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Math Professor Larry Lesser finds:
MATH + MUSIC = MORE
MOTIVATION
Fighting the negativity towards mathematics still too socially
acceptable in popular culture (reflected by songs such as “Math Suks” from the 1999 Jimmy Buffet album or by dolls that say
"math class is tough"), Larry Lesser (an Associate Professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at El Paso)
motivates teachers and students by merging two of his great loves --
mathematics and music. He presented the first songs-in-math-class
workshop the annual
teacher institute of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum has
had, gave the first artists-in-the-classroom workshop at the International
Folk Alliance Conference, and was featured in
a story
in Australia's
largest-selling newspaper
and in a half-hour live interview on Jamaica
newstalk FM radio.
From Anaheim to Atlanta, he has been a featured conference presenter, and his
opening banquet presentation for the 2008 (Mathematical Association of
America) MathFest drew a standing ovation.
Nationally
published as a mathematics educator and songwriter (as well as textbook author,
poet, and music journalist), "Mathemusician"
Lesser has ample qualifications to share links between math, music and
song. While getting his mathematics BA, Lesser began songwriting and
taking music classes (his only straight-A subject in college!), and helped
initiate a for-credit songwriting course at Rice University.
While getting a masters in statistics and PhD in mathematics education,
Lesser was VP of the Austin Songwriters’ Group, took private music lessons
and ACC music business courses, taught adult education courses in songwriting
at the University of Texas, enjoyed some success with his contemporary folk
songs (including regional awards, gigs and positive media reviews), such as
his song “Earthwoman” recorded on an album by the
acoustic trio Folkus (and played on
Progressive/Triple A station KGSR-FM and NPR-affiliate KUT-FM). More recently, his co-written song “What
We’ll Bring” was recorded on the 2007 album Pray for the Peace by the
national touring band Sababa and his “Healing Song” was recorded on the 2008 album
Songs of Ascent by coloratura soprano Ellen M. Wilson (www.ellenmwilson.com; http://cdbaby.com/cd/ellenmwilson2; www.myspace.com/ellenmwilson).
While Lesser
had long appreciated the mathematical structures and patterns in the songs he
was writing, he was beginning to explore how music might make the mathematics
he was teaching more memorable, accessible and exciting for his students,
especially for those who did not feel positive connections with mathematics.
After taking
his guitar and trying out his talents in his classrooms, Lesser was
encouraged to take it further, continuing to create, adapt and refine an
accessible collection of demonstrations of connections between mathematical
and musical concepts. A few examples of math & music connections
Lesser explores (as can most teachers) include: connections between
notions of number theory and music theory, mathematical models of how a
chime's or string's pitch varies with its length, how the sound of two notes
relates to the ratio of their frequencies, how mathematics guides the
building and playing of musical instruments, how patterns generate and illuminate
rhythms and sequences of notes and chords, how transformations of a melody
parallel transformations in mathematics, and other ways mathematics is used
(implicitly or explicitly) by composers. He published a letter on the
mathematics of harmonic note locations on a guitar string in the September
2004 Acoustic Guitar.
Not content
with making connections only with existing music, Larry also began writing a
creative and playful repertoire
of well-crafted content-rich math songs (inspired by the work of songwriters
such as Tom Lehrer, who, like Larry, has published lyrics in both academic
and non-academic publications) -- some stand-alone originals (e.g.,
"Numbers Man", "Statistician's BLUEs")
and others (e.g., "American Pi", "Hotel Infinity",
"The Gambler", "We Will Graph You!") that can be sung to
the tune of hit songs à la "Weird
Al" Yankovic. (Lesser’s choices of hit songs to parody include country,
pop, folk and rock recording artists such as: John Mayer, Madonna, the
Eagles, Queen, Kool & the Gang, Bette Midler,
Bee Gees, Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper,
Janis Ian, Three Dog Night, Ricky Martin, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, Kenny
Rogers, Paul Simon, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Suzanne Vega, Gloria Gaynor,
Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon. While Lesser has added to the already
massive math song repertoire for elementary school, he has had the largest
impact on the much thinner repertoire for middle school and high school (a
time when attitude and success in math greatly affect future career and college
prospects). While the more conventional demands of his work as a
mathematics educator have kept him too busy so far to fulfill requests for a "math song CD", dozens of his math lyrics have appeared in
international/national publications (e.g., Mathematics Teacher,
Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, Amstat
News, Noticias de TODOS, SABES
Problem Solver, Teaching Statistics, STATS, Journal of Irreproducible Results,
and Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal, and books such
as The
Pea and the Sun: A Mathematical Paradox, and Pi: A Biography of the World’s Most Mysterious Number, and the M.U.S.I.C. sourcebook Learning From Lyrics alongside lyrics by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Neil
Young and Sting), which have generated several republication
requests and offers for a larger book project. Although the high
quality of Lesser's lyrics reflect his substantial
proficiencies in both mathematics education and songwriting (it's not easy
rhyming words like parabola!), he maintains that all have the ability
and deserve the opportunity to write their own songs or at least couplets of
verse/rap, and he has encountered many enjoyable examples written by teachers
and by students. He published a letter about educational songwriting in the December 2005 issue of Physics Today.
To strengthen
his ideas (by the process of peer-review) and spread them to the widest
audiences, he wrote pioneering full-length teacher-friendly interdisciplinary
articles (e.g., "Sum of Songs: Making Mathematics Less Monotone!"
in the May 2000 issue of Mathematics Teacher and "Musical Means:
Using Songs in Teaching Statistics" in the Autumn 2001 issue of Teaching Statistics) that show how raps and songs can be used
to motivate students in the mathematics classroom, offering (even those with
minimal musicianship) numerous activities, tips, and examples.
Following his mu's,
Lesser's Teaching Statistics article uses
songs for generating descriptive statistics, conducting hypothesis tests,
analyzing lyrics (for specific terms and global themes), analyzing data,
etc., and he published an article of additional original statistics lyrics in
the Winter 2002 STATS. His Mathematics Teacher article
offers song-based problem solving, critical thinking and enrichment
activities, and includes several of his highly original math lyrics such as
"American Pi", which can be sung to the tune of the song
"American Pie" (a #1 hit for Don McLean in 1972 and a Top-30 hit
for Madonna in 2000). Teachers can utilize the new lyric's chorus (see
top of the page) as a mnemonic for the first 6 significant figures of pi and
may also utilize each line of the verses for a rich exploration of content
and pi's very human history. Other lyrics illuminate the process
of doing mathematics (e.g., "Fifty
Ways to Work a Problem"; see top of the
page) or help students recall specific procedures (e.g., "We Will Graph
You!"). Published by NCTM, Mathematics
Teacher is one of the world's most widely read mathematics education
journals (circulation is 50,000 mathematics instructors of students in grades
8 through college). Lesser's article was
selected as the article from the print issue to appear (from May 2000 -
December 2001) on the journal's website and he was pleasantly startled that
the article generated more response within 2 months than he had ever received
from his previous dozen publications combined! While thousands of
juried articles have been written on math-and-music connections (e.g., see
O'Keeffe's bibliography in the April 1972 Mathematics Teacher), there
were not any besides Lesser's as specifically and
comprehensively on the use of songs in the mathematics/statistics
classroom.
In his
classroom presentations (ranging from a math-song-of-the-month to a full
module) from elementary school to college, Lesser has found many benefits
beyond just plain fun and building community, such as:
motivation, memory
aids, meeting mathematics education standards (especially NCTM Standard #9, though Larry's songs address the others, too!), meeting music
education standards (especially MENC Standard #8), multiple learning styles and intelligences
(especially musical/rhythmic), reducing math phobia, and mashing stereotypes
(about math, math class and maybe even mild-mannered math
teachers!). Lesser hopes his songs spark interest as did Billy
Joel’s 1989 hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire” for many history classrooms.
Lesser explains, "I'm a songwriter at heart who happens to find the
processes and patterns of mathematics fascinating and worthy of songs.
It's a nice alternative to singing about less-evolved pursuits. While
math-and-music is lots of fun, it's also part of a serious responsibility I
feel to connect with all students and help them towards mathematical literacy
and empowerment in our increasingly information-based society." As
his alter ego, “The Mathemusician”, Lesser puts his
microphone where his mouth is, resurrecting the musical passion from his
student days to perform with a style that might be described as a mixture of
Paul Simon, Weird Al Yankovic, and Bill Nye the
Science Guy (hmmm.... is that as catchy as "Larry Lesser the Math
Professor"?).
Professor
Lesser enjoys parallels between teaching and performing as he also shares his
enthusiasm with colleagues in inservice
workshops and conferences, from local to national, which have received
broad-based praise and media
coverage (such as a feature story in 2002 in Australia's largest-selling newspaper).
Also, Lesser has performed math songs during live radio appearances – such as
“Today with Beverley Anderson Manley” on Kingston,
Jamaica 101.9 FM as well as “Math Medley” (KFNX-AM, WALE-AM, www.renaissanceradio.com, www.webct.com). This makes Larry one of the very few who
has had both "regular songs" and a "math song" played on
radio! Math-and-music is not the first time his creative teaching has
drawn attention: in 1993, a University
of Texas adult education course he
designed and taught on the psychology and probability underlying the then-new
Texas Lottery generated coverage by several Texas newspapers, the
AP wire service and CNN Headline News. Larry's interdisciplinary
endeavors aided his being selected to serve as the 2001 Arthur M. Gignilliat, Jr. Professor at Armstrong Atlantic
State University and as a 2005-2006 IMPACT Seminar Fellow at the University
of Texas at El Paso.
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