International Journal of Music Education

The main purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of gesture and movement training for beginning children’s choirs with regard to improving intonation. It was a between-subjects design with one independent variable Training Technique (TT). One dependent variable was measured: intonation in the singing of vocal pattern warm-up exercises. Fifty-three fifth grade students (10–11 years old) participated in the empirical investigation. They were randomly assigned into three training groups: (1) Group 1— students who received no gesture and movement training; (2) Group 2— students who received gesture training; and (3) Group 3— students who received gesture and movement training. The instructional unit, consisting of two 40-minute sessions per week for 24 sessions, focused on vocal development. Each individual was pretested and posttested on singing 5 vocal patterns, selected from some 20 learned in the sessions. Three experts were asked to judge the children’s individual singing of these patterns, assessing intonation. Results showed that the children who received gesture and/or movement training sang significantly more in tune than those who did not. It was concluded that gesture training has a positive effect on improving children’s intonation. Furthermore, the combination of gesture and movement training could be a powerful teaching strategy in choral rehearsals.

Although there is now an accepted need for initiatives that support older people’s well-being, little attention has been paid to the role of those facilitating such activities. This research explored the benefits and challenges for those working in facilitating musical activities with older people. The research was undertaken at three UK case study sites, and involved 14 music facilitators who completed questionnaires and were interviewed about their work. The findings showed that there were many rewards in working with older people but also considerable challenges in terms of venues, resources, and a lack of initial and ongoing training opportunities.

The present study aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of music education, in particular music composition as a classroom activity for fifth- and sixth-graders. The intervention (experimental condition) focused on a three-step-model for music composition, based on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory of education, and has been compared with a teacher-centered approach mainly based on students’ reproduction of music (control condition). Results indicated that after the six-month intervention period, students in the experimental group were more engaged in music education compared to students in the control group. The research did not show a statistical difference in learning outcomes with regard to intelligence, academic achievement and music achievement, although the students of the experimental group performed better with regard to reading comprehension than their counterparts in the control group. The authors conclude that music composition as a classroom activity is feasible and useful in elementary schools.

In this study we investigated the visions of 12 music teacher educators who teach pedagogical courses called instrumental pedagogy and classroom music pedagogy in three music academies in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The data were collected through individual, semi-structured qualitative interviews. Drawing on Hammerness’ concept of teachers’ vision we concentrated on the educators’ visions of good music pedagogy teaching, an ideal graduate, and visions of their subject as a whole, as well as how those visions can be extended to denote some characteristics of the teaching traditions at play. The results indicated that visions were personal and not necessarily consistent between educators or across institutions. Rather, they were strongly related to, steered, and limited by established teaching traditions. We suggest that vision might constitute a functional concept in music teacher educators’ reflections on their work and that clear programme visions should be formulated in music teacher education institutions through collective collegial efforts.

Venezuela’s youth symphony program, the Fundación Musical Simón Bolívar, commonly referred to as “El Sistema,” combines musical achievement with learning important life skills through orchestral practice and performance. Although the history most commonly reported outside Venezuela is of the program’s director, José Antonio Abreu, hosting a rehearsal of music students in a Caracan parking lot in 1975, El Sistema’s origins are equally owed to another orchestra. That same year, arts advocate Juan Martínez founded Venezuela’s first children’s orchestra in the Venezuelan city of Carora alongside three Chileans who previously taught for a similar program in Chile. I show that the two orchestras were frequent collaborators in the 1975–1977 period, a relationship that was essential in securing government and public support for the nascent Venezuelan program. I combine oral history and historiography to detail how the project in Carora began, define its relationship with Abreu’s orchestra in Caracas, and describe its pedagogy, philosophy, and funding. Beyond illuminating a historical narrative that highlights the importance of both national and international cooperation in the development of youth orchestras in Venezuela, this research has broad implications for advocacy and development of musical programs, within and outside schools.

The purpose of this investigation was to acquire a better understanding of the decision-making process of Thai pre-service music education students and their expectations of their post-graduation professional activities. Demographic data was gathered as well as self-reported participant influences regarding choosing to major in music education. A free response question sought participants’ perception of their role as a music educator in their community. Results tended to mirror those of previous research. Emergent themes from the free response question included teacher behaviors, teacher traits, and student outcomes. These data may help to provide a better understanding of the pre-service music educators’ influences to become music educators, and their post-graduation expectations, as well as providing important information that may lead to possible revisions in current music education curricula in Thailand. Immediate and future relevance of the data and areas for further research were discussed.

Cambodia’s recent history of conflict and political instability has resulted in a recognized need to recover, regenerate, preserve and protect the nation’s cultural heritage. Many education programmes catering for disadvantaged youth have implemented traditional Khmer music and dance lessons, suggesting that these programmes share the responsibility of cultural regeneration, and view the survival of traditional art forms as dependent on their bequeathal to these young children. In this regard, the musical future of the country is, at least in part, dependent on the success of the vulnerable. However, these vulnerable students are living in a rapidly changing Cambodia, with higher levels of education, increasing international communications and influences, developing infrastructure, urbanization and fundamentally different ways of going about everyday life, work and leisure, to their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Through semi-structured individual interviews conducted with Cambodian staff and music, dance and theatre teachers from three music and dance programmes provided by non-governmental organizations catering for vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, we explore how the conflicting objectives of conservation and cosmopolitanism are negotiated and navigated in schools. This study explores themes of conservation, coexistence of multiple traditions and education in wider Cambodian society through performance. These themes are discussed in relation to the ethics of arts teaching, which—whilst intensified in the Cambodian context—are relevant beyond this particular case study.

The purposes of this research were to discover the effects of manual (hand) and pedal (foot) movements, tempo, and gender on steady beat accuracy. Participants (N = 119) consisted of male (n = 63) and female (n = 56) kindergarten students randomly divided into two groups, counterbalanced with regard to school, homeroom, and gender. Participants performed steady beat by either tapping or stepping on MIDI controllers. Given a visual model, students were asked to synchronize to the steady beat of musical examples at slow (80 bpm), medium (100 bpm), and fast (120 bpm) tempi. Participants had lowest overall accuracy scores at the fast tempo and highest accuracy scores at the medium tempo. Lowest scores for both males and females were found with pedal movement at a fast tempo. Females performed best with manual movement at a slow tempo, while males performed best with manual movement at a medium tempo. Overall, participants in the manual group scored higher than participants in the pedal group at all tempi. Results of the two-way mixed analysis of variance revealed no main effect for tempi or gender and no statistically significant interactions. There was a main effect for manual/pedal grouping, with manual participants scoring higher than pedal participants.

This article explores cooperative learning in choral conducting education. The five characteristics of cooperative learning identified by Adams and Hamm ((1996). Cooperative learning: Critical thinking and collaboration across the curriculum (2nd ed.). Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas Publishers): positive interdependence; face-to-face interaction; individual accountability and personal responsibility for reaching groups goals; frequent practice with small-group interpersonal skills; and regular group processing and reflection have been used to structure the discussion on the learners’ perception of their development and their module’s effectiveness. The context in focus was an elective module on choral conducting education at master’s level. Cooperative learning in choral conducting education was shown to support the learners’ motivation for active participation in the teaching and learning process; to increase respect for diversity; to support the learners’ development of interpersonal, communication, leadership and teaching skills at both an individual and at a collective level; and to improve teacher effectiveness.