scholarly journals Making Music, Finishing Music – An Inquiry Into the Music-Making Practice of Popular Electronic Music Students in the “Laptop-Era”

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-178
Author(s):  
Andreas Waaler Røshol ◽  
Eirik Sørbø

In this study we seek to present a description of how bachelor and masters students in popular electronic music experience making original music in their chosen Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The chapter focuses on how the participants understand their role while making music afforded by the DAW environment, their strategies for getting started when making music, and the challenges they experience when finishing music. In the study we interviewed six students at bachelor and masters level. We see a tendency in how participants attribute the technical component of music making as the defining aspect of the producer role. The respondents seem to understand themselves as primarily producers when making music in the DAW environment. When starting out with a new song, most of the respondents describe an experience of flow that gradually dissolves as the structure of the song emerges and their inner critique gains foothold. The respondents concur on the challenges of finishing music in the rich decision-making environment that the DAW affords. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of students developing their own creative strategies suited to their unique music-making practice. We argue that the students need to become self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop such creative strategies. Arguably, teaching practice that facilitates such meta-learning is therefore highly relevant in higher electronic music education. This is especially relevant in the DAW environment where discipline is required in order to stop fiddling with details and release their music to the world.

2020 ◽  
pp. 257-278
Author(s):  
Eirik Sørbø ◽  
Andreas Waaler Røshol

Research regarding informal learning over the last few decades has shown how popular musicians acquire skills and knowledge through informal learning, suggesting new methods for formal music education compared to the structures of western classical music. Today, the realm of popular electronic music education faces some similar challenges that popular music education initially did; new ways of informal learning, and a different and diverse knowledge base for the students entering popular music programs. Related to these challenges is the question of how to teach one-to-one tuition in higher electronic music education, and this article seeks to address this challenge. We present a case-study of the practice of a teacher at the University of Agder in Norway that teaches electronics in one-to-one tuition, where the research data is based on interviewing this teacher and his students. An important aspect of the practice in question is the process of listening to and discussing the student’s original recorded music. We discuss some of the challenges of one-to-one teaching in electronic music education, and argue that this particular teaching approach accommodates some of these challenges. Bringing in the educational framework of Biesta, we argue that this form of teaching practice also facilitates subjectification by addressing both uniqueness and expression. Further, we argue that this practice, which focuses on the teaching of aesthetics instead of technicalities, combined with the development of the students’ unique artistic expression can open some interesting possibilities related to addressing subjectivity in higher music education. One of these is how the students need to articulate both the objectives and aims within their music, and the objectives and aims of their music, which in turn develops a terminology to talk about and beyond aesthetics.


2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110093
Author(s):  
Paul Chambers

This article demonstrates how the availability of music platforms, the guidance of online tutorials and user-friendly affordances of software interfaces have democratised the making of electronic music. Software users traverse new forms of technology as part of their social and cultural selves, the confluence of musical affiliation and specific social media platforms supporting the production and exploration of identity. Case studies of women and non-binary identifying music-makers highlight digitisation’s role in enabling creative agency. Music emerging through these processes evidences a stylistic fluidity that indicates its means of construction, using the sampling, pitch, and time-stretching capabilities of the digital audio workstation. Digitisation provides the inspiration of a world of music and the means and knowledge of how to make it, allowing musical, personal and collective subjectivities to be explored.


Author(s):  
Valerie L. Vaccaro

This chapter reviews multidisciplinary research from the fields of consumer behavior, humanistic and positive psychology, music education, and other areas to develop a new Transcendent Model of Motivation for Music Making. One’s “extended self” identity can be defined partly by possessions and mastery over objects, and objects can “complete” the self. Music making involves a person’s investment of “psychic energy,” including attention, time, learning, and efforts, and is a creative path which can lead to peak experiences and flow. Music making can help satisfy social needs, achieve self-actualization, experience self-transcendence, enhance well-being, strengthen spirituality, and improve the quality of life.


Author(s):  
Lauren Kapalka Richerme

Authors of contemporary education and arts education policies tend to emphasize the adoption of formal, summative assessment practices. Poststructuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s emphasis on ongoing differing and imaginative possibilities may at first glance appear incompatible with these overarching, codified assessments. While Deleuze criticizes the increasing use of ongoing assessments as a form of control, he posits a more nuanced explanation of measurement. This philosophical inquiry examines four measurement-related themes from Deleuze’s writings and explores how they might inform concepts and practices of assessment in various music teaching and learning contexts. The first theme suggests that each group of connective relations, what Deleuze terms a “plane of immanence,” demands its own forms of measurement. Second, Deleuze emphasizes varieties of measurement. Third, those with power, what Deleuze terms the “majority,” always set the standard for measurement. Fourth, Deleuze derides continuous assessment. His writings suggest that music educators might consider that assessments created for one musical practice or style should not transcend their own “plane of immanence,” that a variety of nonstandardized assessments is desirable, that the effect of measurement on “minoritarian” musical practices must be examined carefully, and that it is essential to ponder the potentials of unmeasured music making.


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.


Author(s):  
Robert H. Woody ◽  
Mark C. Adams

This chapter discusses the innate differences between vernacular music-making cultures and those oriented in Western classical traditions, and suggests students in traditional school music education programs in the United States are not typically afforded opportunities to learn skills used in vernacular and popular music-making cultures. The chapter emphasizes a need to diversify music-making experiences in schools and describes how vernacular musicianship may benefit students’ musical development. It suggests that, in order for substantive change to occur in music education in the United States, teachers will need to advance beyond simply considering how to integrate popular music into their traditional large ensembles—and how preservice music teacher education programs may be the key to help better prepare teachers to be more versatile and philosophically open to teaching a more musically diverse experience in their future classrooms.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1321103X2097480
Author(s):  
Melissa Bremmer ◽  
Carolien Hermans ◽  
Vincent Lamers

This multiple-case-studies research explored a multimodal approach to teaching music to pupils (from 4 to 18 years old) with severe or multiple disabilities. By combining music with, for example, tactile stimulation, movement, or visuals, meaning-making processes in music of these pupils was stimulated, helping them to understand the internal structures and expressive qualities of music. Three music teachers and a social worker participated in this study. Individual and collective video reflections and microanalysis were applied to gather data about their multimodal teaching practice. The data were analyzed through Schmid’s framework (2015) of “multimodal dimensions of children’s music experiences,” developed for general music education. This framework consists of four dimensions: narrativity, sociality, materiality, and embodiment. Based on the findings, Schmid’s framework could be revised for special education, thus providing music teachers with a tool for designing multimodal music lessons for pupils with severe or multiple disabilities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 238133772110246
Author(s):  
Cati V. de los Ríos ◽  
Yared Portillo

For many Mexican-origin bi/multilingual children, Mexican music education begins early in their home. Music is inextricably linked with the sociocultural context in which it is produced, consumed, and taught and the interrelationship between music, society, and culture. Using ethnographic methods, this article examines a small group of bilingual and emergent bilingual Mexican-origin students who regularly congregated in their English teacher’s classroom at lunchtime to recite and perform romance ballads, or what we refer to as baladas románticas, on a weekly basis. We use participant observation, plática-inspired interviews, focus groups, and video recordings to present ethnographic knowledge about how, for these young people, music was a way of being and a deliberate act to build community. Our findings describe the ways the bilingual students found themselves at the margins of their K–12 schooling experiences and, in turn, agentically fostered their own space for translingual expression and solace. This manifested in two primary ways: (a) how they collectively fostered their own form of convivencia (humanizing coexistence) anchored in their ancestral and cultural knowledge through their music-making and (b) how their music-making allowed them to release translingual and transmodal play and creativity that might have otherwise been suppressed at school. We end with a call for literacy researchers and educators to continue to recognize and honor students’ lived translingual experiences, identities, and musical gifts as resources for learning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Christopher Cayari

A virtual ensemble is a digital musical product that uses multiple recordings edited together to form a musical ensemble. Creating virtual ensembles can be a way for music educators to engage students through online music-making. This article presents eight steps for creating virtual ensembles in music education courses and classrooms. The steps are (1) identifying objectives and desired outcomes, (2) selecting repertoire, (3) developing learning resources, (4) creating an anchor for synchronizing, (5) choosing a recording method, (6) setting up a collection platform, (7) editing in postproduction, and (8) distributing the product. As online music production becomes more prevalent, projects like virtual ensembles can provide creative and exciting experiences for music teachers and students, whether produced in the classroom or through remote means on the Internet.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
William E. Fredrickson ◽  
Suzanne R. Byrnes ◽  
Sylvia R. Aycock

This article was designed to explore the behaviors observed and document the interactions of older and younger siblings in a children’s choir rehearsal environment. Observations by a music education student observer, the director/teacher of the group, and some parent recollections indicate that the sibling interactions do have a primarily positive impact on music and social behaviors in this children’s choir environment. Some younger siblings emulate older sibling behaviors, while some participate in independent ways including direct participation with the teachers. Observational and anecdotal evidence suggests that younger siblings are attracted to the music making and elect, or can be encouraged by older siblings, parents/caregivers, and others in the environment (children and adults), to actively participate in a variety of ways rather than simply watch and listen.


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