So for week one we had Dr James Humberstone and went through the creative music movement and the basic timeline of events and then focused on experimental music and audiation.
Experimental Music
The main thing that stuck out to me in regard to experimental music was how it changed the way of thinking, listening and playing music. When I was reading Brian Dennis's work, this point along with the points of composition, confidence building and moving away from Western Art music helped to show and reflect on what was said in class. Along with looking at typical pieces like John Cage 'Silence' we also looked at the multiple forms of the notion that experimental music can be presented in. I recall in my undergrad degree when first learnt about it and went into detail on the paragraph description, one word and graphic notation I was always so stunned by it but today we managed to play and interpret a graphic score which was quite funny. The reason I went on this minor tangent, is due to the idea of interpreting a score. Before experimental music, most Western Art Music was interpreted by the conductor but generally played in a similar way. But with experimental music each time a song is played it can be and generally is completely different and we saw that in a class by the two groups' performances which were complete opposites but based on the same Graphic Notation.
Audiation
In regards to Audition, unfortunately, I couldn't get my hands on the set reading as it wasn't available online and only a physical copy but I did base my foundation's task on the concept of listening and Schafer came up when in regards to attentive listening. This is what I found in a few papers and his book listing 100 exercises for soundscapes;
A Sound Education – 100 exercises in Listening and Sound Making - “We must learn to
listen … the ultimate aim would be to begin to make conscious design decisions
affecting the soundscapes about us” (Schafer, 1992 p11)
This assignment along with the lecture material correlated in many aspects and kept pushing the idea that "Listening is the core experience in Music" and how "we learn via listening and tuning into our Soundscapes". This also tied into experimental music as John Cage 'Silence' was originally joked about in our class when we first heard of it but now realisation kicked in and made us (I'm talking about me not sure of the others...) that the point of the piece was to sit and think for 4 minutes and 33 seconds and take in/reflect etc of what is happening around you.
All these skills within both of these features are extremely helpful within the classroom as especially in the modern music classroom all students are different and have different styles, genres and tastes in music. Learning to tune there ears to create a "refined musicianship" and using that in say a band situation where they are listening and playing off each other will affect them later on in life in a gig situation.
See my Foundations Assignment below for extra research on Listening ^^