There are two ‘naughty’ words that I have encountered in conversation with teachers about teaching – one a little nostalgic, one more recent – and there is close association between them. The first – the nostalgic one – is ‘mongrel’. There, I said it. I started my teaching career at a ‘tough’ (but much beloved)…
Author: Cade Bonar
Head of Music at an independent school in Queensland, Australia; interested in action research in and for music education.
Growing greener and good enough…
I am heading into my thirteenth year as a music teacher… though I feel ‘greener’ than ever. I don’t see this as a bad thing — I am just more aware of my values and motivations. I know that I am, to borrow Swanwick’s phrase, a ‘good enough music teacher’ – “not some idealised perfection…
“If you cannot teach me to fly…”
“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan The 2017 school year is over… and we certainly ‘flew’ through it! As I’ve shared before, one of my last tasks to complete is a summary and reflection on the year in classroom music for the College magazine. I…
A ‘map’ for music education philosophy and practice
I am certainly not, in this forum, going to launch a proposition of a new philosophy of music education (I need more experience and time for that!) – though it is hard to escape our history in this area – but I will offer a ‘map’. Over the years, there has been some very robust…
Instructions for ‘detangling’: Structuring a Musicology viewpoint
In an earlier post – Disentangling the entangled: Thinking about and through Musicology – I spoke of an approach to music analysis as it is required of in Queensland’s Music: Senior Syllabus (QCAA, 2013)[i]. Since then, I have also received Musicology work from both my Year 11 and Year 12 Music classes. The Year 11…
Working with tentative composers… limiting the options.
In composing music, there are no rules. Though there are strong musical expectations in both the composer and audience, nothing, really, is off limits! Style will impose expectations and guide what we think of the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of the notes we choose. As Thelonious Monk once said, “there are no wrong notes; some are…
Disentangling the entangled: Thinking about and through Musicology
After much deconstruction and analysis of music, my Year 11 Music students are about to embark on their first formal Musicology task. In Queensland, Australia, Musicology is a dimension of the current senior syllabus.[i] It involves “the study of music in social, historical and cultural contexts… it entails researching, analysing and evaluating repertoire… in a…
Teachers owning education research
I am a teacher; I am also a ‘newly minted’ education researcher… and I think the latter very much supports and enhances the former. I am currently considering applying for a position in my school that brings education research into the ‘everyday life’ of teachers and students… but I am very wary of the baggage…
Digital music technologies: A double-edged sword?
Digital technologies have infiltrated many of the ways we produce and consume music. They have provided an increased level of access to music making, creation, production and sharing – anyone with access to a computer (or a tablet or phone!) can, for example, explore music and musical processes without the need for a ‘teacher’. Many…
Stepping back and seeing more…
As teachers, stepping back from the ‘action’ can feel counterintuitive. We invest ourselves in the detail and feel this is our place. However, in working in this way we can forgo our understanding of the ’bigger picture’ – as the well-known idiom goes, we ‘can’t see the woods for the trees’. When we work with…
Dr Cade Bonar 