Listen to the tastemakers: Building an urban arts high school music curriculum

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Nathan Gage ◽  
Bronwen Low ◽  
Francisco Luis Reyes
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Musical Skills ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Urban Arts ◽  
Formal School

In partnership with academics from McGill University and community arts partners, a high school in Montreal faced with significant challenges became an “urban arts school,” offering music and visual art programs centered in youth culture, as well as integrating arts into several academic subjects. The initiative was inspired by the school’s popular extra-curricular activities, which included a Hip Hop literacy club that ran beat making and rap writing workshops. Considering the popularity of these activities, the school decided to offer a music education program focused on musical skills through real-life music making activities that resemble those employed by popular musicians. This article chronicles the development of this music education program from the perspective of the music teacher, including the experience of continual adaptation to the needs and interests of students. The program is one of the first to combine Musical Futures, an approach to music education that promotes the combination of non-formal music teaching, informal music learning, and students’ interest in a formal school setting, with Hip Hop Based Music Education, predominantly located in community settings. This case study showed that students benefited from having an open-minded and committed educator with experience in popular musics. The co-teaching by professional Hip Hop artists also supported student progress and engagement by adding authenticity to the music making process. Furthermore, the alignment of the music program with the general school ethos contributed to its success. The paper also highlights the need to balance the development of musical skills with student engagement, and the informal music learning philosophy of Musical Futures with direct instruction associated with formal school settings.

Thinking Vertically: Facilitating Transition for Students With Disabilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 104837132110344
Author(s):  
Ellary A. Draper
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Special Education ◽  
Early Intervention ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Special Educators ◽  
Individualized Education Program ◽  
Special Education Transition

Within special education, transition is a required part of a student’s Individualized Education Program, specifically the transition from school to postsecondary life. Recently, special educators have begun to investigate best practices of transition at all levels—early intervention into school, elementary to middle school, and middle to high school. Yet in music education transition is not widely discussed for students with and without disabilities. This article includes an overview of best practices of transition in special education and provides ideas on how to implement these practices in music education to better facilitate transition between schools to postsecondary life for students with disabilities.

Maschine-itivity: How I found my creativity using a digital sampling device to compose music

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-313
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kladder
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Sampling Device ◽  
Digital Sampling ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
Auto Ethnography

The ubiquity of digital music technology has prompted researchers and scholars to examine how music educators might support music learning that encourages creativity through the use of these mediums. Infusing technology into current curricular offerings offers one avenue in fostering a diversity of music learning experiences for students when teachers are interested in developing creativity in their students. Research examining current practising teachers and their experiences with digital sampling and beat making technology is limited. The purpose of this research was to offer my experiences learning, writing and sharing music using a sampling and beat-making device called the Maschine. This auto-ethnography uses Sawyer’s eight stages of the creative process as the theoretical framework to guide analysis of my creativity. The aims of this research were to: (1) reflect on the creative process involved in making music on a digital sampling and beat-making device; (2) provide a contextual understanding of my challenges and successes along the way; and (3) suggest implications for both current and future music teachers interested in learning to use this type of technology in their music teaching to provide contemporary music making experiences for their students. Results suggest that vernacular and informal music learning strategies were common over the 14-week semester, as YouTube tutorials supported my learning. My creativity occurred in small incremental steps and yielded three completed compositions at the culmination of the project. A conceptual model of the creative process is proposed, outlining the non-linearity of my creative process. Implications for music education are offered in conclusion.

Informal music learning, improvisation and teacher education

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wright ◽  
Panagiotis Kanellopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Narrative Methodology ◽  
Communicative Context

This paper1 explores firstly the sense in which improvisation might be conceived of as an informal music education process and, secondly, the effects of a course in free improvisation on student teachers' perceptions in relation to themselves as musicians, music as a school subject and children as musicians. The results of a study conducted in two Greek universities are presented. Using a narrative methodology, examples of data from the reflective diaries or learning journals which 91 trainee teachers kept as part of their participation in an improvisation module are presented and discussed. The argument is made that improvisation, as a particular type of informal music learning process, has an important role to play in fostering the qualities required of teachers to work with informal pedagogies in music education. Furthermore, we would suggest that such musical experiences might gradually lead to the development of a critical perspective on both music education theories and practices. Improvisation might emerge as a moment and a practice of rupture with linearity of progress, working against reification of knowledge and glorification of received information. The findings suggest that improvisation might offer a route for creating an intimate, powerful, evolving dialogue between students' identities as learners, their attitudes towards children and their creative potential, and the interrelationships of the notions of expressive technique and culture, thus becoming ‘an act of transcendence’ (Allsup, 1997, p. 81). We propose that the issue of connecting informal learning and improvisation might be resolved by regarding improvisation as an exemplary case of creating a communicative context where most representations/conceptualisations/struggles to solve problems are left implicit. Such experiences for pupils and teachers alike might further extend the social and personal effectiveness of informal learning as music pedagogy.

scholarly journals A Return to Amateurism in Music Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
John Kratus
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
American Music ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Large Ensembles

The future of American music education may be found in its past—a time when music teachers instilled lifelong amateur music-making in their students. There are differences between amateur and professional musicianship, and the focus of American music education shifted from amateurism to semiprofessionalism in the mid-twentieth century. An orientation toward semiprofessionalism makes little sense given the limited performance opportunities in large ensembles after high school and college. This article suggests a way back to nurturing amateurism and highlights two obstacles to this goal: the inflexibility of music teacher education and the profession’s reluctance to accept popular music. The article concludes with a narrative of what a world of amateur musicianship looks like.

Equity and Access in Out-of-School Music Making

2017 ◽  
pp. 502-510
Author(s):  
Kylie Peppler
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Learning Spaces ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Equity And Access ◽  
Music Making ◽  
School Music ◽  
Pathways Model ◽  
Recording Studios ◽  
Out Of School

This chapter focuses on the importance of community to both music education and the ways that youth shape their ideas, interests, and identities in music. Musical learning is rarely, if ever, about a learner operating a new musical technology-based tool in isolation. Music is inherently social, and these influences have a great impact upon the development of musical identities. This chapter explores the ways that out-of-school spaces like those in the Computer Clubhouse Network, YOUmedia, and Musical Futures support social music learning by providing private recording studios that allow youth to assume increasingly public roles as musicians, performers, and producers. The chapter also describes how mixing formal, nonformal, and informal learning spaces helps to develop a youth’s musical maturity through what is known as the “progression pathways model.”

scholarly journals Jammin’ the Blues: Experiencing the “Good Life”

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth A. Debrot
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Musical Growth ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics, attitudes, and perceptions of older musicians who participated regularly in a local blues jam. Six core dimensions of eudaimonic well-being and their conceptual foundations provided a framework for examining the way that music-making contributes to subjective well-being during the lifespan of an individual. The following research questions guided this investigation: (1) In what ways do biographical factors and engagement with music influence the lives of older adult blues/rock musicians who participate in a local blues jam? (2) What implications for subjective well-being with regard to music learning might be used to inform music education practices? Interviews and observations over a 2-month period provided data for understanding how lived experiences impacted personal well-being, and musical growth and development over time. Findings suggested that eudaimonic well-being is the result of active engagement in human activities that are goal-directed and purposeful, and a good life involves the self-realization of individual dispositions and talents over a lifetime. Implications for music education include individualized pedagogical approaches that encourage learners to discover a sense of well-being in and through music.

Cultivating Meaningful Personal Learning Networks in an Era of Multimodal and Globalized Music Learning and Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 335-356
Author(s):  
Deanna C. C. Peluso
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
Online Forums ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Personal Learning Networks ◽  
Personal Learning ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
Musical Knowledge

A continual ebb and flow of technological progressions provide diverse contexts in which music learning, participation, and education can occur. Youth are deeply immersed within a culture of globalized and multimodal knowledge-sharing, through which music learning occurs within formal, nonformal, and informal contexts, both in the physical and online worlds. These interconnected environments provide learners with a diverse collection of tools and resources that enable them to take charge of their own musical learning. Further, they can connect and share with other learners, educators, and experts through their own digitally mediated personal learning networks (PLNs). In these PLNs, extensive repertoires of formal music education combined with informal music learning practices that provide self-directed forums for musical experiences can enable music learners to flourish and adapt to globalized and diverse contexts. Learners cultivate, in their own personally relevant ways, networks of musical knowledge by drawing on the resources and tools available both on- and offline. By examining PLNs supported by multimodal social media resources as well as online forums for sharing and exploring music knowledge, this chapter presents practical examples and applications to inform music educators and classroom practices.

A Sociological Perspective on Technology and Music Education

2017 ◽  
pp. 344-350
Author(s):  
Ruth Wright
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Sociology Of Music ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
Basil Bernstein

This chapter considers the questions Where is technology within music education? and Who is affected and how? from a perspective drawn from sociology and in particular the sociology of music education. The chapter discusses the emergence of a totally technologized society, akin to the “totally pedagogized society” identified by Basil Bernstein, and consider its implications for music technology and music education. The chapter suggests that many students exist in an educational technotopia that offers great potential within models such as informal music learning for more equitable models of music education.

scholarly journals Intercultural perspectives on formal and informal Music learning

2011 ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
David J. Hargreaves
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
International Review ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Music Education Policy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Out Of School

This paper reviews some of the changes and developments that have occurred in music education over the last decade, following Hargreaves and North’s (2001) international review. I describe some recent developments in England, in which change has been very rapid, and in which education has had a high political profile, and then consider the three main issues which emerged from our international review, namely curriculum issues; the aims and objectives of music education; and the relationship between music in and out of school. I go on to describe two theoretical models which were developed as a result of my work with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in England: these are models of the different opportunities in music education, and of its intended outcomes. The first of these reveals the importance of the differences between formal and informal music learning, both of which can take place inside as well as outside schools. I conclude by reflecting on the power and ubiquity of music in young people’s everyday lives, which mean that music education policy should reflect and capitalize upon this power.

Healing bruises: Identity tensions in a beginning teacher’s use of formal and informal music learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Derges Kastner
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Informal Music Learning ◽  
Formal And Informal Learning ◽  
School Music ◽  
Definition Of

The purpose of this narrative case study was to describe the developing teacher identity of Nicole Downing, a first-year teacher in the US, in her use of both formal and informal learning processes. As music education continues embracing approaches like informal music learning, it should also reflect on the voices of teachers in the field. Data collection included interviews, observations, and participant writings. Findings revealed that Nicole (a) questioned and eventually accepted her music teacher identity, (b) exhibited a dualism between her use of formal and informal music learning processes, and (c) broadened her community’s definition of school music. Nicole used the metaphor of a bruise to describe how she believed some in her undergraduate studies would judge her interest in popular music and creative musicianship, but as she became a music teacher she had agency to incorporate the informal learning she valued. Nicole exhibited a duality in her use of formal and informal learning processes, which were not integrated in her teaching. Ultimately, she developed a broadened definition of school music that she believed was beneficial for students but perceived negatively by other music teachers. Music teacher education should support teachers’ diverse identities and continue to explore the teaching strategies used in facilitating informal music learning experiences.

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