Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Math and Music

After reading some of these blogs, I like the idea of connecting math to the arts. Let's be honest, math is not everyone's favourite subject! As a teacher, being able to connect math to different subjects is key for students (for whom math is not their favourite subject) in order to relate to the math world and understand why we need math.

For myself, this was not always an easy task. This website is great for connecting math beyond school.

http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/beyond/articles/Music/music1.html

This link will take you to the part of the site that specifically connects math to music (something that I find is not done that often). It connects music to things like fractions (a more obvious connection) and the Fibonacci sequence ( a less obvious one).

You can search in the "math beyond school" section anything that would like to relate math to. This would be a good activity to do with students during class time OR integrate this website into a project.

Enjoy!

4 comments:

  1. Hello Nicole,

    I visited this site and I found it to be an excellent tool for teaching fractions as they relate to division in math and to the division of time signatures in music. Per the site, musical pieces are divided into sections called measures or bars. Each measure embodies an equal amount of time. Furthermore, each measure is divided into equal portions called beats. These are all mathematical divisions of time.

    Fractions are used in music to indicate lengths of notes. In a musical piece, the time signature tells the musician information about the rhythm of the piece.
    This site is very useful for both Math and Music. The site will help music students understand math better and it will do the same for math students.

    Kindest Regards,


    Jerry Clark

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  2. Hi!
    I enjoyed this website! I love the connection with music-- how the patterns evolved. I then started to explore the rest of the website and saw that there is much more to discover! Thanks for this resource!

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  3. I love the idea of connecting math and the arts. I think that the arts are often things that get put aside because they are important. Creating cross curricular math lessons is a great way to engage students as well as to make sure everything is covered. it is a great way to reach a wider variety of learners. For another class of mine I used dance as a way to help students develop and understanding of identifying, describing, creating, and continuing patterns.

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  4. That's an awesome site! I've always been into sports, so I have personally noticed that things make more sense to me when I can relate them to sports. I think it is great that students that have an interest in music can experience the same thing. Sports are always used in class because it is relatable to a lot of students, but it obviously won't resonate with every student. It is important to find out what our students like, and use their interests to help guide lessons.

    It is also a great way to include cross-curricular learning. Some students may not know a lot about music, or at least music theory. This can help introduce them to some of these concepts, and it may spark an interest in some students to become more involved in music.

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