The reflective questions at the end of this article offer to provoke thoughts towards how music is taught today, and how music education can be a diverse palette instead of a single colour of paint. When we think about music education, we think about little children who are discovering piano keys and their own voices, but there are many more ways it can be defined. In terms of setting, school is the most common, but this article offers a new perspective, that school is not a superior method of learning music. Like the article mentions, life-long learners find trouble once they leave school, and the formal end of education ends. Since school is accompanied by grades and hierarchy, the way music is taught in those settings are very stagnant, and are not flexible to new types of strategies to learn. The concept of transmission is something that I’ve never really thought about when I’ve been faced with music.
Humans are not like robots, everyone learns differently and everyone is different. Interestingly, the article points out that most teachers teach young children music, and forget that once people mature, they still want to continue to learn. Going back to the original reflective questions, number three poses the question if the ideas in institutionalized music schools should be able to reach every type of person, regardless of age, economic status, and ability. I believe that everyone should be able to have a chance at a music-enriched education. When people make that claim, they do only usually think of young children who are economically stable. As someone who comes from a socioeconomic area of a big city that is not very high in income, I wouldn’t be the same person I am today. I don’t think music education should only pertain to the young and rich. Additionally, when I last worked in a nursing home, I would often play piano or watch the music therapist interact with residents. Adults are arguably more complex than young children, and since they learn in more contexts and opportunities, its vital that the opportunity is open for all learners. The implication for teacher education is something that is still difficult for me to comprehend, but this article is able to outline different perspectives on it. Overall, I think that this article really opened my eyes in terms of how music should be taught, or how it shouldn’t be.
Veblen, K. K. (2018). Adult music learning in formal, nonformal and informal contexts. In G. McPherson & G. Welsh (Eds.). Special Needs, Community Music, and Adult Learning: An Oxford Handbook of Music Education, Vol 4. Pp. 243-256. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN-10: 019067444X/ ISBN-13: 978-0190674441
Response from Laura:
Thanks for your thoughtful reflection. I appreciate how you mentioned, as found in the article, that lifelong learners have trouble once they leave school and when the formal side of education ends. This comment caused me think and wonder how our society’s understanding of education could shift if we spent less time emphasizing formal education and spent more time and effort recognizing informal and nonformal music learning as equally legitimate avenues of music education. Do you think it is ever possible for students feel equally comfortable with formal and informal/nonformal music learning practices? Or will students always lean one way or another in their learning, depending on what they are comfortable with? Is it possible for students to not completely internalize or engrain themselves in one form of music learning? And how might this affect lifelong learners once they leave school? Here’s some different paths we could take and think within in terms of that concept mentioned above.
Veblen Response
Music education
Studio Teaching
Article Response
The title of this article makes me feel like they paint studio teaching as a negative method, but after further reading, this article explores all types of perspectives and angles of studio teaching in post-secondary education. Calling studio teaching a “secret garden” is a creative way of framing studio teaching since not many people study music this formally. Overall, the most striking point of the paper was the Psychosocial Implications of studio teaching. As someone who has been using studio teaching as their primary source for voice for over a year now, my experience is that emotions can be challenged and complex in that setting. The teacher an empower or tear down a student, and in a studio context, it is very easy to do so. The paper talks about the apprehensive nature of studio teachers, and how insecurity can come easily due to how closed off studio teaching can be. The specific identities established in studios can also make the students insecure as well, since competition and hierarchy can be even more important than in other styles in teaching. Insecurity and isolation go hand in hand, and I think the expectations of students can be ruined, as the paper mentioned. Since the studio teachers may have a limited set of skills and experiences, the student may be limited to only a specific set of careers. The paper states that performance-based careers are unlikely, even though they might have high expectations. That fact is ironic because their teachers model a performance career (in some cases). Another moment in the article that I thought was interesting was the section of benefits, limitations, and challenges. I think one of the most important benefits is that the relationship between the master and apprentice can become very strong and empowering as I mentioned before. With voice, it is the most personal instrument because it comes physically from only yourself, without something like a mouthpiece or an outside instrument. When a teacher is able to know you based on your personality and voice, it can be the most rewarding experience studying with a teacher one on one. However, the limitations and challenges are also very prevalent. The phrase “problematic privilege” was used in the paper, and I agree that studio teaching can be very problematic, but being a student in a studio is a privilege as well.
Burwell, K., Carey, G., & Bennett, D. (2017). Isolation in studio music teaching: The secret garden. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 1474022217736581.
Popular Music
Powell & Burstein
The article on popular music by Powell and Burstein explore how to implement popular music into classrooms, and to have higher retention rates in high school music classes. The main sources are from an American context, so the data presented in the article can be somewhat applicable to a Canadian educator. Although Canada and America are close together in proximity, the education systems between the two countries are different.
One important issue that the authors bring up is that although modern instruments like iPads are great in participation and using technology, they do not address how to teach a large class of students who wish to play in a popular music ensemble. For example, there can be a wide brushstroke of different instruments in a band, and a lot of the parts can be doubled. My high school band almost had 120 students, but when it comes to rock and iPad ensembles, where does the teacher draw the line? That is one of the challenges as a popular music teacher, but the article looks at approaches to help.
I thought that teachers acting as advisors and facilitators was an interesting way of looking at teaching popular music, since it is informal. Walking around from room to room and facilitating activities is a strategy most teachers don’t try because of the learning environment and sometimes the teachers own ego. However, as I was reading this section, I wondered if you’re teaching informally, are you still being a teacher, or has your job gone towards being a facilitator? I believe this thin line should be explored because when regular people think of teacher, they think of individuals who are in power, whereas facilitators enforce less of the rules. I believe neither is better than the other, they are both equally important. This notion of a facilitator is also a clear reason why professionals from other disciples discredit the work of music teachers and musicians, since a facilitator might seem “unknowledgeable” if they aren’t formally teaching, but every type of teaching is valid.
Modern band is much like jazz or a rock band ensemble, it is a way to help bring popular music to the traditional music classroom. Modern band is not going to solve every problem in music education, but the authors believe it is one of many approaches incorporate popular music and also bring in new ways of learning that are different from just formal.
The last thing that I thought was interesting in the article was the idea of scaffolding. This is the idea of learning through adaptive behaviour, like how children learn languages. The idea of scaffolding between the student and the teacher is that both parties are learning off of each other, and the learning is modified to the student for optimal success. As someone who had to tailor themselves to the learning strategy, I think that scaffolding learning would be a wonderful way to teach any subject, since each student’s strengths and weaknesses differ from one another.
Powell, B. & Berstein, S. (2017). Popular Music and Modern Band Principles. Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education (2017).
Workshop at
DWFOM
November 17th 2018
On Saturday, November 17th, I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop for Teaching and Learning Music. Bryan Powell, an American music educator talked with us and taught us a guitar.
The workshop consisted of Bryan teaching us easy chords on the guitar. I had a lot of fun being able to play the guitar since I always had trouble with my finger placement. However, the way he taught us was without explaining the guitar with complicated terminology. For example, he said things like, “Pluck the strings closest to your toes” instead of saying the names of the strings. At the end of the workshop I was able to play simple chords and in turn, most popular music.
My main assumption that was challenged was when I realized I was learning how to play the guitar without the whole process of theory and labeling the instruments. As a child, that was how I learned my instruments, through technique and filling out endless theory worksheets. When Bryan said that you only need to add the theory when it is needed, I thought that was a really interesting point of view because I didn’t really learn anything about the guitar technically, but I was still able to play.
A moment which stood out to me when Bryan pointed out that there is more than one type of notation other than traditional staff notation. Learning guitar TAB was really fun because it was a different type of notation that I was used to. I realized that there is no one right way to teach music, and with popular music being different to my own experience, I really enjoyed discovering all these new aspects of music education.
The last part of the workshop was when we had the opportunity to create songs in groups. I really enjoyed being able to work in a group and create a song, because it mimics the real world process of making a song, and creating music. Additionally, I liked the concept o scaffolding teaching, where you can teach all types of levels in one classroom. Being separated by difficulty can be a disadvantage because you can only advance so far in a “beginner class”.
One of the challenges that I thought about was how to implement this into a formal school setting. A lot of what we did needed money and instruments, and the right resources to teach. It all depends on your location and socio-economic environment. As an educator, there are limits what you can teach, and I’m trying to work out how to teach the most content within my limits. Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop, and I learned a lot about the benefits of popular music.