
Editorial
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This study examined the instructional settings, pedagogical techniques, interpersonal dynamics and personal characteristics of a teacher and her adolescent students in a renowned private flute studio. Using ethnographic techniques including observations and interviews, four main themes emerged that seem to contribute to the satisfaction of the participants and the musical success of the organization as a whole: (1) Stringent participation policies and performance expectations that serve as a `gatekeeping' function for membership; (2) a nurturing environment, including home-like physical environs, supportive interactions among students and between teacher and students, and carefully chosen musical material; (3) the creation and maintenance of a `studio culture' through instructional and performance routines, transmission of instrument-specific musical information, and a strict and competitive hierarchical structure within the organization; and (4) the perpetualization of a set of values via student and teacher role models and `mythic figures,' through which students' studio experiences are held to be the most important musical activities in which they participate. Implications for school music educators are offered, including a discussion of aspects of potential congruence for school music programs as well as a consideration of those elements that would be difficult and/or inadvisable to replicate in public school settings.
Research on the use of approvals/disapprovals in classroom teaching has highlighted praise as more effective than criticism, specific evaluation more valuable than general, and gender differences. This study investigated the use of positive/negative and specific/general evaluation and gender effects in instrumental music lessons in higher education. The participants were 12 teachers and 24 students from five Australian tertiary institutions. Greater use of approvals than disapprovals was found in most lessons. The teachers were more specific when criticizing their students than when praising them. The female teachers were slightly more positive than the male teachers, but the male teachers were more specific in their appraisals of the students' playing. The female students received more teacher praise than the male students. Results support previous research and provide new evidence into the use of approvals and disapprovals in instrumental music lessons in higher education. The implications for teaching practice include greater use of specific praise and sensitivity to gender biases.
In 1994, the Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) initiated two related projects supporting and acknowledging composition in schools and offering the opportunity for secondary school-aged students to work with prominent Australian composers. These were the Young Composers' Project and the Composer-in-Residence Project. Both projects were planned in conjunction with the biennial ASME National Conference, in association with the Australian Music Centre and initially the Australia Council for the Arts. The context of this article is set with an overview of the teaching of composition in the compulsory and post-compulsory years of schooling in Australia, giving contrasting examples of a specific syllabus and a generic framework. Organizations in Australia that provide composition opportunities for students are identified and acknowledged. The ASME Young Composers' Project and the Composer-in-Residence Project are presented to illustrate venture-developed projects that are promoted by a professional teaching association to nurture school-age student composers and the teaching of composition in schools. The experiences of some of the students who have participated in the projects are presented. Their comments mainly focus on the opportunity that is provided by the Young Composers' Project to work with composers and professional ensembles, and the opportunity to meet members of their peer group with like interests.
The purpose of this article is to explore the desires and tensions inherent within the act of facilitating creative music-making workshops. Following the introduction, the article is divided into three sections: (1) a discussion of the workshop event as a contingent structure through which creative music-making may take place; (2) an exploration of the facilitation process as a mechanism of engaging participants in creative music-making; (3) as a heuristic framework, a notion of the gift is shown as a means to think through face-to-face musical encounters. This article concludes that the ideas and concepts presented may assist workshop facilitators in thinking more deeply about the processes they engage in.
The purpose of this article was to identify the interactions between students' cultural background and the conditions of teaching and learning at the University of the Basque Country. A group of second- and third-year students was selected because of their special involvement in musical activities, i.e., singing in a choir, singing and playing traditional and pop music. The students experienced these musical activities in current contexts of cultural diversity. For example, they used them for integration in their own cultural contexts, and also in their practical teacher training in schools. The results suggested that an intercultural perspective could have a positive impact on improving the quality of music education. In addition, this was an important area where students and teachers needed training.
Although it is generally accepted that music is universal, we can imagine that every culture has a way of describing or talking about its music. The purpose of this article is to examine some aspects peculiar to the musical traditions of the Anioma people of Southern Nigeria from indigenous perceptions of their cultural modalities. The focus is on the perspective of Anioma music that represents the voice as the most important asset of its musical tradition. This is explored through the examination of the functions of a traditional musical instrument that relates most closely with the human voice. The results of this study help to bridge a gap in the knowledge of African musical instruments by bringing to scholarly focus a little-known form of communication.
The purpose of this article was to explore the music festival as a music educational project by means of results drawn from a case study investigating one particular festival's impact on identity development, both for the individual member of the audience (musical identity) and for the local society (local identity). The theoretical framework was taken from theories of modernity, dealing with identity as a reflexive project, created and maintained by self-narratives. The study combined a survey among the festival audience with observations of festival events. The results showed that the festival mediated stories, myths, beliefs and values connected to music and that there was a contrast between the festival staff encouraging the development and the audience preferring the maintenance of musical identities. The festival also created different social rooms for musical activity. These features are discussed in a music educational perspective. Implications are also drawn for music educational practice and research.
Because of the lack of diversity in many communities in the USA, there is both a need and an opportunity to import diversity through the arts into these communities through special programs. This article describes one such program undertaken by a US university making use of a pre-existing student/faculty exchange program with a university in the People's Republic of China. There is a brief explanation of how the students and teachers of a course in Traditional Instrumental Music of China were recruited over the period of a year and how the following instruments were chosen: