In my experience, the best instrumental teachers I’ve worked with have taught much more than the instrument – they taught music; the instrument was the vehicle. The development of technique was central to what they did, but it was approached in musical ways. Conveying a musical idea was paramount and their approaches were robust. Pieces…
Category: Music education
Five Minds and Music
I will often search for a memorable, ‘accessible’ and somewhat ‘inspiring’ quote to act as an epigraph for my end-of-year school magazine article (yes, it’s that time of year again already!). The theme I went with to encapsulate 2015 was, basically, that ‘musicking’ activates many facets of our ‘mind’ – that when we ‘music’, we…
Some Brief Thoughts on Characterising Effective Pedagogies in Music Education
For some time now I have been wrestling with some considerations that I feel need to underpin our educative interactions as music teachers. My thoughts have been continually prompted by classroom action and reflection, and I will now think these considerations ‘out loud’ and position them as pedagogical (educative) conditions that I feel need to…
Encouraging ‘deeper listening’ and own thinking about and of music
In Year 11 and 12 Music in Queensland, Australia, students work from the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) Music: Senior Syllabus[i]. From the learning experiences devised from this document, students are assessed across three dimensions of musical study – Composition, Musicology, and Performance. In my experience, the dimensions of Performance and Composition often draw…
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue…
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue… I am sure we have all encountered this saying before… perhaps even enacted it on that ‘special day’? I heard someone quote this last week and my mind immediately associated it with the way I approach teaching music. Later that day I looked up the saying to discover that it…
Some Thoughts on Developing Aural Awareness
Aural training – or ‘aural skills’ – formed a significant part of my own formal music education throughout secondary school. Aural skills exercises typically demanded that we identify short rhythmic, melodic and two-part melodic/harmonic phrases, and then realise them through staff notation. We would have limited hearings and no external points of reference (other than…
Learning About Teaching Composition
A few years ago I conducted a year-long action research project that sought to identify ways in which music education could engender greater student engagement in meaningful musical experience. I learnt a great deal both from and with my students – we became a democratic community of learners, reflecting on the action of our classroom…
Thoughts to guide my practice in 2014…
Before the first week of the 2014 academic year, I spent some time reflecting on some thoughts and processes that I would endeavour to have underpin my classroom action and interaction. They are drawn from readings, discussions; my reflections on the words of others… and I seek to keep them central to my practice over…
The student voice prompting pedagogical change in music education
In Meditation XVII from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne (1624) wrote: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main” (¶ 1). This passage brings forth a theme relevant to school music education today. Too often, music teachers see themselves and their…
@mtec2013
I’ve just returned from mtec2013 (Music Technology in Education Conference), held at the Yarra Valley Grammar School in Melbourne. As anticipated, many of the sessions were excellent, and I have taken away many ideas that will inform my own practice. There were also some exceptional keynotes – James Humberstone (@JamesHumbers) was truly an inspiration (and…
Dr Cade Bonar 