Thinking, being, teaching and learning with Spotify: Aspects of existential and essential musical bildung through listening in the classroom

Abstract

Streaming media seems to have become a natural part in teachers’ professional life. Streamed music, primarily distributed by the company Spotify, sounds in most music and dance classrooms, not least in Swedish schools. Hence, the concepts of digitalization and listening are accentuated within the area of music education. Within the frames of a larger border-crossing research project financed by Wallenbergstiftelsen – ‘Evolving bildung in the nexus of streaming services, art and users: Spotify as a case’, which aims to explore the meaning and function of streaming media as a facilitator of bildung, using Spotify as a case – this presentation takes two interviews regarding Spotify use as a starting point. One music teacher and one dance teacher, among sixteen participants, were interviewed about their use of Spotify. The aim with the specific analysis was to describe the phenomenon of bildung regionalized to relational school settings, where streamed music, teachers and students come together in intended learning situations. The interviews were stimulated by the teachers’ own Spotify interfaces, and documented by the virtual communication tool Zoom. They were transcribed and analysed in a phenomenological narrative manner. The narrative is shaped as a dialogue between the two teachers, to make similarities and differences regarding relations with Spotify in the classroom setting visible. The result shows aspects of existential and essential bildung through listening taking place as being, thinking and acting with Spotify in the spirit of Heidegger.