New Zealand violin teaching contexts and their impact on teacher practice in private studios and out-of-hours music centres.

<p>The out-of-hours music programme provides free instrumental music lessons to primary school aged children and has a long-standing history in New Zealand, dating back to 1929. While this government-funded programme has been part of the primary school sector for more than fifty years, there is little to no research about its teaching or how it functions. Out of hours music centres are unique to New Zealand and while being attached to the primary school sector are run independently outside school hours. Many of these centres offer violin lessons and generally, their teachers also work as private violin teachers. Are violin teacher’s pedagogical practices different depending on whether they teach in a centre, or in their own studios? This sociocultural study presents a critical analysis into beginner violin pedagogies and the similarities and differences between the out-of-hours music context and the private studio.</p>

New Zealand violin teaching contexts and their impact on teacher practice in private studios and out-of-hours music centres.

<p>The out-of-hours music programme provides free instrumental music lessons to primary school aged children and has a long-standing history in New Zealand, dating back to 1929. While this government-funded programme has been part of the primary school sector for more than fifty years, there is little to no research about its teaching or how it functions. Out of hours music centres are unique to New Zealand and while being attached to the primary school sector are run independently outside school hours. Many of these centres offer violin lessons and generally, their teachers also work as private violin teachers. Are violin teacher’s pedagogical practices different depending on whether they teach in a centre, or in their own studios? This sociocultural study presents a critical analysis into beginner violin pedagogies and the similarities and differences between the out-of-hours music context and the private studio.</p>

Ladislav Trakal’s Art and Crafts Workshop of Decorative Painting in Kharkiv (1899–1921)

The article attempts to outline the activities of Kharkiv art and craft workshop of decorative painting, headed by a Czech creator Ladislav Trakal in 1899. The introduction of some new archival documents into scientific circulation showed that there was a close connection between the pedagogical system of Rayevska‑Ivanova’s school, founded in 1869, and Trakal’s decorative‑handicraft workshop. The 4‑year industrial art school in Prague, which Trakal graduated from in 1896, did not have the status of a higher art institution at that period of time. When Trakal arrived in Kharkiv and headed the decorative‑handicraft workshop, which was housed in an edifice that Colonel Borodaevsky devised to Kharkiv Society for the Dissemination of Literacy, Trakal got on a well‑worked ground, which was prepared by Rayevska‑Ivanova. In 1869 this outstanding person, the first woman‑artist with a European level education and a diploma from St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in Russian Empire, founded an industrial art school in Kharkiv. Later, in 1896 she was forced to leave teaching at her school due to a complete loss of vision. However, the need for specialists of this profile did not disappear. Kharkiv was experiencing a real construction boom, and decorators, one of whom Trakal was, were in great demand. Although Trakal’s workshop did not become as multidisciplinary as Raevska‑Ivanova’s school, it used a lot of the pedagogical system developed by the founder of industrial art education in Kharkiv, to its advantage. Trakal’s workshop gave its students an initial industrial art education, prepared them for the activity in decorative painting. Unlike Rayevska-Ivanova who taught free of charge in her private school for more than 27 years, trying to lay solid foundation of industrial art education in Kharkiv, Trakal turned out to be a rather enterprising person. He successfully completed highly paid orders for the decoration of buildings in Kharkiv and also opened his own private studio. Having a good command of Russian, Trakal easily entered Kharkiv’s artistic life. He actively participated in exhibitions, where he showed his paintings, made in the Art Nouveau Style with an enhanced symbolist sound. However, the question remains about how bright and original this artist was in comparison with artists from other Ukrainian cities (M. Zhuk, Yu. Mykhailiv, M. Sapozhnikov). Similarly, the contribution of other art institutions to the development of some of Trakal’s students who eventually became famous masters, also requires further studying.

The Social Life of Dances

Chapter 3 pursues the thesis that commodity and gift forms of exchange are interconnected and inseparable. It does this through an examination of three case studies: hip-hop, private dance studio instruction, and powwow. The recent histories of these three examples is examined alongside some of their antecedents at the beginning of the twentieth century. Hip-hop is located along a continuum with the early twentieth-century African American social dances that fueled a dance craze taking place in the urban United States. Private studio instruction is traced back to the social and modern dance instruction offered by entrepreneurial teachers who codified and sold those dances. Powwows are connected to the Wild West shows and other exhibitions of Native dances that brought Native peoples into greater contact with one another and with white audiences. Analyzing the development of these dance practices over time enables a more focused inquiry into the values and belief systems that infuse dance in a given historical moment and the ways that these connect to larger systems of shared values. Each example also calls attention to the way that commodification yields values that collude with forms of social and political domination including racialization and racist ideologies, Orientalism and exoticism, and colonial settler logics.

The Musical Iconography of the Private Chambers of Studiolo and Grotta of Isabella d’Este

The article is dedicated to the analysis of certain components of the historical interior of the studiolo and grotta of Isabella d’Este, Marquise of Mantua (1474—1539). The article considers, in the imagological aspect, the decorative elements of her private chambers in the “Palazzo Ducale” as a form of personal and, at the same time, status representation of the wife of the ruler of the state and as a reflection of some aspects of the behavioral standard of the Renaissance noble lady. For the first time, the artistic design of the Mantuan studiolo (private studio)and grotta (adjoining storage room for art and rarities) is examined through extraction of musical imagery and musical symbolism, which had a special importance in authomythologization of Isabella d’Este and reflected her deep personal passion for music.Analyzing the contextual part of the allegorical painting by Lorenzo Costa the Elder (1504—1506) “Allegory of the Court of Isabella d’Este”, the article focuses on the proximity of the characters playing the “heavenly” lute and zither to the figure of Isabella d’Este. And the attainment of eternal life by Isabella, as the center of the harmonious world of wisdom and art, is considered to be the main conceptual message. The depictions of the musical instruments on the wooden intarsia are regarded in connection with the music practice of the Marquise and people around her, which is evidenced by numerous documents of the Mantuan Archive of Gonzaga. The incipit of the chanson by Ockeghem “Prenez sur moi votre exemple amoreux”, included in the decor, for the first time receives an extended interpretation as an indirect semantic message. The figures of Euterpe and Erato, with their usual flute and lyre, are, on the contrary, quite traditional and expected in this context on the doorway marble medallions. The ceiling impreses, with the enigmatic image of musical signs (viola key, metric designations and pauses), have a symbolic meaning. The article concludes that the purpose of inclusion of the musical decor in the design of studiolo and grotta is to indicate the status of Isabella d’Este as a ruler of the artistic world where music takes the main part.

Assessment in the Private Studio Setting: Supporting Student Learning, Providing Effective Instruction, and Building Faculty-Student Interaction

A significant amount of literature exists about how to design and implement an effective assessment process for students in a music program, specifically in the classroom setting. This article suggests a framework for incorporating individualized assessment in the private-lesson setting based on effective classroom assessment practices. Many in-service music teachers also teach privately. Applying their knowledge of classroom-based assessments and effective teaching strategies to the private-lesson setting can support student learning, provide effective instruction, and build faculty and student interaction. The private teacher plays a significant role in the education of music students. All music instructors—applied and classroom—should prioritize high-quality instruction, provide formative feedback to students, demonstrate teacher effectiveness to their employer (students, parents, or music educators), and use self-reflection to improve their instruction.

Music Education, Inc.

Today’s students live in the center of a rich, interconnected system of public, philanthropic, and for-profit entities that support the act of music teaching and learning. Students are not limited to the kinds of musical instruction available to them in their schools. Provided they have the means and the access, the musically curious can supplement or supplant their in-school musical lives with extracurricular and cocurricular activities, private studio lessons, community ensembles, or religious services. The for-profit music education industry in particular has grown in popularity and commercial success since the global recession, encouraged in part by what appears to be an increasing demand for instruction in popular genres that is not being met in the public schools. Corporate entities that sell music instruction have reached unprecedented levels of cultural saturation and student interest. With their successes have come a number of new teaching models, philosophies, and innovative ways for students to engage with music. However, these experiences may come at a cost, particularly to equal access by disadvantaged populations who might not be able to pay for said services. This article examines the popular music education (PME) franchise and its budding relationship with public school music education.

Shit Be Tight

Carlos Villa was a highly original Filipino American artist and visionary organizer who has been very influential in San Francisco but is still little recognized internationally. This essay situates Villa’s achievement as an ongoing dialogue between his private studio practice and public actions. It argues for the appreciation of the interaction of Villa’s modernist aesthetic with more socially engaged inspirations and expressions as central to the artist’s significance and the transformative impact of his career.