Music Education for the New Millennium: Theory and Practice Futures for Music Teaching and Learning (review)

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 117-121
Author(s):  
Sean Penderel
Author(s):  
Marissa Silverman

This chapter asks an important, yet seemingly illusive, question: In what ways does the internet provide (or not) activist—or, for present purposes “artivist”—opportunities and engagements for musicing, music sharing, and music teaching and learning? According to Asante (2008), an “artivist (artist + activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression—by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation” (p. 6). Given this view, can (and should) social media be a means to achieve artivism through online musicing and music sharing, and, therefore, music teaching and learning? Taking a feminist perspective, this chapter interrogates the nature of cyber musical artivism as a potential means to a necessary end: positive transformation. In what ways can social media be a conduit (or hindrance) for cyber musical artivism? What might musicing and music sharing gain (or lose) from engaging with online artivist practices? In addition to a philosophical investigation, this chapter will examine select case studies of online artivist music making and music sharing communities with the above concerns in mind, specifically as they relate to music education.


This chapter describes cases of music teaching and learning from Pre-K-12 schools. As a trait of book, instead of focusing on how-to instruction and technical aspects of music teaching, the author puts a special emphasis on music learning in a social context. Both music and music education consist of social interaction among learners, teachers, and community members. This process is especially unique to music because we always learn from each other and perceive music in a shared sense. The author wishes you also learn from these cases and implement the idea of your practice for students to learn from each other.


Author(s):  
Nasim Niknafs

Without access to official state-sanctioned, public music education, Iranian youth, specifically rock and alternative musicians, follow a self-organized and anarchistic path of music making. Expertly negotiating between the act of music making and the unpredictable situations they face daily, they have become creative in finding new ways to propagate their music and learn the rules of their profession. Meanings attached to assessment in these circumstances become redefined and overshadow the quality of music being created. Assessment becomes a local activism that countervails the top-down, summative model. This chapter provides some characteristics of assessment in music teaching and learning in urban Iran that follow Nilsson and Folkestad’s (2005) ecocultural perspective, consisting of four elements: (a) Gibson’s (1979) concept of affordances, (b) orality, (c) theories of play, and (d) theories of chance. Consequently, assessment in urban Iranian music education can be categorized as follows: (1) do-it-yourself (DIY) and do-it-with-others (DIWO), (2) interactive and decentralized, (3) local anarchism, and (4) lifestyle. This chapter concludes that the field of music education should take a “slightly outside perspective” (Lundström, 2012, p. 652) and proactive approach toward assessment, rather than the reactionary approach to music teaching and learning in which assessment becomes an end goal rather than an approach embodied within learning.


Author(s):  
Sidsel Karlsen ◽  
Geir Johansen

The Norwegian compulsory school formal curriculum consists of two separate parts, implemented in 1993 and 2006. The older Core Curriculum provides guidelines for the broader aims of education and for its cultural and moral foundations. Ideologically, it is marked by the humanist Bildung tradition and progressive education ideas, emphasizing holistic development of the human being as the primary goal. The newer curriculum part, named Knowledge Promotion, consists of individual syllabi for all subjects, including music. While the first page of the music syllabus mirrors values expressed in the Core Curriculum, the latter part is an operationalization of a positivist-oriented ends-means approach to music education. This chapter explores this multi-ideological split of the music curriculum, pursuing a twofold interest: What are the consequences of ends-means related assessment criteria shaping the context of music teaching and learning? What other assessment criteria exist that would align better with the Bildung and progressive education foundations of the curriculum?


Author(s):  
Heidi Partti

In addition to innovative policy schemes, program visions, and curricular changes, the transformation of the school classroom necessitates also the development of teacher education. Inspired by the Core Perspective chapters in this section of the handbook, this chapter discusses issues related to the use of technology in supporting the cultivation of creative and collaborative skills in music teaching, particularly from the viewpoint of music teacher education. The chapter argues that there is a gap between the potential that technology could provide for music teaching and learning processes and the cultivation of this potential in schools. To bridge this gap, a holistic approach to technology and its use in music education is required. According to this approach, technology is viewed as a powerful way to facilitate more possibilities to participate in different musical practices and to use musical imagination.


This chapter introduces a vision of music education that aims towards enjoyable music learning in a shared sense. When we discuss the social aspect of music teaching and learning, we need to pay special attention in several different ways to pass the tradition of music simply because music is the live tradition. The music transcends and transforms and melts into our contemporary society. At the same time, at a different level, professional orchestral musicians and conductors devote their lives to understanding the music more deeply, in order to recreate the composers' message by adding their own interpretation and personal feeling. There is no single stance towards music, and our children may need to experience and know various musical works from the originals and arrangements, and even replicate some of the works themselves to learn how to compose. By remaining tolerant in our views to perceive various types of music, we can expand the possibilities of the music of our time, and music of all communities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-154
Author(s):  
Chapman Hill Stuart

The author reviews The Art of Songwriting, written by veteran songwriter Andrew West, who oversees a postgraduate course at Leeds College of Music. The book benefits greatly from the author’s encyclopaedic knowledge of songs and songwriters, and a rich variety of examples permeates the book. As a result, the book is not a simple ‘how-to’ volume, but rather captures the rich diversity of approaches and techniques professional songwriters employ. A different, tighter organizational scheme might help the book’s wisdom be digestible for the reader to consolidate and retain all the knowledge the book has to offer. Still, the book is a welcome contribution to an understudied field, especially as music education scholars seek to diversify the musics that define school music teaching and learning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
Chad West ◽  
Matthew Clauhs

While observing exemplary in-service teachers is important, researchers suggest there may be benefits to observing peers as well. Much of the peer observation literature is focused on the process of peers observing peers in the same institution. The authors of this study brought together undergraduate music education peers from two separate institutions to observe and discuss music teaching and learning via videoconferencing software. Using qualitative analysis techniques, we identified three emergent themes: (a) technology as a tool for diverse experiences, (b) self-reflection and questioning assumptions, and (c) evolving issues of identity. Participants believed the experience was uniquely valuable when compared with traditional observations of peers within their own institutions. While all participants reported growth in self-awareness and ability to question assumptions, those who were observed developed stronger teacher identities and those who were observing learned vicariously through peers they wished to emulate.


Author(s):  
Roger Mantie

This chapter explores implications of Heidegger’s landmark discussion of technology. Specifically, it examines how our relationship with technology is “revealing” of the human condition and how this may bear on music education. Technology’s impact on understandings of what it means to be human is explored through a discussion of techné and technological determinism. This is then linked to how technology has altered our musical subjectivity and our understandings of what it means to be “musically educated.” The chapter concludes with considering a few ways in which we might begin to think about technology’s potential impact on our music teaching and learning practices, with a reminder that the classroom is perhaps the ultimate technology at our disposal.


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