ABSTRACT
The secondary music classroom is a highly multimodal environment, as students perform, listen to and move to music, and read, write, draw and talk about music. One aspect of curriculum requires students to learn about pitch, duration, dynamics, etc. and to write about these. This chapter explores multimodal teaching and learning in one Year 11 music classroom, as over several lessons, students engage in listening to music, talking about music, writing about music and drawing musical images. Analysis of classroom discourse and student work identifies the kinds of knowledge about music that are constructed in written, spoken and visual modes, and how this knowledge is transformed and reconfigured between modes. Meanings in one mode (musical sound) are described in terms of other modes (visual, spoken and written). The chapter identifies where and how musical knowledge is built and communicated in each mode, and how musical knowledge is translated between modes. It argues that the affordances of drawings (graphic notations) enable detailed knowledge about the concepts of music to be communicated, and that drawings can also be used as a tool to help students compose more effective written answers. Implications for music curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are also presented.
