Music Classroom Research Articles

Exploring T-spherical fuzzy sets for enhanced evaluation of vocal music classroom teaching

Vocal music is a relatively complex skill and skill course, which not only plays an important role in music education in universities, but also cultivates students’ musical level and artistic cultivation. In the process of teaching vocal music in universities, how to improve the quality of teaching has become an important task and goal for teachers. The vocal music classroom teaching quality evaluation is a classical multiple-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) problem. In this paper, some novel Dice similarity measures (DSM) and some generalized Dice similarity measures (GDSM) are proposed under T-spherical fuzzy sets (T-SFSs). Then, the weighted generalized Dice similarity measures (WGDSM) is used to solve the MAGDM with T-SFSs. Finally, an illustrative example for vocal music classroom teaching quality evaluation is given to demonstrate the efficiency of the GDSMs.

Divining an Afrofuturist Music Education

I argue that an analysis of antiblack racism in music education discourse is crucial in identifying and addressing potential for harm in the music classroom. I contend that Black children are particularly, and regularly, subjected to poor stereotypical depictions of their identity in digital media. Furthermore, I contend that this digital socialization has far-reaching implications in school. I use the framework of Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit) to explore interpersonal, curricular, and environmental sites of antiblack assault that are commonplace in schools and, specifically, music classrooms. Using a selection of Janelle Monáe’s music, I explore themes of resistance and affirmation through an Afrofuturist lens. I conclude my paper by proposing that Afrofuturism can serve as a disruption that may create sites of affirmation for Black children.

The Application Research of Piano Accompaniment in Music Education

Piano accompaniment, as an essential form in music education, plays a crucial role in the music classroom. By reviewing literature and policy interpretations, China has shown increasing emphasis on music education, focusing on the comprehensive development of students' abilities. Employing piano accompaniment to showcase musical works to students, foster an understanding of the emotions and meanings within these works, create a favorable musical ambiance, stimulate students' enthusiasm and interest in music, and evoke an emotional resonance between students and composers. Additionally, it facilitates students' comprehension of music knowledge, broadens their artistic horizons, enhances the diversity of music classes, improves the efficiency of music classroom teaching, cultivates students' correct aesthetic taste in music, and elevates their artistic accomplishment. This paper begins with an overview of piano accompaniment, analyzes its current status in music classroom teaching, and then delves into its application and analysis in music education. It explores the identified issues and seeks effective improvement measures, thereby promoting the continuous development of music education in secondary schools and enhancing the teaching quality of music classes.

Multimodal exploration in elementary music classroom

Multimodal exploration in elementary music classroom

Even better musicians: Acoustic enhancement in the music classroom

Music educators are using electronic sound reproduction and acoustic enhancement in primary and secondary schools – and are producing better musicians as a result. The development of musical ability is inherently tied to room acoustics; a supportive variable acoustic environment accelerates the ear training and critical listening skills to proficiently play or sing in an ensemble. This presentation will review findings from the past 20 years spent with these technologies in music education. How might sound reproduction be optimized for learning clarinet? How can acoustic enhancement reduce the potential for hearing loss and other playing injuries? Is a low ceiling ever beneficial in a music rehearsal space? (Hint: no – but we’ll attempt to address that, too).

Ski-hill Graph Pedagogy meter fundamentals acoustics education

Acoustics education in school music classrooms is generally approached as a study of sound as pitch frequencies, spectral analysis, and other elements of music such as rhythm, volume, and timbre. While the psychoacoustic aspects of these acoustic properties continue to inspire and educate, the musical meter is yet to be introduced as an ordinary aspect of acoustics discussions. The meter is taught as notation, time signatures and a beat grouped in a measure, even though the listener may experience a disconnect between what is experienced and what is taught and represented as meter. Combined, the meter’s psychoacoustic role during music experiences is less critical or misunderstood due to the previous lack of meter theory than tonality. Meter theorists and music educators are responding to the call for solutions (Cohn, 2020). To illustrate how meter can be understood and taught through listening to music, as psychoacoustical and mathematical from the earliest lessons, the paper provides a solution to introduce contemporary meter theory (Cohn, 2020) to beginners based on listening experiences. The report discusses the ski-hill graph as applied to meter fundamentals and provides inclusive music education; cross-cultural, multi-sensory applications demonstrate plausible benefits through an interdisciplinary approach to the meter.

Perceptions of future teachers of Therapeutic Pedagogy on an intercultural music workshop

ABSTRACT Pupils who are late entrants to the Spanish education system may require a response from Therapeutic Pedagogy. They, as children of immigrants, may have educational needs such as socio-cultural adaptation and the need for respect and non-discrimination of their culture and religion. From an intercultural approach, the music classroom could provide a scenario of coexistence based on social inclusion and cultural exchange. Based on these assumptions, the ‘Caribbean Music Workshop’ was developed within the framework of the subject ‘Physical, plastic and music education and its didactics in special educational needs’. It is a subject of the Therapeutic Pedagogy Major of the Primary Education Teacher Training Degree at the University of Valencia. With the aim of assessing the perceptions of the future Therapeutic Pedagogy teachers about the workshop, at the end of the activity the students filled in a questionnaire with their considerations about the relevance of the intervention and other benefits it could bring to the pedagogical and therapeutic work. After a mixed analysis, the results revealed that the workshop represents a valid intercultural proposal to promote the social inclusion of students who are children of immigrants, as well as to address other educational needs.

Teaching Analysis on Cultivating Students' Innovative Music Ability in Middle School Music Classroom

The Music Curriculum Standards for the Compulsory Educational stage (2022) stipulates that the core quality of music discipline mainly includes four aspects: aesthetic perception, artistic expression, cultural understanding, and creative practice. In the teaching process of high school music classrooms, more emphasis is placed on the cultivation of core competencies. In middle school music teaching, teachers should start from their core competencies, combine with the actual situation of music teaching, create a music teaching atmosphere, stimulate students' interest in music, and enable them to experience the artistic charm of music in the music classroom. To achieve this, teachers need to explore teaching methods from an innovative perspective and adopt advanced teaching methods to cultivate students' innovative abilities. To cultivate students' innovative abilities in the classroom, teachers need to change their teaching methods and concepts.

On the Gains and Losses of Multimedia-Assisted Instruction Technology in College Music Teaching Practice

Applying multimedia technology to college music teaching can directly present some abstract knowledge to students. This not only breaks the limitation of traditional teaching time and space, but also enriches the teaching content and improves the teaching quality. Therefore, it is very important to change the teaching concept, actively practice and explore, and seek a new teaching mode. This article deeply analyzes the application of multimedia in college music classroom teaching, the role and position of multimedia in music teaching, compares the advantages and limitations of multimedia technology with other educational technologies in music classroom teaching, and explains multimedia educational technology. Combined with teaching practice and courseware development, this article analyzes the application status of multimedia technology in middle schools, and demonstrates the position and role of multimedia teaching methods in music classroom from both teachers and students, so as to provide some references for the reform of music education in colleges and universities.

Supporting English Learners in Music Classrooms

This article offers music educators ideas for supporting English learners in music classrooms. Music teachers across all grade levels work with English Learners, a diverse group of students with varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In the classroom, planning specific instructional supports can increase English Learners’ participation and achievement in music. This article encourages educators to approach English learners from an assets-based perspective, creating a welcoming classroom environment that positively benefits students. With the goal of providing access to music education for all students, music teachers can become advocates for English learners in their classrooms and schools.

Harnessing the Power of Feedback to Improve Student Learning in Music

What does effective feedback look like in the music classroom? In this article, we explore a prominent perspective on feedback proposed by scholar John Hattie and his colleagues and then provide practical examples for application in music contexts. We begin by defining what feedback is and then explore what makes it effective and provide strategies for teachers to develop more effective feedback skills. Using this understanding of what makes feedback effective for learners, teachers can help students be active partners in the learning process and to achieve their goals with greater musical understanding.

The evolution of the method of ‘oral and heart-to-heart teaching’ in contemporary times: Based on the observation of Shandong opera classroom

As the main way of inheriting traditional Chinese art, oral and heart-to-heart teaching (OAHTHT) has survived in all kinds of art inheritance activities. However, the existing literature fails to provide a clear explanation of the applicability and evolution of OAHTHT in contemporary school music classrooms. This article reports on a project of ‘local opera in the classroom’ carried out in primary and secondary schools in six regions of Shandong Province from 2017 to 2020. It attempts to research the presentation and evolution of OAHTHT in contemporary music classrooms through classroom observation and semi-structured interviews with teachers and artists participating in the project. Findings show that the change in OAHTHT is not only reflected in the differences of material media, teaching space and spiritual space, but also in the relationship between ‘oral instruction’ and ‘heart to heart teaching’(Xin Chuan): from the past gradual relationship from skill to mind to parallel relationship of mutual subjects. Meanwhile, under the new OAHTHT inheritance mode, a new form of campus opera performance with children as the principal part is taking shape.

Liederkreis: Towards a Pedagogical Insight

The German term, Liederkreis, translated as a song cycle, refers to a group or cycle of individually completed songs, designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit. This paper employs a bibliographic strategy, seeking to trace the evolution of this musical genre, and determine its implication for music pedagogy, premised on the theory of contiguity. Saturated data, collected through document review, were subjected to thematic-textual analysis. Findings suggest that song cycles emerged, towards the end of the Classical period and rose to their highest point in the Romantic period, with Beethoven having the credit for pioneering the genre. The study also revealed that in Leiderkreis, key relationship is important and plays a coherent role by making the songs an organic, composite whole in a manner which could be either formal or dynamic. It was concluded that Liederkreis has rich pedagogical prospects due to its focus on the strengths, talents, abilities of every student. The study recommended deliberate and adequate use of Liederkreis in the music classroom. By doing so, students could learn to value each other’s uniqueness in strengths, abilities, and competencies thereby promoting a community of learners where music teaching and learning becomes simplistic and organic, allowing all to grow and bloom. Future research will examine the extent to which Liederkreis has been employed in various music instructional contexts.

Technology-enhanced creativity in K-12 music education: A scoping review

This scoping review addresses internationally published empirical studies on the subject of technology-enhanced creativity. The study aims to identify the types of technological tools used to enhance students’ creativity and examine how technological tools can support students’ creativity in K-12 music education. This review selected and analyzed 17 studies published from 1987 to 2022 in peer-reviewed journals using a rigorous five-stage scoping framework. Data extraction and analysis were conducted in Covidence. The results revealed eight types of technological tools used to enhance creativity in the music classroom, in which sequencer software and GarageBand were the most commonly used type of technological tools and applications respectively. Technology’s support for creativity was also discussed from the perspectives of Lubart’s four roles of computers: (a) computer as nanny, (b) computer as pen-pal, (c) computer as coach, and (d) computer as colleague. The results showed a dearth of research on how technology can become students’ partners to help them generate creative ideas. Based on the findings, this review concluded with implications and recommendations for future research.

Assessment practices in instrumental music classroom

The study aims to identify, explore, analyze and discuss assessment dimensions, strategies and tools present in the instrumental music classroom. Carried out in the context of music teachers training in Portuguese higher education, the study employed a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative approach. The results indicate: (i) multidimensional assessment practices/strategies, (ii) the group development and discussion (student-students and teacher-student) of the evaluation process is not visible, and (iii) the non-involvement of students in the development of participatory assessment.

Retracted: Strategies of Using Multimedia Technology to Optimize Music Classroom Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools

Retracted: Strategies of Using Multimedia Technology to Optimize Music Classroom Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools

Policy influences on the inclusion of popular music in music teacher education programs

Despite the increased presence of popular music education in K-12 music classrooms and interest in the inclusion of popular musics in post-secondary music teacher preparation programs, most collegiate music schools emphasize Western art music (WAM) and replicate existing traditions. As the music industry outside the academy innovates at a dizzying pace, most university schools of music remain tightly focused on music of the past, resistant to change. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of hard policies (mandated by bodies outside the institution, particularly NASM accreditation) and soft policies (internal policies both overt and covert) on the emergence of popular music education in collegiate music programs. To better understand the perceived policy influences on the inclusion of popular musics in post-secondary music programs, we surveyed 117 music education faculty and administrators at NASM-accredited schools of music. We found that most participants believed difficulties in enacting change were due to lack of resources, hard policies such as those handed down by state lawmakers, and soft policies like longstanding institutional traditions and faculty attitudes beliefs regarding the ultimate direction of music teaching and learning in higher education. We discuss opportunities, challenges, and implications for curricular change in music teacher preparation programs.

Music Streaming in the P–12 Music Classroom: A Scoping Review

The purpose of this scoping review was to synthesize literature regarding audio streaming in the P–12 music classroom by identifying the varied uses, recommendations for equitable access, and gaps in the knowledge base. A total of 23 publications met the criteria for inclusion. Ensemble and general music classrooms in elementary, middle, and high school contexts were represented in the literature with exemplification of concepts, genres, styles, and techniques evident as the most common usage. YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora were frequently referenced as streaming platforms. Authors cited inexpensive or free platforms and ubiquity of access most frequently when referencing equity and streaming. Most authors made no reference to potential access impediments. I identified gaps in the literature, including the uses of streamed music in jazz classrooms, performer compensation, diversity of content, barriers to student access, potential solutions to equitable access issues, and music perception differences for those with limited access.

Collaborative Composition and Urban Popular Music in Digital Music Didactics

Composition is one of the facets of musical activity that allows a more effective way to interrelate theoretical and practical contents in a real context to enhance the development of creativity and collaborative work in the music classroom. Through a qualitative methodology based on participant observation, the results of several projects aimed at implementing collaborative composition in the training of music teachers at the University of Salamanca through audio production tools (DAW) as a pedagogical strategy to address basic knowledge and specific skills of the curriculum of the music subject in secondary education, are synthesized. From this perspective, this work proposes a structured and sequential model for the collaborative composition of musical productions in the field of popular urban music (with special attention to the rock style), addressing and exemplifying in a practical way issues such as the layered structure in the prototypical song of rock bands, the fundamental rhythmic bases, the harmonic function and the development of chord progressions or the creation and development of melodic lines for the voice.

Applications of Self-Determination Theory in the General Music Classroom

Student motivation is frequently an issue in general music classrooms, and many long-standing theories designed to increase motivation have the opposite effect. This article introduces Self-Determination Theory, first developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, as a theory of human motivation. A key element of Self-Determination Theory is the concept of three basic human psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This article details each need and provides suggestions for direct applications to the general music classroom. Through the fulfillment of these needs, teachers can encourage and support a students’ engagement in musical activities and personal growth.