Andrea M. Calilhanna presents ‘Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy Meter Fundamentals’. This new book offers a fresh approach to understanding and teaching mathematical music theory for beginners
Music educators and pre-service teachers now have a groundbreaking resource to transform the way they teach meter fundamentals to beginner students with the release of “Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy Meter Fundamentals: Mathematical Music Theory for Beginners” (self-published).
Author Andrea M. Calilhanna has developed a new approach to teaching meter fundamentals, steering away from reliance on time signatures and instead focusing on mathematical aspects through Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy. Through the ski-hill graph, beginners develop listening skills that provide a solid basis for more advanced studies of meter, and the process of visualizing each pulse and meter through the ski-hill graph enables students to learn critical thinking about meter and about the mathematical aspects of the meter. This innovative teaching method effectively helps students in understanding the meter mathematics, stabilize the rhythms, and solve problems with decoding notation.
When asked what she wants readers to take away from the book, the author states, “That meter fundamentals don’t have to be ad hoc or notation-based, rather students can apply the meter information of ski-hill graphs to their performance preparation of timing and expression.”
“Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy Meter Fundamentals: Mathematical Music Theory for Beginners” is poised to become an essential guide for music educators and academics seeking innovative ways to teach contemporary meter fundamentals.
Available at Amazon
About the Author
Andrea M. Calilhanna developed Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy, a three-step approach to teach meter fundamentals. Her primary research interest is pedagogy through ski-hill graphs, listening and visualizing mathematical and psychoacoustic aspects of the meter. Inspired by the contemporary meter theories of Yale University music theorist Richard Cohn, Calilhanna began to teach meter theory fundamentals through the ski-hills with beginner students.
She observed ski-hill graphs bring many benefits to students to augment time signatures’ notation-based meter and this book provides Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy meter fundamentals. Calilhanna has taught music since 1991 in classroom and music studio settings with beginners through to advanced students; and she has analyzed traditional Igbo music, Nigeria.
She is a member of professional organizations: Musicological Society of Australia, Acoustical Society of America, Australian Acoustical Society, the Society for Music Theory, Australian Society for Music Education, the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music, the Music Teachers’ Association of New South Wales. In Australia, she is director of Cherrybrook Music Studio, and regularly presents conference papers, and publishes in journals, books, professional magazines, and online forums, editor for H-Net’s H-Music network, and a casual academic available for consultation.
Calilhanna formerly enrolled at Western Sydney University, MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, and was a visiting fellow (WSU) in 2019. In 2018, she completed a Master of Music (Musicology) at the University of Sydney, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2018). She is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Adelaide, Faculty of Arts, Business, Law, and Economics, Elder Conservatorium of Music.
