scholarly journals Group Playing by Ear in Higher Education: the processes that support imitation, invention and group improvisation

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Varvarigou

This article explores how group playing by ear (GEP) through imitation of recorded material and opportunities for inventive work during peer interaction was used to support first year undergraduate western classical music students’ aural, group creativity and improvisation skills. The framework that emerged from the analysis of the data describes two routes taken by the students, whilst progressing from GEP to group improvisation and it is compared to Priest's (1989) model on playing by ear through imitation and invention. The article concludes with suggestion on how these two routes could be used to scaffold the development of western classical musicians’ improvisation skills.

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-369
Author(s):  
Margarita Lorenzo de Reizabal ◽  
Manuel Benito Gómez

In the field of higher music education conservatories, and more specifically in the so-called ‘classical music’, the first steps towards research regarding entrepreneurship are being taken, although the main obstacles to overcome are still at a conceptual level (to define what is entrepreneurship in this field, what the profile of a musician entrepreneur is, what exactly is understood when we talk about an entrepreneurial identity referred to Western classical music) and on a referential level (research is scarce on the professional identity of classical musicians, on motivation that leads to professional success, on employability of a musician in the 21st century). At the same time, thought and analysis are lacking on how music education addresses entrepreneurial spirit and how conservatories for higher education in Western classical music could provide their students with the necessary capacities to become professional entrepreneurial musicians. This article aims to explore the state of entrepreneurship of classical musicians and analyse what challenges and barriers are found in particular in this subfield. In order to clarify the key concepts, the most relevant and recent literature in entrepreneurship education has been reviewed. Searching for avenues for entrepreneurship education in music conservatories, theory and practice have been merged by applying the literature findings to some practical considerations raised at the International Conference on Music Entrepreneurship recently held in The Hague, together with the personal experience in the specific context of higher music education conservatories.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
Estelle Trengove

Feedback to students on their work is recognized as crucially important in higher education, but as classes at universities become larger, it is becoming more and more difficult for teachers to give their students effective feedback. There is a large body of work on giving feedback on essays and postgraduate writing, but there is very little on giving feedback to undergraduate students in engineering classes. Feedback has particular value if it facilitates students’ learning. It is therefore not necessary for the teacher to give feedback – feedback from peers is equally valuable if it facilitates learning. This paper explores the comments submitted by students about a peer interaction that was introduced in a first-year engineering class. It investigates whether this intervention could comprise effective feedback by comparing the format of the intervention and the student comments to two models from the literature on feedback. The analysis shows that the intervention was successful in providing feedback that was helpful to students in the sense that it helped to draw them into deeper learning approaches.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 767-778
Author(s):  
Maria Sandgren

The present study investigates whether past and present instrumental practices differ across musical genres (jazz, folk music, classical music) and vocalists in relation to instrumentalists ( N = 108). New findings were that vocalists and instrumentalists differed significantly in all practice experiences ( p < .05–.001), whereas fewer differences were found across genres. In line with previous research, classical musicians engaged more in solitary practice than folk music and jazz musicians did ( p < .001), yet jazz and folk music students practiced more in ensemble compared to classical musicians ( p < .05). In addition, the results contrasted with the general view of solitary practice as a demanding and unpleasant activity, as all groups of music students found solitary practice to be a more positive than negative experience. Future studies are warranted to more closely and empirically investigate vocalists’ practice habits, and to examine how emotions are related to instrumental practicing in music education.


Author(s):  
Julian Dodd

This book argues that the so-called ‘authenticity debate’ about the performance of works of Western classical music has tended to focus on a side issue. While much has been written about the desirability (or otherwise) of historical authenticity—roughly, performing works as they would have been performed, under ideal conditions, in the era in which they were composed—the most fundamental norm governing our practice of work performance is, in fact, another kind of kind of authenticity altogether. This is interpretive authenticity: being faithful to the performed work by virtue of evincing a profound, far-reaching, or sophisticated understanding of it. While, in contrast to other performance values, both score compliance authenticity (being true to the work by obeying its score) and interpretive authenticity are valued for their own sake in performance, only the latter is a constitutive norm of the practice in the sense introduced by Christine Korsgaard. This has implications for cases in which the demands of these two kinds of authenticity conflict with each other. In cases of genuine such conflict, performers should sacrifice a little score compliance for the sake of making their performance more interpretively authentic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Wender ◽  
Valerie J. D’Erman

ABSTRACT Teaching and learning in higher education is occurring, unavoidably, within the broader civic context of today’s extraordinarily polarizing political times. We seek to help students situate themselves with respect to and, above all, thoughtfully assess others’ as well as their own perspectives on issues of profound contention, without contributing to exacerbated polarization ourselves. Specifically, we offer students in our first-year exploratory political science course a vital tool—critical rigor—for navigating but not being inundated by the storm. This article discusses our experiences in teaching the course titled, “The Worlds of Politics,” as we attempt to help students deeply engage in cognitive processes of critical thinking and analysis, without undue infringement from their own—and least of all our own—personal political biases. Our focal learning objective is the cultivation of critical-thinking skills that promote students’ drawing of distinctions between advocacy and analysis, as well as their discerning civic engagement.


2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097214
Author(s):  
Aurélien Bertiaux ◽  
François Gabrielli ◽  
Mathieu Giraud ◽  
Florence Levé

Learning to write music in the staff notation used in Western classical music is part of a musician’s training. However, writing music by hand is rarely taught formally, and many musicians are not aware of the characteristics of their musical handwriting. As with any symbolic expression, musical handwriting is related to the underlying cognition of the musical structures being depicted. Trained musicians read, think, and play music with high-level structures in mind. It seems natural that they would also write music by hand with these structures in mind. Moreover, improving our understanding of handwriting may help to improve both optical music recognition and music notation and composition interfaces. We investigated associations between music training and experience, and the way people write music by hand. We made video recordings of participants’ hands while they were copying or freely writing music, and analysed the sequence in which they wrote the elements contained in the musical score. The results confirmed experienced musicians wrote faster than beginners, were more likely to write chords from bottom to top, and they tended to write the note heads first, in a flowing fashion, and only afterwards use stems and beams to emphasize grouping, and add expressive markings.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2110058
Author(s):  
Neil Selwyn ◽  
Chris O’Neill ◽  
Gavin Smith ◽  
Mark Andrejevic ◽  
Xin Gu

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the rapid but sometimes controversial take-up of ‘online examination proctoring’ systems by universities keen to maintain their assessment schedules during times of campus closure. Following the theoretical tradition of media ‘domestication’, this article examines the mainstream adoption of different online proctoring systems in Australian higher education during the first year of the pandemic. Through analysis of interviews, documents, news, social media and marketing materials, the article examines the ‘appropriation’, ‘objectification’, incorporation’ and ‘conversion’ of proctoring technology from the perspective of commercial providers, university authorities, university staff and student groups. This raises a number of critical issues underpinning the adoption of this exam surveillance technology – not least the surrender of control to commercial providers, the hidden labour required to sustain ‘automated’ systems and the increased vulnerabilities of ‘remote’ studying.


2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562199123
Author(s):  
Simon Schaerlaeken ◽  
Donald Glowinski ◽  
Didier Grandjean

Musical meaning is often described in terms of emotions and metaphors. While many theories encapsulate one or the other, very little empirical data is available to test a possible link between the two. In this article, we examined the metaphorical and emotional contents of Western classical music using the answers of 162 participants. We calculated generalized linear mixed-effects models, correlations, and multidimensional scaling to connect emotions and metaphors. It resulted in each metaphor being associated with different specific emotions, subjective levels of entrainment, and acoustic and perceptual characteristics. How these constructs relate to one another could be based on the embodied knowledge and the perception of movement in space. For instance, metaphors that rely on movement are related to emotions associated with movement. In addition, measures in this study could also be represented by underlying dimensions such as valence and arousal. Musical writing and music education could benefit greatly from these results. Finally, we suggest that music researchers consider musical metaphors in their work as we provide an empirical method for it.


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