“I Made Myself Fit In”: Johny’s Story

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to re-story the experiences of a first-year music teacher with regard to race and class. Johny was a first-year high school guitar teacher in the southwestern United States who identified as Hispanic and was raised in a family with a lower income. He was also a first-generation college student whose path to university study was atypical because of his major instrument, musical background, little high school music class participation, and entrance to postsecondary music study at a community college. Johny’s story is a work of critical storytelling and is interpreted through an intersectional framework. His story compels us to thoughtfully attend to curriculum, musical knowledge, equity, and how music educators can serve an increasingly diverse student population in schools of music. Issues for consideration include (a) increased support of nontraditional students, including those from marginalized populations, such as students with lower incomes, first-generation students, and community college transfer students, and (b) promoting meaningful and collaborative change across multiple areas in schools of music.

Insourcing som samarbeid mellom kulturskole og grunnskole

The article explores collaboration between primary and lower secondary schools and schools of music and performing arts (‘kulturskole’), and examines how such cooperation can be understood as insourcing. Research in the field has shown that common collaboration models are most often based on an outsourcing idea, through the purchase of services. Such a model, in which teachers from schools of music and performing arts are hired to carry out specific tasks in primary/lower secondary schools, is not necessarily sustainable in the face of economic and cultural obstacles. Through a qualitative approach, this study therefore examines how collaboration between primary/lower secondary schools and schools of music and performing arts can be understood within an insourcing framework. Key actors who have experience with both conceptual and contextual conditions in collaboration between the schools have been interviewed, and a number of policy documents have also been studied. The usual understanding of insourcing implies using your own employees to solve tasks instead of outsourcing tasks by hiring external contractors. In this study, I argue that models based on insourcing, through a sustainable collaboration with the schools of music and performing arts, can contribute to lasting competence development and quality improvement in the arts and music subjects and important culture-building in primary/lower secondary school.

Music teachers’ perspectives on their chances to disrupt cultural and social reproduction in the Swedish Community Schools of Music and Arts

This study sheds light on music teachers’ perspectives on their chances to disrupt cultural and social reproduction in music education in the Swedish Community Schools of Music and Arts (kulturskolor, sing. kulturskola). Focus group conversations were carried out involving 18 teachers at five such schools. As a point of departure, the analysis of the conversations applied the theoretical perspective of Bourdieu with an emphasis on the concepts explicit versus implicit pedagogy and Bernstein’s corresponding concepts visible and invisible pedagogy. The analysis discusses explicit versus implicit assumptions interwoven in the teachers’ accounts of their efforts. The teachers describe it as difficult to challenge social structures. Based on marketing efforts vis-á-vis families from immigrant backgrounds, the teachers point to differing understandings of the significance of participation in the programmes. The teachers’ descriptions point to opportunities that stem from efforts to facilitate children taking part in music education in cooperation with compulsory schools, teaching practice habits and more general behaviours, and initiatives to reach parents and children from immigrant backgrounds with information. The descriptions show explicit as well as implicit components, often in terms of implicit assumptions embedded in an explicit framing. Reflection upon implicit assumptions is suggested as a means to develop more radical strategies to disrupt cultural and social reproduction in the Swedish kulturskolor.

The Examiner and the Evangelist: Authorities of Music and Empire, c.1894

In the 1890s, two musicians travelled between Britain and South Africa. One was the first examiner to travel abroad to examine for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, Franklin Taylor. At the same time as Taylor’s arrival in the Cape in 1894, a black South African composer, John Knox Bokwe, prepared to republish a tonic sol-fa hymnal containing many hymns that eventually became popular in Britain, to which Bokwe travelled multiple times. Although these narratives might appear to reflect highly divergent contexts for musical experience, the fluctuating constructions of imperial authority encountered in the careers of both these men link their stories together more deeply than their geographical and cultural disparities set them apart. The synchronous presentation of their stories in this article thus raises questions of how music emerged as a metaphor for constructions of imperial knowledge across shifting cultural boundaries.

“And a Droplet Reflects the World.” Imaginary Discord in Modal Theory, and Modal Development in Small Forms and Fragments

В данной статье рассматриваются принципы ладового развития в небольших произведениях и построениях. В избранных для анализа миниатюрной песне Листа «Радость и горе», четырехтактном фрагменте из «Хованщины» и ряде других образцов из музыки Шопена, Римского-Корсакова, Дебюсси, Слонимского, Лигети выявлены такие принципы модального и тонального становления, как сохранение или пополнение звукоряда, взаимодополняемость модусов, тональное и модальное модулирование, сбережение тона, модальная вариантность, отражение в формообразовании логики истории. В статье уточнены некоторые аспекты теории лада через призму концепций в области гармонии двух представителей санкт-петербургской и московской научных школ. Ощущение противоборства и непримиримости их трактовок создалось отчасти после острых формулировок Т. Бершадской: «Недоразумение, становящееся традицией»; «Изначальная ошибка популярной концепции». Автору данной статьи, внесшему некоторые корректировки и разъяснения, расхождения сторон представляются, однако, несущественными и даже мнимыми. Понимание лада как бинарной системы позволило в ладовом развитии выделить две его ветви - модальную и тональную, которые, как правило, находятся в тесном взаимосплетении при обычно определяющей роли одной из них. Предпринятые анализы произведений каждой из этих ветвей имеют различия, хоть они и направлены к осмыслению общих методологических принципов, которое для музыковедческой науки остается насущным. This article deals with the principles of modal development in short pieces and structures. The selected for the analysis Liszt's miniature song “Joy and Woe,” a four-beat fragment from “Khovanshchina” and a number of other examples from the music of Chopin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Slonimsky, and Ligeti reveal such principles of modal and tonal formation as: preservation or enrichment of the scale, complementarity of the modes, tonal and modal modulation, preservation of tone, modal variation, reflection of the logic of history in creating the musical form. The article clarifies some aspects of the modal theory through the prism of the concepts in the field of harmony as presented by two exponents of St. Petersburg and Moscow schools of music theory. The sentiment of confrontation and irreconcilability of their interpretations was created, in part, by T. Bershadskaya's sharp statements: “Misunderstanding that becomes a tradition,” “The initial mistake of the popular concept.” However, the author of this article, having made some adjustments and clarifications, considers the differences between the parties rather insignificant and even imaginary. The understanding of mode as a binary system made it possible to distinguish two branches in modal development-modal and tonal, which, as a rule, are closely intertwined, with one of them usually playing a determining role. The undertaken analyses of the works by each of these branches have certain differences, although they are aimed at understanding the general methodological principles, which remain essential for musicology.

Understanding the Learners

Chapter 4 examines the sequencing of undergraduate instruction in relation to student musical growth. Sample purposes and goals for undergraduate music education and typical degree outlines are provided from the National Association of Schools of Music. Vignettes written by music students are provided for each level of undergraduate student—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, which highlight student musical needs at various stages of development. The chapter encourages readers to reflect back on their own musical growth as undergraduate students, and provides instructors with suggestions for differentiating musical instruction.

The Language of Music, Music Theory for Non-Majors

The Language of Music, Music Theory for Non-Majors, is a textbook written to share the fundamentals of music notation with students outside of schools of music. Topics covered include rhythmic notation, meter and time signatures, pitch notation, scales, key signatures, intervals, triads and Roman numeral and lead sheet notation.

An Examination of Undergraduate Conductor Practice Behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine undergraduate conductors’ personal approaches to conducting practice, practice time allocation, and beliefs about their conducting abilities. Participants ( N = 126) were undergraduate conductors enrolled in basic conducting courses at 17 NASM (National Association of Schools of Music)–accredited institutions. Our findings indicated that “patterns” and “dynamics” were the most practiced conducting behaviors. “Sing or hum musical lines” and “silent conducting practice” were the most used practice strategies. Through responses to open-ended items, participants shared that hand independence was the most challenging conducting skill and wished that it was discussed more by their conducting instructor, while “conducting patterns” was the skill that came most naturally. Undergraduate conductors practiced an average of 48 minutes per week across 2 to 3 days, and during practice sessions they used a score almost three fourths of the time. Implications for conducting practice and curricula are discussed.