ABSTRACT. Horsley (2017) notes that ‘the history of public education policy in the West has oscillated between more traditional approaches, with state developed behavioral objectives indicating what all children need to know and be able to do by a specific age or grade, and progressive approaches that give teachers more authority over curriculum content’ (157). In other words, between policies that seek to prescribe curriculum content and pedagogies developed at governmental level, and those that create space allowing teachers greater agency over their curricular and pedagogical decision-making. Since 2010, the trajectory of music education policy in England- particularly as evinced in policy discourses and artefacts- has been towards re-establishing more traditional approaches to curriculum and pedagogy, in what I have described previously as an ongoing attempt to ‘tame’ school music education (Spruce, 2013). A ‘taming’ which has sought to marginalize and sometimes reverse many of the developments in music education of the previous three decades and to bring music education in schools more in line with the prevailing neo-liberal and traditionalist education policy context. In this presentation, I will draw on the policy and politics of English music education over the last decade as a lens through which to examine the wider context of neo-liberal and neo-traditionalist/conservative policies in music education, and particularly on music teacher agency. I will explore the tensions between these ideologies but also note how they can work ‘symbiotically’ resulting in a ‘de-democratizing’ effect, the ‘valorization of state power for putatively moral ends’ (Brown, 2006) and a ’technical, rationalist approach to knowledge and its value’ (Patrick, 2013: 2). I argue that in policy terms these often manifest through, respectively, the marginalisation of those voices (including the voices of classroom teachers) that seek to challenge neo-liberal and neo-traditionalist policies, the appropriation of the language and discourses of social justice to justify particular epistemological and ontological positions, and an increasing emphasis on traditionalist conceptions of musical knowledge. Noting however, that, as Schmidt (2017) says, policy formulation is not necessarily unidirectional, and that the capacity for agency is not wholly at the mercy of structure - ‘music teachers have the power to choose to act or not’ (Philpott and Spruce, 2021: 289)- I argue for the reassertion of teacher agency through the opening up of discourse spaces which enable music teachers to become ‘knowledgeable actors’ (Philpott and Spruce 2020, 297) able to challenge contemporary neo-liberal and traditionalist policy narratives. I define ‘knowledgeable actors’ in this context as those conscious of, and enabled to critically engage with, both the political and policy structures and discourses that affect their professional lives, and also the epistemological, ontological and pedagogical discourses and foundations of music and music education.

ABSTRACT. In response to a number of 'strategic’ goals set out by the European Commission, Maltese educational policy has been oriented towards ensuring that all learners are afforded "the opportunity to obtain the necessary skills and attitudes to be future active citizens and to succeed at work and in society irrespective of […] status" (Educators Guide to Pedagogy and Assessment: Music; Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education 2015: 5). Underpinning this policy goal is the presumption that educational provision is problematic for its lack of ‘flexibility’ in accounting for, and responding to, individual ‘difference’. The Ministry of Education has therefore adopted a ‘Learning Outcomes Framework’ which claims to secure the curricular ‘flexibility’ necessary to facilitate responsive learning experiences which resonate better with ‘difference’.

Informed by the work of Michel Foucault and Carol Bacchi, this paper shall attempt to critically evaluate the discursive effects of this problem representation in relation to secondary level music education. Drawing on the analysis of policy texts issued by the Maltese Ministry of Education and the European Commission, the paper shall start by evaluating fundamental assumptions underpinning this problematisation, with particular reference to the ways by which it draws on, and contributes to, discourses of ‘success’, ‘ability’, and ‘potential’. The paper shall go on to evaluate the ways by which these discourses (re-)define the boundaries of possibility for ‘thinking about’, ‘doing’ and ‘being’ in music and music education. Finally, the paper shall pull out ‘critical moments’ from interview texts in which Maltese ‘learners’ and ‘teachers’ actively negotiated these discursive boundaries. These ‘moments’ shall serve as a tool for highlighting alternative ways of problematising and engaging with ‘difference’ and ‘music education’.

ABSTRACT. Music Education, as other segments of society, exist today under the challenge for organizational, programmatic, and relational reconfiguring of values, practices, and priorities. The now acute social and cultural demands placed by a need to engage in the diversification and decolonization of educational settings, place our field squarely within a culture change environment. Yet, regardless of discursive engagement in social media and general scholarship related to various aspects of equity (gender, race, ethnic, economic), social justice, and the need for structural renewal, little research exists in music education that help us understand pathways in which concerted policy action efforts emerge when moments of high disruption exacerbate demands for adaptation and change-oriented action (Lundgren et al., 2018).

This presentation will explore the impact of an embedded understanding of policy practice (Sutton & Levinson, 2001) onto the perceived value of personal policy action by music leadership actors and their role shaping curriculum as well as teaching and learning practice (both with official and informal roles). The work is framed by theories of policy change and how they may emerge and be structured in moments of punctuated equilibrium (Baumgartner et al., 2006).

The presentation is based on data from a larger policy ethnography project (Castagno & McCarthy, 2017). An interview-based qualitative approach (Letherby, 2003) was selected highlighting the tensions between macro challenges (cultural, economic, social) and their manifestations at the local level. The study engaged with a total of 38 interviewees, from a diverse set of backgrounds and labor experiences in higher education, public schools, as well as community or non-for-profit organizations in South and North America. It contributes to the field by offering one understanding of how leaders navigate cultivating or forestalling equitable and socially conscious music educational practices and opportunities today.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates wind instrument and singing teachers’ perspectives on the use of the vocal tract in singing and playing. It was prompted by observations in my singing teaching practice, over a period of 20 years, of an emerging pattern amongst singers who are or who have been wind instrumentalists, whereby they seemed to have hyperactive patterns of vocal tract use, such as tongue and jaw tension, difficulty releasing these in order to optimise singing, and who had additional tension issues which showed up in their singing sound. These issues seemed to define them as a distinctive group of students. This research was undertaken to investigate the relationship of pedagogy to the dual identity of those concurrently studying wind and singing - students who are using the same parts of the body, everything from the breathing mechanism to the lips, for different purposes. For reasons of length, the study was confined to an investigation of vocal tract pedagogy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 teachers of singing or of wind instruments, who were working with advanced young musicians aged 11-18, at junior conservatoire level, where all students study more than one instrument. Results showed a diverse use of common terminology such as ‘open throat’, indicated the embouchure as a possible site of hyperactivity in singers, clarified the uses of singing in the wind instrument lesson and the role of functional anatomy in teachers’ own learning, and highlighted interdisciplinary curiosity among teachers around a shared knowledge base. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the implications for practitioners, such as interdisciplinary communication, and the broadening of wind and singing teacher training to include both disciplines, which may be useful in creating an understanding of the demands made by concurrent study.

ABSTRACT. This presentation aims to map the repertoire studied and examined in courses in Western classical piano playing at one Swedish institution for higher music education from 1983 to 2009 and how these syllabi were formulated and developed during the same time. Curricula and requirements are understood as expressions of the manifest ideology, and canonisation is analytically regarded as a phenomenon that enables understanding history and shapes the future in accordance with the underlying ideology.

Western classical music's educational and professional world primarily focuses on a canon of works from 1750 to 1950. Due to competitions, recordings, and globalised criteria, the standardisation of the repertoire has increased, and the scope for personal interpretation decreased. If higher music education socialises students into the dominant ideology, they risk reproducing the canon as future musicians, instrumental teachers, and audiences. Therefore, the selection of and criteria for educational repertoire is essential, especially as gender equality perspectives shall characterise municipal art schools, upper secondary schools, and music teacher education in Sweden. Nonetheless, research on the repertoire studied and examined in Swedish higher music education is scarce.

The empirical material consists of syllabi and the repertoire studied and examined in Western classical piano playing from 1983 to 2009 at one Swedish institution for higher music education. In addition, transcripts of structured qualitative interviews with the piano teachers who were mainly involved in the curricular development, teaching, and examination will be included.

The quantitative document study and hermeneutical analysis of the studied repertoire and interviews provide knowledge about the canon, requirements, and ideology that have influenced higher music education of Western classical music in Sweden. This should give a better understanding of how instrumental teachers in higher music education select repertoire and how such education can be developed to meet the legal requirements, especially regarding gender equality.

ABSTRACT. Despite the increasing awareness of and resistance to exclusionary practices prevalent in Canadian (and likely beyond) public education, Eurocentric paradigms continue to monopolize the constitution of musical learning. The large-ensemble mode of music education continues to reproduce positive musical experiences for some students (typically White and/or affluent), but little has been done to disrupt the large-scale deficiency of accessibility and inclusion inherent in such iterations of public education. Outside of formal education, musicians learn in different and evolving ways, reflecting the shifting landscape of music industry, technology, and culture. Though different by nature, musical learning in informal contexts is also heavily impacted by social and financial barriers.

In an effort to address issues in both arenas and better understand the nuances of the latter, this research based in narrative ethnography features the learning experiences of 24 independent musicians who belong to the ‘indie’ music scene in Toronto, Canada. Many of the participants are seeking to establish sustainable musical lives for themselves, yet the omnipotence of music industry gatekeepers and the high cost of living in Toronto require them to work full-time ‘day jobs’ in order to fund their musical endeavours. Further, they are also tasked with learning the skills and knowledge needed to effectively traverse financial and institutional barriers, in addition to those required to compose, perform, record, and market their music.

Their stories and experiences offer an alternative perspective of musicianship and learning outside of formal education, centered around the benefits, drawbacks, and necessity of a “do-it-yourself” approach. Implications for the field of ‘music education’ in both formal and informal settings are considered in the theoretical frameworks of leisure and lifelong learning, with the aim to improve publicly accessible pathways to healthy and sustainable musical endeavours.

ABSTRACT. 20-minute presentation proposal

This paper reports on research into issues of access and opportunity in English music education. Recent data on the uptake of qualifications and musical activity, when combined with geographic and socio-economic data, shows clearly that there are significant ‘cold-spots’ of musical activity across the country. These are correlated closely with other measures of socio-economic disadvantage and raise important social justice issues in the music education sector. This has potential major implications for the sector at large, including: 1. Damage to the future pipeline of young musicians 2. Aspirations for a more diverse workforce being increasingly challenging to realise 3. Unequal and inequitable access to progression routes and development networks for young musicians and the workforce alike 4. Entrenching existing value systems and perceptions of success

This paper draws together different national datasets to locate these cold-spots and to investigate the complex factors which impact on musical opportunity and access in these areas. Founded on policy discourse in music education, it traces the ways in which Government policy in secondary schools, recent non-statutory curriculum guidance, and the new National Plan for Music Education are impacting on attitudes towards music in schools. It finds that government prioritisation of STEM subjects and concomitant de-prioritisation of music has adversely affected schools and young people wishing to study music as an optional subject at age 14+. Whilst recent non-statutory guidance is providing aspirations, and potentially setting expectations, these are likely to be challenging to realise in the current climate for many schools, educators, and organisations.

This paper has ramifications beyond the local, and these are presented for the international community to examine some of the factors at play in a music education ecosystem made up of a patchwork of providers, responsibility, and accountability.

ABSTRACT. In England, music teachers can be constrained by definitions of curriculum and conceptualisations that form part of policy discourse. In the USA, state standards for music exist and although predominantly more descriptive than prescriptive, there is a growing political managerialism on how music education should be constituted in schools. The growing tendency towards standardisation of the curriculum in England and the USA has the potential to limit music teachers in their classroom practices and may inhibit the learning of pupils. Standardisation may therefore be more convenient than meaningful for music in schools.

Beginning with current policy positions, this paper will examine the compulsory elements of music education in England and the United States. It will explore the impact of imposed standards on pupils’ participation in music and discuss issues of affordability and access to the subject in schools. It will consider how the political management of schools, both locally and nationally can impact musical achievement in its respective national cultures.

The paper will take the form of a conversation between the presenters and will address whether in limiting curricular thinking, school leaders and politicians limit the boundaries of musical horizons. It will posit the possibility that a curriculum of convenience is thereby created, in place of a curriculum of musical meaning. By examining approaches to music curriculum between the two nations, the paper will consider whether the aim of political dominance is to create a teacher-proof music curriculum and ask whether this approach dishonours the inherently human practice of musical self-expression.

Finally, ideas and starting points will be drawn from the discussion, with significance for music education in other nations, where the tension between political dominance and music teacher curriculum agency may be similarly acute.

ABSTRACT. One-to-one instrumental teaching, especially in higher music education, is a complex practice where teachers enjoy great freedom in shaping their teaching. Lessons can include a broad range of topics, from the strictly musical and technical, to issues of career advice, and student learning prerequisites such as life difficulties, and mental and physical health. Thus, the relationship between teacher and student in one-to-one instrumental teaching can become all-encompassing. This raises the question: How do instrumental teachers construct and negotiate the boundaries of their own role and responsibilities, of the mandate of instrumental teaching, and of the content and activities in the instrumental lesson? In this project theory of boundary-work, derived from both Gieryn and Nippert-Eng, is employed to examine and categorize the different ways teachers construct and negotiate the symbolic boundaries of their practices. The paper reports on observations and interviews with approximately ten instrumental teachers employed at four higher music education institutions in Norway. The material is analysed using critical discursive psychology with attention to interpretative repertoires, contradictions and dilemmas, and subject positions. The preliminary findings presented document a variety of the diverse and sometimes conflicting repertoires teachers employ to construct and negotiate their boundaries, and demonstrate the ambiguity and uncertainty that teachers experience when trying to demarcate their practice. On the immediate level, demarcations of instrumental teaching practices concern what constitutes the mandate and purpose of such teaching practices, what kinds of musician's knowledges need to be developed in a one-to-one setting, how music education institutions should relate to the experienced challenges regarding student's prerequisites for learning, and what the nature of the relationship between teacher and student should be like. Broadening the perspective, the question of demarcation has implications for the qualification of studio music teachers and for the organization of performing music education.

ABSTRACT. The O2O model of music education curriculum in normal university is an inevitable choice to respond to the strategic needs of the national "Internet +" era, to adapt to the inevitable requirements of the times for educational development, and to cope with emergencies. The O2O model helps to promote the modernization of music education in normal university and promote educational equality. The purpose of this study is to explore the O2O model of music education in normal university based on TPACK theory. Through surveys and interviews, as well as classroom observations, we find that the O2O model of music education in normal university needs to organically combine the three aspects:(1)pre-class guidance,(2)in-class research,(3)after-class improvement, make full use of the advantages of online and offline teaching, improve teaching efficiency and cultivate high-quality music education students.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses Chinese music teachers' perceptions of fostering creativity, as well as the challenges for these teachers. The paper draws on an on-going doctoral study that explores music teachers' perceptions of creativity and the factors that influence their perceptions in the context of music education in China in the twenty-first century. The research investigates the perceptions held by two groups of Chinese music teachers, which was accomplished by non-participant observations and three rounds of in-depth interviews with three primary school music teachers and three private piano tutors who teach primary school-aged children. Through the observations and interviews, I hoped to gain insight into how the two groups of music teachers' perceptions of creativity have changed and what challenges they have encountered in recent years - this paper focuses on three key findings from the study. This study found that there may be a contradiction between what the participating teachers felt they should do, what they could do, and what they were being asked to do, in terms of fostering creativity in school and during piano lessons. This contradiction was raised and explained by my participants, and I found supporting evidence during my observations as well; factors that might have contributed to this contradiction include the teachers’ traditional ideas about music teaching, such as the emphasis on practice and basic musical knowledge, and the challenges that examinations pose to teachers. This paper also identifies that the contradiction and some of the challenges posed by these primary schoolteachers, which were similarly mentioned by the piano tutors. The findings of this paper may be of interest to researchers and practitioners who are concerned with teachers' perceptions, creativity, and the context of music education in China, as well as in the discussion of contemporary issues in Chinese music education and teacher education research.

ABSTRACT. Many of our students perform music, but how many of them are able to perform with a directed stream of consciousness without being distracted?

There are numerous studies on music performance ranging from music professionals to music students, regardless of musical ability and development, who had indicated they had experienced peak experience in their performance. Csikszentmihalyi proposes this state of mind as flow. Among several relevant variables giving evidence of flow is attentional focus ability. In this mental state, there is a sense of complete immersion and intense enjoyment in the activity while being acutely focused on the task.

This discussion stems from my research on professional musical theatre musicians, who, through the study, have strongly suggested that they had experienced flow despite the repetition of performing the same music repertoire repeatedly in theatre productions. Most of the musicians studied also work as musical instrument tutors and band conductors and come into direct contact with music students. Similarly, as music teachers, many of us are also music practitioners in professional practice. We may have experienced being in the flow state while performing and even teaching music while unaware of our flow state of mind. If music teachers are aware of this phenomenon, and once armed with the understanding of this music performing consciousness, can these experiences be taught? Or can it be caught instead? I discuss various aspects of how we can potentially impart this experience of mindfulness and enjoyment in music performance to our students so they may share flow experiences.

ABSTRACT. Mental training has been employed successfully by experienced musicians, but rarely explored with younger learners. Considering its benefits, however, including the use and development of inner hearing and predictive, feedforward processes, adapting the concepts of mental training for systematic use with younger learners is actual. The aim of this mixed qualitative-quantitative study was to investigate how mental training can be adapted for assisting young violinists in developing these inner, feedforward processes. Nine violin students (average age 8) participated in a series of five exercises that included: 1) Alternation of sound perception and movement with physical playing, 2) A melodic composition game combined with motor and auditory imagery, 3) Movement with deliberate pre-hearing (auditory imagery), 4) Sound perception, followed by sound reproduction (imitation) and 5) A conceptual-verbal exercise to illustrate the process of mental imagery formation and its externalisation. Results after the first exercise indicated 7 out of 9 had improvements in intonational range (t = 2.59, p = 0.032) and all had timing improvements (Z = 3.162, p = 0.002). After the second exercise students were singing or quietly humming pitches before playing them on their instruments, indicating some level of pre-hearing and seemed more confident pre- versus post- exercise. The other exercises included improvements in left-hand posture, attention, and awareness of imagery formation.

ABSTRACT. Few studies report on experienced music teachers’ thinking about their own learning when deeply challenged by novel circumstances. This knowledge is important for the development of in-service professional development programmes that account for experienced teachers’ independent and purposive learning. Additionally, with the swift emergence of digital technologies and new areas of knowledge, music teachers are called upon to creatively carve new pathways for their own learning within new technology-infused environments. Viewing “teachers as active agents who self-direct their learning”, this poster presentation reports on experienced school music teachers’ narrative accounts of (i)their learning pathways into novel technology-infused teaching and learning environments and (ii)their perspectives of their self-directed learning (SDL) initiatives in the light of the emergency school closures of 2020-21 in Greece.

Narrative interviews were carried out, using “critical incident” charting tools (Rivers of musical experiences) to encourage participants to map key points in their learning journey. This enabled participants to act as co-researchers and provided a more nuanced understanding of the participants’ learning experiences, specifically in how their signalled turning points were developing or hindering their learning.

Findings revealed that teachers’ SDL was not only a pragmatic response to a real-world problem. It was initiated from strong feelings of self-worth, of personal and professional identity, of who teachers’ were at that particular point in time and who they were being called upon to become. It was conceptualized also as a creative learning process, involving risk-taking, on-the-spot decision-making, problem-solving and thinking ‘out-of-the-box’ when creating new material artefacts. Importantly, music teachers’ stories highlight the complexities of lifelong learning, during a time that is unstable and fluid.

In a post-pandemic world, it is perhaps more than ever crucial to draw out stories such as these and be attentive to the learning experiences that they narrate, be they hindering or supportive of teachers’ learning pathways. Implications for focused CPD for music teachers’ at different stages of their careers are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Highly-rated musical toys on a popular online marketplace, which are promoted as ideal for a for a 2 year-old, include a little push-along cement-truck with a smiling, sound-activating face button for a windscreen, and a set of small-scale musical instruments, including maracas, castanets, a tambourine, and a wooden “trumpet”. Both items are typical of modern, European, musical toys for young children; electronic, anthropomorphic construction vehicles and kitchenalia with clips of button-activated nursery songs and musical phrases on repeat, or “traditional”, wood- or metal-fabricated mini-analogues of Orff Shülwerk instruments. However, I suggest that the cement truck and the mini-instrument set are paradoxical signifiers; they do not know what they are, or what purpose they serve, and that these objects are unfit for musical play. In a novel approach to musical toy design, I speculated what principles might emerge if I rigorously applied the thinking of three philosophers to musical toy design. Aristotle’s writing on friendship in Nicomachean Ethics offered an insight into pleasure and utility, Froebel’s early philosophical and crystallography passions revealed a thrill in systematic formalism, and Harman’s “flattening” Object Oriented Ontology encouraged me to think of all things, human or toy, as withdrawn, sensual objects, which create time and space as they meet. Whilst none of these philosophers has designed musical toys for children, each has valuable opinions on love, pleasure and utility, play-based pedagogy, and the role of objects in our becoming. I suggest that musical toy design should appeal to aesthetics as a first philosophy, and as a route to a sustainable and conative ecology of musical toys in early childhood.

ABSTRACT. In this presentation we challenge a monodisciplinary perspective on composing, dismantle the myth that composing is a solitary act, and make explicit how teachers and student teachers can become confident music composition pedagogues. Using a posthumanist conceptual framing that challenges individualist views of composing, we employ diffractive analyses of transdisciplinary creativity and improvisational creativity to re-see young composers and teachers as makers-with each other and the world. We expand the concept of improvisational creativity from the usual understanding within the music discipline to a transdisciplinary creativity – that is, humans and non-humans pushing outwards generatively to create different relationships between child, teacher, materials and environments. We also expand the concept of transdisciplinary creativity which seeks to de-couple the specific language of a discipline from its original context, in order to open up new possibilities for making and becoming makers/composers. This process may begin as a ‘dialogue’ across disciplines in compositional/making practices. Here we present ideas developed from the analysis of two sequences of making, one involving a young composer and one involving student teachers. We conclude with concrete implications for future-making music education.

ABSTRACT. This paper presentation reflects upon a recent study investigating music teachers’ opportunities for playful provocation within policy discourses (systematic and curricular) and practice (professional and didactic) in Queensland Australia. As pressures of professional accountability, assessment practices and instrumentalism mount, and are further compounded by an ongoing systematic reliance on evidence-based educational policy, school music teachers have been denied pedagogical and professional agency.

In examining how playful modalities between music teachers can develop a critical consciousness of praxis, I outline the methodological reflections of my narrative inquiry study with five school music teachers, consisting of three semi-structured interviews and musical improvisations. I investigate the potential of play in disrupting the narrative flow, in generating uncertainty and invoking the productive and excessive spaces between dialogue and playful acts of music creation.

In this presentation, I consider how methodologically enacting a ‘spirit of play’ may subvert normative notions of narrative inquiry, thus opening an indeterminate space for spontaneity, interaction and excess. I will explore the ethical tensions of play as a mode of inquiry that challenge our engagement with and in the world, as an intervention that is manifested through a process of uncomfortable and inconclusive action, vulnerable to the possibilities of what might become.

Drawing upon the educational philosophies of John Dewey in relation to narrative method, I consider how play may generate new knowledge and insights of narrative by establishing new relationships through the transaction of experience. I will illuminate methodological uncertainties and incoherencies that embody the ethos of play and the human experience, as a patient imperative toward democratising pedagogical and professional agency within the policy discourse of Australian music education.

ABSTRACT. Schools in England currently have autonomy to design and implement whole institution curriculum models. In recent years, a two-year Key Stage 3 for 11 – 14 year-olds has replaced a three year structure in many English settings. The impact of this change, particularly on music, is not well understood. There is a lack of research investigating its effect on the educational experiences on offer to young people.

This research project investigated the impact of such whole school curriculum models on music subject leader practices in their curriculum design and explored ‘telescoping’ of the curriculum in particular, where a three-year curriculum is condensed into two years. It addressed the impact of whole school curriculum perspectives on the manner in which music teachers legitimise their chosen curriculum topics and realise these programmes of study at Key Stage 3.

The research consisted of an online survey with 59 participants from 6 English regions and a variety of school contexts. The survey included closed and open questions, which gathered common practices, alongside perceptions and solutions to Key Stage 3 curriculum ‘problems’. It specifically focused on changes between approaches within a two and three- year Key Stage 3 and how teachers navigated revisions they were required to make by their schools. Open questions were analysed using modified grounded theory until saturation was achieved, and closed questions were subjected to comparative statistical analysis.

Survey findings reveal the impacts of telescoping the curriculum on lesson lengths, time allocations, Key Stage 4 recruitment for 14-16 year-olds and how decisions that school leaders make impact the musical experiences of young people in schools. These are synthesised into a model of curriculum boundrification, the implications of which reveal a constraining influence on musical development and equitable musical access for children in English secondary education.

ABSTRACT. Researchers have suggested that classroom culture, which includes the shared understanding of social norms and knowledge repertoires between the teacher(s) and students, may influence a student’s identity, defined as an individual’s understanding and reflexive construction of the various personal, social, and cultural aspects of the self. Additionally, music education researchers and philosophers believe that music and musical identity may influence one’s individual identity and motivations throughout their lifetime. Therefore, an examination of the possible influences of music classroom culture on students’ identities could assist with uncovering ways of helping teachers encourage students’ participation in musical activities from childhood through adulthood. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the classroom cultures of two non-elective middle school (ages 12-14) general music classes (a modern band-based class and a music technology-based class). Research questions explored students’ and teachers’ perceptions of how they co-create the classroom culture, influences on students’ identity development (if at all), and other cultural influences. Data sources for these ethnographic case studies included field notes and recordings from class observations at two data collection sites over the course of one semester (approximately five months), as well as focus group discussions and individual semi-structured interviews with students and teachers. Emergent findings include the influence of teachers’ educational philosophies and actions with the ongoing construction of the classroom culture using informal music learning methods and class assignments that draw upon their musical interests. As a result, students believed that they had the agency to create music that was meaningful to them, thus affirming their musical identities, while also feeling encouraged to be their authentic selves in the classroom, thus assisting with individual identity development. Implications for practice include critical examination of classroom processes and providing a supportive framework for learning that facilitates collaborative student-teacher relationships.

ABSTRACT. In England and Wales, regional styles of Indonesian gamelan (particularly Javanese) have played an influential role in several areas of music education, from the National Curriculum for Music (ages 7-14) to postgraduate ethnomusicology training, to prison rehabilitation. In this presentation, we focus on a recent research project that investigates the role of gamelan performance in alternative education provision for disengaged young people, exploring the interface between gamelan, ethnomusicology, training music teachers, and performance as a methodology of inclusive learning. Hosted by Kingston University (UK), the project centered on a series of workshops on the Music Department's Javanese gamelan ensemble, led by an ethnomusicologist, with groups of young people from Anstee Bridge, a local alternative learning programme for young people facing emotional challenges that cause them to disengage from education. Another strand of the project involved students from the MA in Music Education at Kingston, who had participated in a series of classes with the ethnomusicologist on Javanese gamelan performance and workshop techniques, before assisting with the workshop sessions. Two questions guided the research. In what ways might gamelan performance support young people who are disengaged from mainstream schooling? And how might music education postgraduate students from a western art music background who teach and learn in curricula related situations with traditional student populations respond to participating in these workshops? The principal researchers - a music education specialist and an ethnomusicologist - discuss the outcomes of the research, and explore the challenges, opportunities and potential of collaboration between these two music subdisciplines.

ABSTRACT. This paper reports on the methods that student musicians adopted to plan for facilitating Therapeutic Community Music (TCM) for others and to reflect on their practice. TCM refers participatory ‘musicking’ in the service of any health agenda (Ansdell, 2014; Bonde, 2011). These experiences were part of a Service-Learning programme that aimed to enhance the student musicians’ academic knowledge, facilitation skills, reflection on feelings and assumptions about facilitating TCM for others; and to develop socially responsive knowledge addressing considerations associated with the service offered. The six methods of Cognitive Apprenticeship (Collins Brown and Newman, 1989), namely: modelling; coaching; scaffolding and fading; articulation; reflection; and exploration, were adopted as a framework to support their planning, action, and reflection. Students’ reflections revealed that this framework helped them (1) become more conscious of their planning and facilitation practices through using specific vocabulary, shared by all students to articulate their experiences and their learning; (2) reflect critically on what was successful about their TCM sessions alongside the challenges they faced, how they linked theory with practice and what to do differently in the future; and (3) make conscious decisions about when and why they used each method, based on the mode of facilitation (hierarchical, cooperative or fellow traveller, Jones, 2005) that they wished to adopt. Students musicians generally preferred not to adopt hierarchical approaches to facilitation. For example, they (a) encouraged the participants to express (‘articulate’) their feelings and views about the TCM sessions, their learning processes, as well as their choices of repertoire; and (b) adopted ‘scaffolding and fading’ more than ‘modelling’. This paper contributes to existing research on supporting the training of community music facilitators by providing examples of how a structured framework could aid with planning, practice and reflection.

ABSTRACT. The interdisciplinary research project MusCoDA - Musical Communities in the (Post)Digital Age of the University of Erfurt and the University of Music Education Karlsruhe, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), examines songwriting processes as an example of collective creativity in (post)digital communities. The focus lies on collaborative and cooperative learning in informal and formal contexts, which will be investigated based on school music lessons (UE) and informal bands (PHKA). The songwriting processes are analysed from a network perspective. This makes it possible to identify the participating actors and to see the boundaries between analogue and digital, as well as formal, informal and hybrid contexts as permeable. The overall goal of this comparative study is to derive an empirical model of collective songwriting and to develop teaching concepts. The subproject of the University of Erfurt therefore investigates the network formation during songwriting in groups in music lessons with the help of interviews, videography and network maps. According to Harrison White, the formation of networks and their actors is based on communication, through which they first come into being. The analysis of the data is done in a three step process: first, the actors involved are identified from the interviews and recorded in a communication map; second, the relationships between the actors are qualified in a relational map; and finally, the spatial and temporal progression is captured in a process map including the reconstructed musical practices. First results show that already existing expert knowledge is integrated into the network via kinship relations and contributes to the group's songwriting success. Another observation in the process map is the correlation between spatiality and time pressure: The frequency of communication in the network is increased by the establishment of a Whatsapp group and the inclusion of out-of-school working hours.

ABSTRACT. Olivier Messiaen was one of only 4% of the global population to experience synaesthesia, an experience in which “stimuli applied to one of the five senses produces responses in another sense” (Bernard, 1986). Related most closely to ‘coloured hearing’ (referred to here as ‘composer’s chromesthesia’), Messiaen has explored synaesthetic experience in detail within his publication: Traité de rhythme, de couleur et d’ornithologie (1949-1992). The composer proposes an experience of colour with relation to pitch and modality, stacking colours on top of each other to produce a harmonic or chordal progression. Trevor Wye similarly discusses colour within his Practice Books for the Flute (1980), suggesting that each major or minor has its own ‘colour’ that can be replicated through the tone of the flute. From past experience, I can attest that in the majority of cases, flute students do not engage with the concept of an explicit colour with relation to tone, and so can struggle to understand how to choose an appropriate tone colour for a particular piece of music. This paper will therefore propose a new model for instrumental teaching, combining Wye’s tone colours with the idea of communicating an ‘explicitly composed’ colour to an audience. My recent research has shown that Messiaen has interspersed his ‘composer’s chromesthesia’ into his compositions, using visual colours to match the style or narrative of the musical passage. By combining this with Wye’s metaphorical tone colours, it provides an opportunity for students to engage with colour more directly, relating colour to style/tone, and providing more flexibility for performance approaches. First-hand video evidence will be used to supplement this paper, taken from a concert that used colour as an explicit method of communication for listeners as well as performers.

ABSTRACT. The Transitions in Music Education project (TiME) aims to explore the perspectives of pupils’, parents’ and music teachers’ on musical engagement within the education system. In particular, this research project focuses on learning an instrument over the transitional points in the UK education system, specifically the move to secondary school and the move to studying at GCSE Level. Within this context, “musical engagement” includes private and school instrumental tuition, any musical activity with local music authorities, and music taught in the classroom. According to reports from the Hull and East Riding Music Services, there are significant declines in pupil continuation of instrumental lessons and involvement in musical activities across these transition points. While existing research does indicate that musical engagement has a positive impact on pupil attainment and wellbeing, previous studies suggest that pupils have mixed responses towards music-making activities inside and outside of schools with some children showing enthusiasm and others disinterest. This study provides insight into why there might be significant declines in musical engagement at these transition points, and what can be done to reverse them. While this research is ongoing, the initial analysis of questionnaire and interview data indicate an appreciation for music education despite the highlighted financial and social barriers faced by those wanting to learn a musical instrument.

ABSTRACT. Many professional musicians in Ireland did not pursue music at school and subsequently have not taken part in any formal music programmes. Many of these professionals are popular musicians who either teach or work as performers or in other capacities within the entertainment industry. Relatively little attention has been given to the broad and varied activities of those engaged in this type of musical venture, which to the participants themselves can be a rich and engrossing experience; and no research exists focussing specifically on the sub-group of professional musicians who have absolutely no experience of formal music education. My paper presents findings from a qualitative study which explores the learning experiences, attitudes, and values of professional popular musicians in the Irish city of Cork, who have taken informal or non-formal routes. Data were collected through a survey of 100 such musicians, and 16 in-depth interviews to provide detailed descriptions of the participants’ experiences. The current paper aims to address two main questions. They are: Why did these musicians not sit the state music examination and how did that affect their subsequent engagement, or rather lack of engagement, with formal music education? This study identifies reasons why the participants did not pursue music at secondary school and shows the ways those participants who did have the opportunity to study music in their first year, were opposed to the curriculum. The findings reveal that barriers which could be regarded as impediments to musical learning acted, in fact, as catalyst, enhancing further their notion of music as a kind of ‘Pearl of Great Price’. Moreover, challenges encountered at secondary school appear to have pushed them emphatically towards a professional musical career. And negative classroom experiences were ameliorated by musical activity they engaged with outside of formal institutions.

ABSTRACT. Rather than viewing themselves in a single musical role, multi-musicians create, arrange, and perform in ways that involve a variety of tools, techniques, and approaches. Hybridized environments allow musicians the opportunity to engage in these roles through musical understandings as performer, composer, arranger, or producer. Environments where a singular notion of musicianship is prioritized, however, may inhibit multi-musical participation. Although preservice music education programs may point towards broad definitions of musicianship and suggest substantial change, schools of music in the United States often frame a singular notion of “musicianship” as legitimate, thus constructing barriers for potential applicants and limiting multi-musical identity inclusion.

In this session, I draw from work on cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan musicianship (Partti, 2012) to consider possibilities for change in preservice music teacher education programs. Cosmopolitan musicianship suggests that “the nature of expertise can be best understood by shifting the focus from an individual’s cognitive processes to a ‘relational network’ of people who are taking part in shared activities” (p. 7). Therefore, cosmopolitanism is possible when people from a variety of places and understandings connect through membership in a community despite coming from a variety of understandings and backgrounds, including those which may be musical. I argue that embracing this conception can potentially realign how the field of music education conceives of the boundaries between creator and audience, maker, and consumer. I then suggest that this realignment has implications for both how and why music is created in and beyond the classroom.

Partti, H. (2012). Cosmopolitan musicianship under construction: Digital musicians illuminating emerging values in music education. International Journal of Music Education, 32(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761411433727

ABSTRACT. The effect of musical education on the child has been widely investigated (Adams et al., 2010; Creech et al., 2010; Hallam & Himonides, 2022). Much research has considered the experience of the child (Griffiths, 2018), or the holistic effect on schools (Bamford & Glinkowski, 2010; Vispoel & Austin, 1993). Some has addressed policy (Savage, 2020), identity (Hargreaves et al., 2016), and more has explored quantative data relating to instrumental uptake numbers (Hallam, 2010; Hallam et al., 2008; Lamont & Maton, 2008). However only a small amount of research has investigated the lived experience of the visiting music teacher (Baker, 2005). This paper focusses on instrumental teachers who engage in teaching an instrument to a whole class of around 30 children at once and the personal motivation of those teachers. The study was undertaken through a mixed-method approach comprising a first stage of (n= 154) questionnaires, followed by a second stage (n=18 ) semi-structured interviews, analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). It illustrates how motivation is both nurtured and maintained in that setting, and establishes the motivational needs that are being met, and those which are yet to be addressed. A new framework of motivation for music teaching has been developed based on Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2010), namely the Self Determination Theory - Music (SDT-M) . The use of the new model focuses on why the key components of autonomy, relatedness and competence in the context of this work may provide the basis for a needs analysis for the motivation of music teachers. In turn this may impact how music providers can best support teaching and learning. It is hoped that by adopting this model of understanding, practitioners will have greater agency into regional policy, improve working conditions and positively impact the quality of music provision.