Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:05:50.869Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Informal music learning, improvisation and teacher education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2010

Ruth Wright  and
Panagiotis Kanellopoulos
Ruth Wright
Affiliation:
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Talbot College, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 3K7, Canadarwrigh6@uwo.ca
Panagiotis Kanellopoulos
Affiliation:
Department of Early Childhood Education, School of the Humanities, University of Thessaly, Argonafton & Filellinon, 38221 Volos, Greecepankanel@uth.gr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper1 explores firstly the sense in which improvisation might be conceived of as an informal music education process and, secondly, the effects of a course in free improvisation on student teachers' perceptions in relation to themselves as musicians, music as a school subject and children as musicians. The results of a study conducted in two Greek universities are presented. Using a narrative methodology, examples of data from the reflective diaries or learning journals which 91 trainee teachers kept as part of their participation in an improvisation module are presented and discussed. The argument is made that improvisation, as a particular type of informal music learning process, has an important role to play in fostering the qualities required of teachers to work with informal pedagogies in music education. Furthermore, we would suggest that such musical experiences might gradually lead to the development of a critical perspective on both music education theories and practices. Improvisation might emerge as a moment and a practice of rupture with linearity of progress, working against reification of knowledge and glorification of received information. The findings suggest that improvisation might offer a route for creating an intimate, powerful, evolving dialogue between students' identities as learners, their attitudes towards children and their creative potential, and the interrelationships of the notions of expressive technique and culture, thus becoming ‘an act of transcendence’ (Allsup, 1997, p. 81). We propose that the issue of connecting informal learning and improvisation might be resolved by regarding improvisation as an exemplary case of creating a communicative context where most representations/conceptualisations/struggles to solve problems are left implicit. Such experiences for pupils and teachers alike might further extend the social and personal effectiveness of informal learning as music pedagogy.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 27 , Issue 1: Informal Learning in Music Education , March 2010 , pp. 71 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ABRAHAMS, F. (2005) ‘Critical pedagogy for music education: A best practice to prepare future music educators’, Visions of Research in Music Education, 6, 1–8, retrieved April 17, 2009 from: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme/Google Scholar
ALLSUP, R. E. (2008) ‘Creating an educational framework for popular music in public schools: Anticipating the second-wave’, Visions of Research in Music Education (Special Edition – Beyond Lucy Green: Operationalizing Theories of Informal Music Learning), 12, 1–12. Retrieved 24 January 2009 from: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme/Google Scholar
ALLSUP, R. E. (1997) ‘Activating self-transformation through improvisation in instrumental music teaching’, Philosophy of Music Education Review, 5 (2), 80–85.Google Scholar
APPLE, M. W. (2005) ‘Making critical pedagogy strategic – on doing critical educational work in conservative times’, in Ze'ev, I. Gur (Ed.), Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy Today: Toward a New Critical Language in Education. Haifa: University of Haifa Press.Google Scholar
BAILEY, J. & DOUBLEDAY, V. (1990) ‘Patterns of musical enculturation in Afghanistan’, in Wilson, F. R. & Roehmann, F. L. (Eds.), Music and Child Development: Proceedings of the 1987 Denver Conference (pp. 88–99). Missouri: MMB Music.Google Scholar
BENEDICT, C. (2007) ‘On the narrative of challenged assumptions’, Research Studies in Music Education, 29, 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BIESTA, G. (2007) ‘Why ‘what works’ won't work: evidence-based practice and the democratic deficit of educational research’, Educational Theory, 57 (1), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BIESTA, G. & OSBERG, D. (2007) ‘Beyond re/presentation: A case for updating the epistemology of schooling’,Interchange, 38 (1), 15–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BROWN, S. J., COLLINS, A. & DUGUID, P. (1989) ‘Situated cognition and the culture of learning’, Educational Researcher, 18 (1), 32–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CASTORIADIS, C. (1991) ‘Power politics autonomy’, in Curtis, D. A. (Ed. & Trans.), Cornelius Castoriadis – Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy: Essays in Political Philosophy (pp. 143–174). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
CASTORIADIS, C. (1997) ‘Phusis and Autonomy’, in Curtis, D. A. (Ed. & Trans.), Cornelius Castoriadis – World in Fragments (pp. 331–341). Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
CASTORIADIS, C. (2007) ‘Psyche and education’, in Hamacher, W. (Ed.), H. Arnold (Trans.), Cornelius Castoriadis – Figures of the Thinkable (pp. 165–187). Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
CLANDININ, J. D. (Ed.) (2007) Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
COLLEY, H., HODKINSON, P. & MALCOLM, J. (2003) Informality and Formality in Learning. Report to the Learning and Skills Research Centre from the Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Leeds. London: Learning and Skills Development Agency.Google Scholar
DEVINE, N. & IRWIN, R. (2006) ‘Autonomy, agency and education: He tangata, he tangata, he tangata’, in Smeyers, P. & Peters, M. A. (Eds.), Postfoundationalist Themes in the Philosophy of Education: Festschrift for James D. Marshall (pp. 11–24). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
ERAUT, M. (2000) ‘Non-formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work’, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70 (1), 113–136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
FITZSIMONS, P. (2002) ‘Neoliberalism and education: the autonomous chooser’, Radical Pedagogy, 4. Retrieved 2 August 2009 from: http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue4_2/04_fitzsimons.htmlGoogle Scholar
FOLKESTAD, G. (2006) ‘Formal and informal learning situations or practices vs. formal and informal ways of learning’, British Journal of Music Education, 23 (2), 135–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FORD, C. C. (1995) ‘Free collective improvisation in higher education’, British Journal of Music Education, 12 (2), 103–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FREIRE, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1993 edn). New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
GEORGII-HEMMING, E. (2007) ‘Hermeneutic knowledge: Dialogue between experiences’, Research Studies in Music Education, 29, 13–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GIROUX, H. (1983a) Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
GIROUX, H. (1983b) ‘Rationality, reproduction, and resistance: toward a critical theory of schooling’, in McNall, S. (Ed.), Current Perspectives in Social Theory (pp. 85–118). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
GIROUX, H. (1985) ‘Teachers as intellectuals’, Social Education, 49 (15), 376–379.Google Scholar
GIROUX, H. (1988a) ‘Literacy and the pedagogy of political empowerment’, Educational Theory, 38 (1), 61–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GIROUX, H. (1988b) ‘Schrag speaks: Spinning the wheel of misfortune’, Educational Theory, 38 (1), 145–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GIROUX, H. (1988c) ‘Hope and radical education’, Journal of Education, 170 (2), 91–101.Google Scholar
GIROUX, H. A. (1997) Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and Schooling. Oxford: Westview.Google Scholar
GIROUX, H. & MCLAREN, P. (1994) Between Borders: Pedagogy and Politics in Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
GREEN, L. (2002) How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
GREEN, L. (2008a). Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
GREEN, L. (2008b). Response to panel: Beyond Lucy Green: Operationalizing theories of informal music learning panel presentation. Visions of Research in Music Education (Special Edition – Beyond Lucy Green: Operationalizing Theories of Informal Music Learning), 12, 1–9. Retrieved 24 January 2009 from: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme/Google Scholar
GREENE, M. (1995) Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
HABERMAS, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
HANKS, W. F. (1991) ‘Introduction’, in Lave, J. & Wenger, E., Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (pp. 13–24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LANKSHEAR, C. (1982) Freedom and Education: Towards a Non-Rational Philosophy of Education. Auckland: Milton Brookes.Google Scholar
LAVE, J. & WENGER, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LEVINSON, M. (1999) The Demands of Liberal Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MARCUSE, H. (1991) One-Dimensional Man (2nd edn). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
MARSHALL, J. D. (1996) Michel Foucault: Personal Autonomy and Education. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MCCARTHY, M. (2007) ‘Narrative inquiry as a way of knowing in music education’, Studies in Music Education, 29, 3–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MCLAREN, P. (2006) Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (5th edn). New Jersey: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
NACHMANOVITCH, S. (1990) Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. New York: J. P. Tarcher.Google Scholar
NETTL, B. (2007) ‘Interlude: An ethnomusicological perspective’, in Bresler, L. (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (pp. 829–834). Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OLSSEN, M. (2006) ‘Foucault, educational research and the issue of autonomy’, in Smeyers, P. & Peters, M. A. (Eds.), Postfoundationalist Themes in the Philosophy of Education: Festchrift for James D. Marshall (pp. 57–79). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
PAYNTER, J. (1992) Sound and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
PETERS, M. A. (2009) ‘Education, creativity and the economy of passions: new forms of educational capitalism’, Thesis Eleven, 96, 40–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PONGRATZ, L. (2005) Critical theory and pedagogy: Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer's contemporary significance for a critical pedagogy. In Fischman, G. E., McLaren, P., Sünker, H. & Lankshear, C. (Eds.), Critical Theories, Radical Pedagogies, and Global Conflicts (pp. 154–163). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
PRÉVOST, E. (1995) No Sound is Innocent: AMM and The Practice of Self-Invention. Meta-Musical Narratives. Essays. Essex: Copula.Google Scholar
RANCIÈRE, J. (2004a) The Politics of Aesthetics (trans. Rockhill, G.). New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
RANCIÈRE, J. (2004b) Malaise dans l'esthétique. Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
REICH, R. (2002) Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
RICE, T. (1985) ‘Music learnt but not taught: The Bulgarian case’, in McAllester, D. P. (project director), Becoming Human through Music (pp. 115–122). Reston: MENC.Google Scholar
SALADIN, M. (2009) Points of resistance and criticism in free improvisation: remarks on a musical practice and some economic transformations. In Noise and Capitalism (pp. 133–149). Kritika (this book is intended as a non-copyrighted material and is available at: http://www.arteleku.net/audiolab/noise_capitalism.pdf)Google Scholar
SEFTON-GREEN, J. & SOEP, E. (2007) ‘Creative media cultures: Making and learning beyond the school’, in Bresler, L. (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (pp. 835–854). Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
STAKE, R. E. (1995) The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
VAN MANEN, M. (1990) Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. Ontario: Althouse.Google Scholar
WALDUCK, J. (2005) ‘Collaborative arts practice and identity: The role of leadership’, in Odam, G. & Bannan, N. (Eds.), The Reflective Conservatoire (pp. 301–331). London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
WOLCOTT, H. F. (1995) The Art of Fieldwork. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.Google Scholar