Music Education in P-12 Schools to Learn From Each Other

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.

Music for Everyone to Participate

This chapter focuses on multiple perspectives to view children's creativity and to offer a practical guide to implement Gardner's multiple intelligence to music teaching and learning. This chapter offers a theoretical framework for music teachers and learners of music to understand the process of offering musical activities in which everyone may participate. Peer-to-peer learning and sharing musical enjoyment are the heart of music for everyone to participate, to build a musical community. The music itself entails getting along with others and especially dealing with differences. By nature, the music contains the elements of listening to and engaging with different voices, timbre, texture, and world culture. Music invites everyone to participate via various entry points by playing, singing, dancing, and in any other art form. This chapter proposes musical activities and creative ideas that best represent the shared sense of learning from each other and to build a musical community for everyone to participate.

Musical Pedagogy for Social Goals

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.

Music Teacher Training to Build a Musical Community

This chapter describes how pre-service teachers and future music teachers facilitate peer learning and collaboration in their teacher training courses. This chapter first introduces a case that every student in a Japanese teacher training course learns composition independently and collaboratively. Collaboration involves the mixture of peer-to-peer learning, hands-on one-on-one instruction, and group learning that can strengthen teacher education programs by offering a variety of interactive opportunities. The chapter also introduces a school-wide and local community collaboration among university, elementary school, kindergarten, and community to create a large musical show. Finally, in the chapter, the concluding one, one of the main purposes of music education is to build musical communities to learn from each other and to share musical enjoyment with different individuals. In essence, music is the best way to build a community. For an ideal music teacher training, it is essential for future teachers to become able to collaborate musically and to build collegial relationships with other fellows to learn from the differences.

A Path From Self to Social

This chapter presents a narrative account of the author's music learning and teaching experience both in Japan and the U.S. The author reflects upon the processes of developing critical perspectives in musical pedagogy and developing the idea of transforming music education from self to social. The author analyzes how he encountered and learned music, and how those experiences improved and changed his playing with interaction in two different cultural contexts: Japan and the U.S. The author begins with the story of his early musical experiences in Japan. He then goes on to discuss his violin learning experiences at conservatories in Tokyo and New York. The author concludes with his performing and teaching experiences in Miami and New York as a professional violinist.

Reflective Practice in Music

This chapter proposes that music-making is a reflective practice and critically examines the issues of reflective practice in music listening, performing, and creating in P-12 and community schools. The author illustrates the framework of reflective practice embedded in music practice followed by proposing how music teaching and learning can be shared reflectively. Next, as a trait of this book, the author also adds an Asian perspective to understand reflective practice in music teaching and learning with a comparative and international topic in music education. Confucian philosophy of learning and Suzuki's philosophy that every child reflectively learns from the perceived environment.

Compartive and International Topics in Music Education

This chapter continues with the interviews from Chapter 5 with more focus on the realm of creativity and comparative and international topics in the teaching and learning of music. In this chapter, the author focuses on the Japanese and American voices from experienced teachers, researchers, professional musicians, and eminent artists. In this chapter, the author focuses specifically on the creative learning of children's violin learning in Japan. The author shared the video clips with violin teachers, private instrumental teachers, as well as music education specialists in Japan. Finally, the author showed the videos to music education professors and professional string players in the U.S. Most of the interviews were conducted by visiting their homes, offices, and schools. For overseas participants, the YouTube link of the videos was sent via email, and the interviews were conducted via Skype.

Transforming Music Teaching and Learning

This chapter aims to explore how the author transformed his approach to music teaching based on his pedagogical practice. As a Japanese violinist who performed, researched, and taught children for the past 10 years in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, the author gradually changed his approach to music teaching and learning. By juxtaposing his voice as a violinist, teacher, researcher, the author provides teaching cases representing a transformation of music teaching and learning. The author also uses the voices of parents, other teachers, and music education specialists from Japan and other countries in describing diverse views on teaching and learning by sharing videos of the author's teaching practice and how Japanese caregivers perceive a progressive approach of teaching and children's creative learning that differs from conventional violin methods pervasive in Japan.

Universal Design in Music Classrooms

This chapter focuses on universal design (UD) in the field of music education. First, the study introduces the original principles of UD and application to music education in P-12 schools. Second, the study explores the concept of musicking and draws the connection with the direction of UD. Instead of lowering the musical challenges and standard of performance, the chapter produces the idea of providing a musical platform for everyone to actively participate and interact with music. The chapter provides a total of six cases of UD in music education practice. This chapter provides a succinct explanation and examples of UD application in music education. Some of the examples include the usage of technology.

Musical Experience for Young Children and Families

This chapter illustrates how young children learn the violin. A two-year-old boy, Leo, explored the violin, imaginary played the violin, and socially learned from other participants and the perceived musical environment. Four-year-old Moe and Misa were shy and hesitated to play the violin during the official learning opportunity of the author-designed workshop; however, during the free play time after the workshop, they imaginary played the violin. Kiyone, also four years old, learned the violin playing as well as music reading followed by a few months of interaction with the violin. Finally, Vicki, six years old, experienced free play for almost a year and began taking the official lesson. Since she had enough experience of playing just the open strings as a part of her imaginary play, she had very successful music learning to play more than 10 songs in a very short period.