A trial of music composition work on the theme of the marching season from spring to summer (An interdisciplinary class between music and climate education for the university students)
Abstract
The seasonality is a common important feature characterizing the climate in mid-latitude regions. However, many different factors relating to the seasonal cycles result in the great variety of the seasonal climate features from region to region even of the mid-latitudes. For example, there are many stages with rapid seasonal transitions in East Asia, greatly influenced by the considerable phase differences of seasonal cycle among the Asian monsoon subsystems. This also brings the remarkable change in the "seasonal feeling" from month to month around the Japan Islands. The seasonal increase in air temperature is especially large from March to April around the Japan Islands due to the rapid seasonal weakening of the Siberian High and the alternative passages of the extratropical cyclones and anticyclones there become more dominant in April (Kato et al. 2009). In May appearance frequency of the warm and dry clear day increases around the Japan Islands, in association with seasonal formation of the quasi-stationary Baiu front to its south (Kato and Kodama 1992). In the middle of June, the significant rainy season called the Baiu becomes the mature stage around the Japan Islands. The Baiu there terminates to be the midsummer around the middle of July. As such, people could feel rather great seasonal differences or rather various seasonal phenomena around the Japan Islands only within a few months, even for who do not have enough scientific knowledge on the climate. Inversely, the detailed perception or imagination of the seasonal features could help the scientific understanding of the climate and season. Following such viewpoint, an interdisciplinary class between music and science education was practiced for the students of Teaching Course of Music, Faculty of Education, Gifu Shotoku Gakuen Univesity. They are specialized in music and music education to become a teacher of primary school or a music teacher of junior high school. As for natural science, they have studied it only a little in the university to get license of primary school teacher. But they have already experienced composition on the theme of spring at the class in the previous year. In this class, the students tried to compose on the theme of the marching season from spring to summer. The term of the class was from April to July 2016, and thus the students have really experienced the detailed seasonal advance just during their activity. At the final stage of this activity, students' music works were performed with various instruments. The present study will report outline of the activity including a part of the students' music works and the analysis results of them, together with brief explanation of the seasonal cycle from spring to summer around the Japan Islands. The students' music works are analyzed on the following three points, and then the possibility toward the joint activity of music with science will be discussed. 1) The point to which the students have paid attention for composition, 2) The relationship between music expression of the works and the climate, 3) The students' interest in the climate induced by the experience of this activity.
- Publication:
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EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- April 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017EGUGA..19.3887K