Page 26 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo v Ljubljani

and other factors. Given the fact that most of the YouTube videos are made in
glasbenopedagoški zbornik ◆ letnik/volume 20 ◆ številka/number 41
an interdisciplinary manner and are applicable in more than one discipline/su-
bject, the teacher must determine why, when, and how to implement a certa-
in video. While presenting the aforementioned video ‘The Devil in music (an
untold history of the Tritone)’ made by Adam Neely (2017), the teacher could
demonstrate some of the music mentioned in the video, providing rich educa-
tional experiences to their students which include active listening to the enti-
re musical works, detailed music analysis of the works, as well as writing and/
or performing music (musical dictation, harmonization, singing or playing).
The teacher could also prepare questions and activities (e.g. music theory exer-
cises) connected to the video’s content, seizing the opportunity to explain the
terms introduced in the video, and translating and interpreting the terms in
6
the learners’ mother tongue. YouTube videos are also applicable in informal
educational settings, such as self-directed learning (autodidacticism) or home-
schooling, where the process of (teaching and) learning takes place outside the
educational institutions. The use of videos in these kinds of settings indicates
that the learner already has some prior knowledge about the topic and is com-
petent enough to put all the given information in the appropriate context.

Is the content in the videos comparable to the content of Croatian music schools’
curricula? Can we find content that is not represented in the official curricula
for music education in Croatia?

A lot of the content presented by the creators of YouTube videos can also be
found in the official Croatian music schools’ curricula, covering the topics of
rhythmic and tonal structure in music (grouping and metre, intervals, scales,
chords and chord progressions), musical form (structural elements and levels
of music organization/shaping), and music history (musical periods/eras and
styles, including the most relevant compositors and their works). However, a
lot of the YouTube videos’ content goes beyond the scope of the official cur-
ricula. For example, the creators give importance to some musical scales that
are hardly mentioned in music schools, such as the melodic minor pentato-
nic scale, Hungarian minor scale, diminished scale, jazz scales, Olivier Messi-
aen’s modes, and the Super Phrygian mode. Within the metre and rhythm ca-
tegory, viewers can learn about various concepts that are rarely (or not at all)

6 Some of the terms mentioned in Adam Neely’s ‘tritone video’ are: interval, melodic interval,
whole tone, tritone, augmented forth, diminished fifth, division of the octave, hexachord,
soft/natural/hard hexachord, dissonance, unstable sound, cycle of tension and release, dis-
sonance resolution, expectance of the resolution, tuning, singing in tune, just intonation,
equal tempered system, ratios of intervals, simple and complex ratios, frequency, cultural
connotation (of consonance/dissonance), musical context, music theory, music practice, co-
unterpoint, system of tonal harmony, dominant seventh chord, diatonic passages, chroma-
tic passages, blue note, and blues chord progressions. For example, the terms could be inter-
preted in Slovenian or Croatian.

26