Higher Music Education Research Articles

Mapping trends and framing issues in higher music education: Changing minds/changing practices

This article presents five case studies from within music in higher education programmes that collectively explore key questions concerning how we look at the challenges and trends, and the need for change to react to the recent higher education (HE) climate, through reference to teaching musicians the skills, knowledge and diverse career creativities that are valued in preparing musicians to enter sustained careers. In this article, the National Association for Music in Higher Education (NAMHE) elected committee members explore the emerging issues and agendas within the context of higher education, and the national and international policy shifts that are occurring. The case studies explore: (1) an inclusive curriculum and undergraduate student partner project; (2) employability skills and postgraduate courses; (3) digital creativities; (4) music career creativities and gender; and (5) an integrated student experience.

Addressing new challenges for a community music project in the context of higher music education: A conceptual framework

In response to Europe's societal challenges, such as current issues about migration, the Institute of Music Education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz established Meet4Music (M4M), a low-threshold community music project. M4M is open to individuals from all sociocultural and musical backgrounds and ages, and provides them with the opportunity to socialize with others and to express themselves musically. M4M is based on collaborative learning in an open community ensemble, which includes choir, dance, theatre and percussion, alternating with one another on a weekly basis. University students can choose M4M as an elective course to gain relevant experience in leading heterogeneous and intercultural ensembles. The aim of this paper is to present this project, with a special focus on its dimensions, aims and pedagogical implications for educating reflective teachers. A conceptual framework that contributes to the concept of lifelong learning in (higher) music education will be provided, and foundations for further research and theory will be offered.

Gender Inequalities and Higher Music Education: Comparing the UK and Sweden

Whilst the impact of gender inequalities has been studied in relation to music education, especially in the UK, relatively little has been written about their impact on higher music education (HME). This article compares data on HME programs and courses, in the UK and Sweden, from 2010 to 2014. It looks at similarities and differences in the numbers of men and women who applied to HME subjects, compared to those who were offered a place on their chosen program or course, in both nations. Through this it demonstrates that whilst a Swedish HME appears to show less institutional discrimination against women, there are still similar transnational divisions in men's and women's HME subject choices. However the article uses these data to build on existing critiques around a need for intersectional understandings of gender inequalities, before arguing that a critique of neoliberalism is essential to tackling gender inequalities in HME.

TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCES IN HIGHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM OF POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES IN SCOTLAND: CURRENT FRAMEWORK, PROBLEMS AND FUTURE POTENTIAL

Transversal competences - alternatively referred as ‘21st century skills’ and ‘key competencies’ is a term rigorously discussed within the international research and education community since the beginning of the century. However, two major challenges remain, such as how to efficiently integrate the concept of transversal competencies into existing programmes, as well as how to assess transversal competences across the curriculum. It is important to recognise the potential for applying the concept of transversal competences to popular music curricula, as this multidisciplinary field combines all three aspects: broader creative sphere (musicianship, composition, cultural and contextual analysis); social sphere (economics, sociology, anthropology, history, communications and management), and technologies. This multidisciplinary fusion of spheres opens the possibility of applying the findings of this inquiry to curricula of other fields. Thus, resulting in the frame of reference for integration and assessment of transversal competencies into existing curricula of creative higher education. The geographical scope of this discussion is limited to Scotland. However, contextual analysis of EU policy documents and global social tendencies will be discussed. This inquiry aims to examine the current framework, problems, and future potential of transversal competences in popular music higher education programmes across Scotland. The primary goal of this study is to assess the programmes in connection with the integration of the transversal competence approach, particularly the progress, the limitations and the future potential. Article visualizations:

The academisation of popular music in higher music education: the case of Norway

ABSTRACTWith a hundred years (1912–2012) of Norwegian master’s and doctoral theses written within the field of music as a backdrop, this article reports from an extensive study of the academisation of popular music in higher music education and research in Norway. Theoretically, the study builds on the sociology of culture and education in the tradition of Bourdieu and some of his successors, and its methodological design is that of a comprehensive survey of the entire corpus of academic theses produced within the Norwegian music field. On this basis, the authors examine what forms of popular music have been included and excluded respectively, how this aesthetic and cultural expansion has found its legitimate scholarly expression, and which structural forces seem to govern the processes of academisation of popular music in the Norwegian context. The results show that popular music to a large extent has been successfully academised, but also that this process has led to some limitations of academic openness as well as the emergence of new power hierarchies.

Attributional Theory in investigating public music performance in higher music education

The purpose of this research was to investigate the causes attributed by undergraduate music students to situations of failure and success in public music performance. Attributional Theory has been used in this research as the theoretical framework to understand how situations of success and failure are interpreted by the person of the activity. The analysis was conducted from an Intrapersonal perspective of motivation, i.e., how the attributions made by the students doing an undergraduate course in music revealed their notions and beliefs. The methodology used included a non-probabilistic survey and the data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire involving 130 undergraduate music students of southern Brazil. The results show that in situations considered to be successful, the most frequent attributed causes are effort (77.7%), persistence (65.4%), and interest in the performance (63.1%), whereas in situations considered to be failures the most important aspects are emotional (60.8%), difficulty of the task (36.2%), and lack of effort (30.8%). This research shows that students who have more musical experience regard their performances as good or excellent, whereas those that have little experience do not view themselves in this way. The data reveal that the greater the importance that is attached to an activity, the more time is spent on preparing for it; in the same way students tend to be more engaged with musical activities and devote more time to them when they are aware of their skills and value them. Music students feel responsible for their results, which shows that they are engaged in their learning and seek to satisfy an inner need to achieve success.

Peer learning in specialist higher music education

Research on peer learning in higher education indicates that learning from and together with peers can benefit students in a number of ways. Within higher music education in Western, classical music, however, the master–apprentice tradition with its dominant one-to-one mode of tuition focuses predominantly on knowledge transmission from teacher to student. The role students can play in one another’s learning processes is often less articulated. In this essay peer learning is discussed based on experiences from projects carried out at the Centre of Excellence in Music Performance Education, which explore peer learning as part of the students’ principal instrument study. Peer learning in music academies is not restricted to students, however. Teachers can also benefit from engaging in collaborative learning with their fellow teachers. Drawing on experiences from a series of international seminars for teachers in higher music education, the potential and challenges of peer learning among conservatoire teachers are also discussed.

Is the first-year predictive for study success in subsequent years? Findings from an academy of music

ABSTRACTIn higher education, departments are under increasing pressure to improve study success. Research in this field focusing on higher music education is scarce. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the predictive capability of the first year for study success of students at an academy of music in subsequent years. Data on study progression of 327 students were examined and courses with low pass rates were identified. In order to determine to what extent the first-year curriculum is selective, feasible and representative for the curriculum of subsequent years, group interviews and a survey were carried out. A clear relationship was found between study progress in year 1 and subsequent years. These results provide more insight into the predictive capability of the first year and have led to recommendations in how to improve study success in an academy of music.

Педагогические компетенции студентов в условиях реализации высшего музыкального образования

Педагогические компетенции студентов в условиях реализации высшего музыкального образования

Uncommon Grounds: Preparing Students in Higher Music Education for the Unpredictable

This article considers the contribution that Jacques Derrida’s work Of Hospitality might make to higher music education as it unsettles the usual ascription of normative value to learning and teaching music at the university. Along these lines, what is most at issue in the encounter with Derrida’s thinking is the concomitant notion of forms of temporality—unpredictability, slowability, immeasurability, anticipation, serendipity, and surprise. Higher music education is seen as the practice of social transformation through the realization of the notion of unpredictability of the “oral” being-together with and through music educational interactions that are not sacrificed to economically driven performance indicators and measurable outcomes. Furthermore, the article draws on the learning and teaching practices of de-familiarization of educational spaces and pedagogical responsibility to the others as ways to disrupt students’ fixed expectations about what good music teaching and mastery are. Overall, this article is a call to see unpredictability as another framework through which higher music education can seek to re-invent theoretical concepts as well as codes and conventions of teaching and learning practices by inviting us to contemplate their own insufficiency, incompleteness, and discontent.

Transforming Graduate Students into Professional Colleagues: Promising Practices in Graduate Higher Education in Music

Transforming Graduate Students into Professional Colleagues: Promising Practices in Graduate Higher Education in Music

Editorial

Editorial Estelle R. Jorgensen Philosophers have always been in something of a bind. Thinking reflectively about often taken-for-granted subjects in search of truth unsettles the status quo and raises the hackles of those who are invested in it and who stand to benefit from it. This unsettlement potentially undermines and subverts beliefs, values, and practices that are committed or acquiesced to by the powerful and disempowered alike. Although it is to be expected that challenging popular and taken-for-granted beliefs and practices opens the philosopher to the risk of retribution and requires courage in forwarding one’s critique, a philosopher who seeks to express integrity cannot keep silent. A critique must be rendered if one is to be true to the inescapable logic of one’s argument. So, while one risks antagonizing those who would prefer that the timbers of their accepted beliefs and practice not be shaken, one must engage in the process of critique, no matter what the cost. Philosophy offers music education a means of reasoning about beliefs and established commonplaces that may have been accepted uncritically. The philosophical community constitutes a space whereby critiques that are offered can be thought through carefully and critically. No one writing can say it all and philosophers as a tribe are very conscious of this reality. Within an article or a book, it is impossible to say all that one might wish to say if space and endurance were not limitations. Nevertheless, one can at least say something and this reality makes it possible to articulate at least a part of a critique at a particular time. That philosophers are also able to work through the possibilities of ideas in fora that eschew ad hominem responses and personalized counter attacks enables them to focus on the merits of the ideas they espouse. Just as Socrates and his student Plato were able to work out ideas with their students and colleagues, so the Philosophy of Music Education Review provides an opportunity to think through the points and [End Page 111] counterpoints of current debates and learn from them. Rather than dismiss ideas out-of-hand peremptorily, this journal offers a space to elucidate ideas, criticize them, and be treated respectfully by others engaged in philosophical discourse. Critique is welcome in this journal as an essential aspect of philosophical conversation in music education. This issue offers essays as cases in point. Alexandra Kertz-Welzel undertakes an epistemological and ethnomusicological critique of “community music”—a field that has arisen within and tangentially to music education—with respect to questions of what is meant by community music. Drawing on the historical-critical method, she examines some of the philosophical challenges for community musicians and music educators. William Perrine worries with philosophical issues underlying the Stratechuck v. Board of Education legal decision arising out of the use of holiday music in music education study and performance. His analysis raises critical questions about the place of religious music in public education in the present political and legal milieu in the United States. Leonard Tan faults instrumental music educators for their neglect of conceptual teaching and learning. Drawing on Confucian and Deweyan ideas, he proposes a transcultural theory of music education that suggests ways in which focusing on concepts might enhance instrumental music education. Merlin Thompson examines ways in which concepts of self and authenticity that he sees as too-often absent from the theory and practice of Suzuki music education can offer transformative and life-changing approaches to music education. Drawing on the historical case of the introduction of music into the curriculum of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Rosemary Golding offers arguments that interrogate norms and practices in today’s higher music education. In Dialogue with Alexandra Kertz-Welzel, Antia Gonzalez Ben critiques Kertz-Welzel’s essay, “Daring to Question: A Philosophical Critique of Community Music,” that appears in this issue. Roger Mantie critically reviews Thomas Regelski’s latest book, A Brief Introduction to a Philosophy of Music and Music Education as Social Praxis. Constructive criticism plays a crucial role in the search for philosophical truth as ideas are deliberated within the community of exponents and practitioners. This conversation constitutes a means...

МЕДІА-ОСВІТА ЯК СКЛАДОВА ОСВІТНЬОГО ПРОЦЕСУ У ВИЩОМУ МИСТЕЦЬКОМУ НАВЧАЛЬНОМУ ЗАКЛАДІ

МЕДІА-ОСВІТА ЯК СКЛАДОВА ОСВІТНЬОГО ПРОЦЕСУ У ВИЩОМУ МИСТЕЦЬКОМУ НАВЧАЛЬНОМУ ЗАКЛАДІ

Learning pre-played solos: Self-regulated learning strategies in jazz/improvised music

This article reports on the self-regulated learning strategies of two advanced students in jazz/improvised music education when learning pre-played solos over well-known jazz tunes. The students were enrolled in a well-established performance degree programme in a music conservatoire, and videotaped their own individual practice sessions. In addition, stimulus-recall interviews were conducted. The findings indicated that the students used a range of cognitive strategies rather than only one particular type. They selected strategies designed to attain their goals, such as to select relevant problem areas in the pre-played solo, to join sections of the pre-played solo together to form a whole, and to facilitate memorising by developing auditory images of the solo and by relating the music to their existing knowledge. The students also made use of metacognitive strategies during the recorded practice sessions. They engaged in strategic planning, and mainly monitored and self-evaluated their strategic efforts and their performances of the solo during practice. However, the students did not always adapt their strategic activities based on their self-evaluations during practice. Further, the students’ use of learning strategies found during the first learning period appears to resemble the self-regulated learning of advanced classical students. In terms of education, developing and increasing students’ skills in instrumental practice is an important aim within higher music education, and approaching individual practice through the lens of self-regulated learning emphasises that students learn through experience and self-reflection.

Instrumental Teacher Education in Kosovo: Competences, Roles and Contemporary Standardized Curricula

This research paper is focused on the instrumental teacher education and training in higher education in Kosovo. It investigates the competences, roles and contemporary standardized curricula that should be adopted and applied in the instrumental teaching program in Kosovo higher music institutions. The many various pedagogical and teaching programs that are offered in the two departments of Music of the public universities in Kosovo are based on a curriculum framework that has been used for many years undergoing minor changes. Therefore, instrumental teachers should firstly consider on their roles and competences that are a core issue towards building bridges for successfully accomplished programs. Except the lack of national collaboration, instrumental teachers have not been integrated in training programs that urge international cooperation as well. The key to curriculum development and its standardization towards European Curriculum Frameworks are projects and organizations that forge possibilities to be part of European education areas. This research explores widely the instrumental teaching process and praxis in the two higher music education institutions in Kosovo, respectively, the Faculties of Arts. And, by bringing an instrumental teaching framework, it calls for increased dialogues, interaction and collaboration at local and national levels. The paper also looks on different curriculum frameworks and training programs as well, by providing a comparison analysis, particularly, differences and similarities to Kosovo curricula for instrumental teacher education. Finally, the research shows that instrumental teacher education in Kosovo needs to be developed and embrace European standardized programs and praxis, since, Kosovo teaching system is in an ongoing process and is reconnected to the most recent developments in education, science and culture. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n2s1p80

Portfolio careers and work-life balance among musicians: An initial study into implications for higher music education

Musicians are acknowledged to lead complex working lives, often characterised as portfolio careers. The higher music education research literature has tended to focus on preparing students for rich working lives and multiple identity realisations across potential roles. Extant literature does not address the area of work-life balance, which this paper begins to explore, as the authors seek to better understand potential challenges around combining music graduates' multivariate ambitions, commitments and identities as musicians in the world. Rich data are presented, following interviews with professional musicians in London, UK, discussing health, portfolio careers and family. The authors conclude that more research is required to gain a deeper understanding of work-life balance for musicians, and that pedagogical approaches in higher music education could more effectively help students to prepare for their futures in a more holistic way.

Student-created musical as a community of practice: a case study

Research on the improvement of learning shifted from a focus on the learner as individual to the concept of sociocultural learning in communities of learning, communities of practice or learning cultures during the 1990s. A similar shift in the focus of the development of a single construct of individual musical creativity to socially situated multiple creativities challenges traditional conceptions of music creation, performance and education. This study examines a qualitative case study of a student-created extra-curricular musical production for evidence of a community of practice and concurrent development of musical creativities. The professional orientation of the production connects the interactions and structures to a model of a community of practice using the dimensions of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire. Students described and demonstrated creative skills derived from both curricular and teacher-led extra-curricular experiences in instrumental and choral music, acting, dance and technical theatre. The institution, in this case a secondary school, supported the development of multiple creativities through support of both curricular and extra-curricular opportunities. As Perkins suggests in a case study of a conservatoire, higher music education needs to support the shift from individually supported creative spaces to institutional support for the development of multiple creativities (236).

(Mis)matching perceptual learning styles and practicing behavior in tertiary level Western Classical instrumentalists

Perceptual learning style theory argues that humans have differing perceptual strengths and that instruction and learning materials should be adapted to fit their visual, auditory and/or kinesthetic preferences. The claims of various theorists that perceptual learning style theory also applies to the learning of musical material when practicing were tested using a questionnaire that draws on the formulations of these theorists. In total, 131 Western Classical instrument students in higher music education were surveyed using a paper-based questionnaire regarding the frequency with which they engaged in particular learning strategies and behaviors while practicing a large scale composition from the Classical or Romantic era. No response patterns comparable to those suggested by perceptual learning style theory could be identified through either principal components or cluster analyses. The applicability of the theory to describe individual differences in learning is questioned.

Student for student: Peer learning in music higher education

Students of piano and saxophone were asked to explore what peer learning meant to them. Following instrumental-based discussions, and with no intervention from faculty, the students developed a series of videos intended for use with incoming students. This article analyses the students’ discussions and videos, and describes the complexity of students learning from each other in informal peers contexts. Instrumental culture appears to impact on the forms and priorities for peer learning.

VISOKO OBRAZOVANJE MUZIČKI DAROVITIH: STUDENTSKE PROCENE KOMPETENCIJA NASTAVNIKA

Rad predstavlja jedno u nizu istraživanja koji se bave procesom i ishodima trostepenog sistema specijalizovanog obrazovanja darovitih u muzici u Srbiji. U tom sistemu nastavnik instrumenta/glavnog predmeta ima posebno mesto i odlučujući uticaj na početak školovanja, tok napredovanja, koji traje do najviših faza ekspertnosti, pa čak i u fazi profesionalne karijere muzičara. Cilj eksplorativnog istraživanja bio je da se ustanove procene očekivanih i opaženih kompetencija nastavnika glavnog predmeta (kognitivne, funkcionalne, lične i etičke) na nivou viskog muzičkog obrazovanja, bilo da se radi o individualnoj ili grupnoj nastavi glavnog predmeta. Uzorak je činio 81 student Fakulteta muzičke umetnosti u Beogradu. Studenti su popunjavali Upitnik za procenu kompetencija nastavnika, konstruisan prema taksonomiji kompetencija za nastavnike vokalno-instrumentalne nastave Hildena i saradnika. Rezultati MANOVA-e sa ponovljenim merenjima pokazuju značajnu diskrepanciju između očekivanih kompetencija nastavnika i onih koje studenti opažaju u okvirima nastave i u vannastavnim aktivnostima, što predstavlja važan nalaz o neispunjenosti očekivanja studenata i posredno, evaluaciju nastavnika na poslednjem stepenu obrazovanja. Potvrđena je tendencija visokih očekivanja od nastavnika, kojima se pripisuje visok stepen značaja i odgovornosti za napredovanje darovitog. Nalazi ukazuju na postojanje tradicionalnog obrazca poželjnih osobina nastavnika, tipičnog modela odnosa „majstor‒šegrt”, gde prevladava jednosmerna komunikacija, kao i na stereotip o ulozi žene nastavnika u obrazovanju. Postoji saglasnost duž vertikale muzičkog obrazovanja o relevantnim kompetencijama nastavnika u školama za muzički darovite, koje se još uvek „opiru” perspektivi profesionalnog i ličnog razvoja, koja bi u budućnosti obezbedila „novog nastavnika” u muzičkom obrazovanju darovitih.