Given the growing acceptance of information and communication technology (ICT) as integral to today's middle and secondary school classrooms, electroacoustic music would seem on the surface to be a central feature of the music curriculum. However, models that approximate actual practices of electroacoustic music in the classroom are rare, with many schools focusing squarely on ICT, either as tools to facilitate traditional musical contexts or to explore innovative uses of that technology. Also, with the exception of some notable recent developments, there are few initiatives to bring middle and secondary students, or their teachers, into contact with the practices of electroacoustic music communities. The purpose of this article is to explore this problematic gap between the education and electroacoustic music communities in an attempt to identify some of the issues that lie at the foundation of an effective curriculum. The position taken is that these foundational matters need to be addressed prior to any discussion of ‘best practices’ for middle and secondary electroacoustic music education.

This articles sketches the history, vision and implementation of the ElectroAcoustic Resource Site 2 (www.ears2.dmu.ac.uk), also known as the EARS pedagogical site. EARS 2 was originally intended to act as a miniature version of the original EARS site (www.ears.dmu.ac.uk), created specifically for young people, thus a site introducing vocabulary and relevant publications. However, after careful consideration, it proved much more valuable to create an entire pedagogical environment introducing primarily, although not exclusively, children aged 11 to 14 to electroacoustic music in terms of its concepts, repertoire and creative practice. The Compose with Sounds software (www.cws.dmu.ac.uk) package has been specifically developed for this initiative and is introduced in this article along with the EARS 2 project. The contextual discussion focuses on the issue of making innovative music accessible to inexperienced audiences, and includes a discussion of the project goal of enhancing learning through technology behind this new initiative.

This article introduces research on the influence of teaching on the change of inexperienced listeners’ appreciation of electroacoustic music. A curriculum was developed to make Key Stage 3 students (11–14 years old)1 familiar with electroacoustic music. The curriculum introduced music using concepts, such as music with real-world sounds and music with generated sounds. Presented in an online environment and accompanied with a teachers’ handbook, the curriculum can be used online or as classroom-based teaching resource.

The online environment was developed with the help of user-centred design. Following this, the curriculum was tested in a large-scale study including four Key Stage 3 classes within three schools in Leicester, UK. Data were collected using questionnaires, a listening response test and a summary of the teaching (letter written by participants). Qualitative content analysis was used for the data analysis.

Results include the change of the participants’ appreciation of electroacoustic music during the study. Successful learning and a decrease in alienation towards electroacoustic music could be measured. The study shows that the appreciation of electroacoustic music can be enhanced through the acquirement of conceptual knowledge. Especially important was the enhancing of listening skills following a listening training as well as the broadening of the participants’ vocabulary that enabled them to describe their listening experience.

Originally designed by Xenakis to free him from traditional music notation while allowing a faithful execution of his musical thought, UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu) was quickly diverted from its original functions. Even if Xenakis recommended to apprentice composers who came to study with him ‘listen to a lot of music and write’ (Serrou 2003: 20), this machine, since its inception, has enabled a large number of people to access music composition, because it does not require any preliminary theoretical training. Based on this observation we ask how UPIC, capable of converting a drawing into sound in real-time, upset the perception of musical pedagogy not only in Europe but also worldwide, through the many workshops/concerts offered to a wide audience. Exchanges and emulation around this invention are discussed as well.

After describing the technical development of this tool and, by extension, Xenakis's pedagogical thinking, we will highlight some of the most significant encounters between the machine and the public thanks to many unpublished sources found in the archives of the Centre Iannis Xenakis (CIX) recently deposited at the University of Rouen. We will highlight the pedagogical correlation between sound theory, gesture and image involved in the composition of a UPIC score. We will also approach other software applications that combine drawing and sound.

EarSketch is an all-in-one approach to supporting a holistic introductory course to computer music as an artistic pursuit and a research practice. Targeted to the high school and undergraduate levels, EarSketch enables students to acquire a strong foundation in electroacoustic composition, computer music research and computer science. It integrates a Python programming environment with a commercial digital audio workstation program (Cockos’ Reaper) to provide a unified environment within which students can use programmatic techniques in tandem with more traditional music production strategies to compose music. In this paper we discuss the context and goals of EarSketch, its design and implementation, and its use in a pilot summer camp for high school students.

This paper observes the conditions of reception and understanding of music using the theoretical concepts of learning (Chevallard 1985; Brousseau 1998) adapted to the teaching of these various musics (Terrien 2006). We verify, in the light of an epistemological questioning, the nature of electroacoustic music, and if the didactic transposition (Verret 1975; Chevallard 1985) applied to Yan Maresz's Metallics allows us to understand the phenomena of music (listening, intention-reception: issues of perception and interpretation), and identify issues of language. Our contribution is a tool for reflection on a teaching approach that relies on new teaching methods in the teaching of this music.

Teaching live electronic music techniques to instrumental performers presents some interesting challenges. Whilst most higher music education institutions provide opportunities for composers to explore computer-based techniques for live audio processing, it is rare for performers to receive any formal training in live electronic music as part of their study. The first experience of live electronics for many performers is during final preparation for a concert. If a performer is to give a convincing musical interpretation ‘with’ and not simply ‘into’ the electronics, significant insight and preparation are required. At Birmingham Conservatoire we explored two distinct methods for teaching live electronics to performers between 2010 and 2012: training workshops aimed at groups of professional performers, and a curriculum pilot project aimed at augmenting undergraduate instrumental lessons. In this paper we present the details of these training methods followed by the qualitative results of specific case studies and a post-training survey. We discuss the survey results in the context of tacit knowledge gained through delivery of these programmes, and finally suggest recommendations and possibilities for future research.

The conceptual starting point for an ‘action–sound approach’ to teaching music technology is the acknowledgment of the couplings that exist in acoustic instruments between sounding objects, sound-producing actions and the resultant sounds themselves. Digital music technologies, on the other hand, are not limited to such natural couplings, but allow for arbitrary new relationships to be created between objects, actions and sounds. The endless possibilities of such virtual action–sound relationships can be exciting and creatively inspiring, but they can also lead to frustration among performers and confusion for audiences. This paper presents the theoretical foundations for an action–sound approach to electronic instrument design and discusses the ways in which this approach has shaped the undergraduate course titled ‘Interactive Music’ at the University of Oslo. In this course, students start out by exploring various types of acoustic action–sound couplings before moving on to designing, building, performing and evaluating both analogue and digital electronic instruments from an action–sound perspective.

Although the pedagogy of music technology more closely resembles that of other academic subjects, the teaching of electroacoustic composition involves a significant degree of creativity, and thus relies on different creativity-specific parts of the brain and memory systems (Lehmann 2007). This paper reviews recent neuroscientific research that may assist differentiation between effective pedagogical approaches of these two subjects where knowledge is stored in separate, discrete and sometimes competing long-term memory locations (Cotterill 2001). It argues that, because of these differences, the learning of music technology and electroacoustic composition is best kept separate, at least in the beginning stages. These points are underscored by an example of a demonstrably failed pedagogical model for teaching electroacoustic composition contrasted with a subsequent highly successful model employed in the same university music programme; an experience that may translate well to other learning environments.

At Penn State, music technology is something of a stranger in a strange land. As a programme, it began in the early twenty-first century, when the necessity of the moment was an anticipated revision to the guidelines from the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), the North American accrediting body. Music schools were charged with ensuring that music majors were exposed to ‘relevant technologies’. It was left largely to individual institutions to interpret what this meant. At Penn State, a course was created to address this guideline, and it generated interest among students. This course then spawned a series of related courses. These courses eventually created enough of a curricular presence to warrant creating an undergraduate minor. We now expect that the minor will spawn an undergraduate major. The music technology programme's locus lies not solely within the School of Music; rather, it overlaps as an interdisciplinary area with a variety of programmes throughout the university's offerings. These overlaps are a unique feature of the programme. It is an unusual arrangement, but it is a product of its time and place. Three populations of students have coalesced, and the pedagogical challenge has been to create a curriculum that can serve all of them. The programme might be thought of as series of concentric spheres; each is centred around the same general concept structure, but with expanding breadth for different levels of student involvement.

This paper presents recent work in engaging both students and working professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds with the practice of collective and site-specific electroacoustic music creation. The emphasis is placed on embodied, deep listening in tandem with a manual approach to sonic art creation that bridges an understanding of the interplay between digital sound manipulation, larger composed structures and the physical presentation of a work in a given space. Through a practice-oriented approach, participants gain insights into areas such as the abstract world of digital sound recording and representation, the extreme influence on this content enacted by a given sound delivery system and a given space, and the subjective experience of listening to sounds from a variety of orientations and postures, and with varying levels of understanding of the original source recordings. Finally, through a group approach to composing larger structures, participants begin to understand the often mysterious and unsaid processes involved in the normally solitary act of composing electroacoustic music.

This article presents a framework for describing, understanding and evaluating the experience of voice in acousmatic electroacoustic music and related genres through the maximal–minimal model. This model, which is inspired by literary theory, theories of radiophonic voice as well as theories of electroacoustic music, presents maximal and minimal voice as loosely defined poles constituting end points on a continuum on which experienced voices can be localised. Here, maximal voice, which parallels the informative and clearly articulated speaking voice dominant in the radio medium, is described as the converging fulfilment of seven premises. These premises are seen as partly interconnected conditions related to particular aspects or features of the experience of voice. At the other end of the continuum, minimal voice is defined as a boundary zone between voice and non-voice, a zone which is related to the negative fulfilment of the seven premises. The two poles are presented as centre and periphery, respectively, with the seven premises constituting multiple axes spreading out from the centre. These features, it is argued, parallel Lakoff's cluster model of categorisation. Lastly, the article briefly discusses the use of the framework in analysis of electroacoustic works with voice, and it demonstrates two ways in which the evaluations according to the framework can be visualised.