More advanced music teaching skill
Would creating a hierachy of music teaching skill be helpful at a time when there are official demands to identify ‘outstanding’ teachers? What happened to advanced skills teachers? And now comes the...
View ArticleWorking with the hidden hand of Edvard Grieg
And now the BBC’s Ten Pieces are with us ‘to inspire a generation of children to get creative with classical music’. [1] So let me tell you about a music teacher getting creative with Grieg’s In the...
View ArticleMaking sense of selves in Katy’s workshop
I am sitting in a circle alongside thirty-six second and third year music undergraduates who have opted for a module in Music Education. They are an interesting mix coming as they do from a western...
View ArticleWhy so few descriptions of music lessons?
Why so few – I mean so few thick descriptions rich enough for the reader to feel they are there, smelling the carpet, sensing the ebb and flow of relationships and interactions, getting the climate of...
View ArticleThe Creative Orchestra
In last week’s blog I highlighted three analytical categories that might assist in understanding the ‘good enough’ music lesson described. These can be thought of as dimensions of pedagogy. This week I...
View ArticleCritical intent
My recent blogs have been about teaching music. By working through thick descriptions of music lessons I have so far proposed four dimensions of music teaching that might help in the observation,...
View ArticleCuriosity and the playful music teacher
They form a circle, and following introductions, the teacher creates a movement-sound sequence figuratively faithful to motives from Mahler’s Symphony No 5 first movement, the ‘Trauermarsch’. The...
View ArticleLuke and his pipe dreams
Soundcastle is a musical social enterprise sparking imaginations, expanding horizons in musical leadership and much more. [1] I was pleased to accept Soundcastle’s invitation to The Centre, Merchants...
View ArticleFive scenes from the music room
This week I was pleased to discover Jane Parker’s rich description of a scene from the early years. This is scene 1 below. In her blog Jane goes on to analyse what is thought to be going on here – the...
View ArticleWorthwhile music making in ‘the wasted years’ [1]
Preamble It is difficult to imagine music existing other than in context, that is, in relationship to human interactions in specific places and at specific times. Well, we could think of music as...
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