his processes and the amount of popular films that he has worked on. Movie examples such as ‘Batman’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ appealed to the action enthusiasts the room and they began to open up far more collaborative discussion. I was beginning to see very quickly that students interacted and engaged more when their favourite pop culture movies were included in the classroom study material.

My second classroom study example was John William’s ‘The Raider's March’.This movie connected both with action enthusiasts and history/archaeology lovers. To introduce this piece, I first played a comedic and insightful YouTube clip where Harrison Ford himself, pulls apart a scene from Indiana Jones and demonstrates how John Williams skilfully portrays character and emotion. As we discussed John Williams, we deliberated on his common musical manipulation techniques and also discussed other pop culture movies he has composed for.

Youth can grasp links between curriculum and real life better, through the use and integration of pop cultural media (Alvermann et al., 2018).

Students were engaged in the film music through pop culture films. As a result, as student interest increased, so did the depth of their analyses. It was obvious that students saw this embedding of pop culture into lessons as enjoyable, because their analysis grades increased as a result. This sequence targeted the following Curriculum Standard: evaluate a range of music and compositions to inform and refine their own compositions and performances (ACAMUR104).

Alvermann et al (2018) argues that pop culture is reality to youth and is the way in which they operate. This is why it is imperative as teachers to be up to date with youth pop culture, designing lessons that embrace pop culture in the classroom. After finishing school nearly six years ago, I can still remember my favourite lessons were always ones that were made relevant through pop culture references. I aim to do this for my students.

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Reflect on what lessons you found most enjoyable in secondary school. Was pop culture apart of these lessons? How can you better engage your students through the use of pop cultural media?

References

Allander, D. (2004). Popular Culture in the classroom. 93(3), 12-14. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/237292525?pq

-origsite=primo

Alvermann, D., Moon, J., Hagwood, M., & Hagood, M. Popular culture in the classroom: Teaching and researching critical media literacy(1st ed.). Retrieved from https://www-taylorfrancis- com.ezp01.library.qut.edu .au/books/9781315059327

The Australian Curriculum. (2016). Music: Years 9 and 10. Retrieved from

https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/ the-arts/music/