News

Intellect is happy to announce that the Journal of Popular music Education 2.3 is now available! For more information about the issue, click here >> https://bit.ly/2CmBwLH

Content

Editors’ introduction
Authors: Gareth Dylan Smith And Bryan Powell 

Haphazard pathways: Students’ perceptions of their routes to music study in higher education in the United Kingdom
Authors: Zack Moir And Bryden Stillie 

This article reports on a qualitative study, which explored perceptions of fourteen first-year undergraduate music students in the United Kingdom regarding their secondary school music education as preparation for undertaking degree-level music study. The authors (both lecturers in popular music at a UK university) were motivated to undertake this research to explore issues of alignment between school music and music degrees in the United Kingdom and the pathways students constructed through this transition. Data pertain to three key areas: students’ perceptions of the extent that school music courses prepared them for university application, students’ descriptions of their extracurricular music activities, and areas that students would like to change about their secondary music courses. Findings suggest that all interviewees felt underprepared for university study by their secondary music courses, yet differences in perception exist between students who were accepted to ‘classical’ music degrees, and those who went on to study popular music.

Modern band: A descriptive study of teacher perceptions
Authors: Clint Randles 

This study is a descriptive evaluation of the work of Little Kids Rock, a US non-profit organization that provided at the time of data collection free music instruction and instruments to over 187,754 students, 1120 teachers, in 30 cities around the United States. Music teachers (N=62 of 1120, 68% response rate) completed an end-of-the-year assessment of their perceptions of the learning outcomes of students involved with the programme. According to teachers’ perceptions: a majority of the programmes around the country utilize the acoustic guitar (94%), students have performed a few songs that they choose (66%), and students appear to be more engaged (76%) in their music classes. However, teachers believe that a majority of students have not composed an original song (68%), and cannot improvise on an instrument (68%). Implications for the future of the programme include better equipping teachers to teach songwriting and improvisation.

Towards an understanding of how creativities shape songs and build culture
Authors: Danny Halpin 

Creativity is now widely recognized as being an important factor in shaping culture. From songwriters to government ministers, many people seek to improve productivity by fostering creativity. However, among many of these social actors the nature of creativity is misunderstood, negatively affecting career opportunities, emotional well-being and quality of education. Through a case study and literature review, this article seeks to further the understanding of the influence of multiple creativities on popular music in the United Kingdom, demonstrating how musicians collaborate creatively and how researchers, educators and public officials all contribute to the domain, improving opportunities for artists and sharpening Britain’s competitive edge in a globalized world. It also concludes that creativity must not simply be seen as another source of capital above its uses for improving personal lives and ambitions.

Dynamics of digital media in school music contexts
Authors: Tess Nielsen 

This study focuses on participants’ behaviours and practices as they discovered, produced and shared music using digital devices. Three broad areas of engagement include students’ perception of digital music reception, self-production and transmission. A constructivist–interpretivist viewpoint frames the theoretical perspective of the study. Interviews and observations of four high school students and their music teacher comprise the data. Detailed accounts illustrate the perceptions of the participants, building a thick description. The study also considers what a music teacher understood about her students’ out-of-school musical interactions. The findings are represented in a visual model demonstrating the convergence and divergence of digital music engagement in a high school setting. Themes of experiencing music for personal identity, creativity and popular culture intermix in classroom and informal learning contexts. The outcomes may suggest possible paths for connecting in-school and out-of-school music learning with digital devices.

Finding pedagogical value in Australian contemporary popular music: A comparative case study of electric guitar compositional styles
Authors: Daniel Lee And Bill Baker And Nick Haywood 

How do educators ascertain the pedagogical value of a musical composition for inclusion as curriculum exemplars? A number of factors contribute, including: canonic status, historical and cultural significance, popularity and aesthetic values. This comparative case study examines a number of Australian compositions from within the scope of contemporary popular music (CPM) looking for musical richness as a factor of pedagogical value in modern guitar curricula. Using The Beatles’ song ‘Eleanor Rigby’ as a comparative basis, musicological methodologies of theoretical analysis are applied to six Australian CPM compositions to evaluate their pedagogical value. Discussion of the musical richness discovered in each composition leads to conclusions regarding their value within a guitar programme of an Australian CPM school curriculum.

Higher Ed Rocks: Don’t fret the small stuff
Authors: Virginia Wayman Davis 

This article presents an account of the Modern Band Higher Education Fellowship – a week of professional development workshops for music teacher educators in the United States. The workshop focused on Modern Band instruments and curriculum, underpinned by Music as a Second Language pedagogy. Fellowship participants all took part in a gig at a local venue, performing on instruments with which they had varying degrees of familiarity – embracing the Modern Band ethos of participatory learning, approximation and curating a low-anxiety environment. Among key benefits of the workshop, the author notes improved aural skills, stronger orientation towards student-centred learning experiences and re-engaging with music-making for fun. Fellows returned to their colleges, committed to embedding Modern Band into their undergraduate syllabi. The author urges other music education professors to attend a Modern Band Higher Education Fellowship.