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- Volume 4, Issue 2, 2012
Journal of Music, Technology & Education - Volume 4, Issue 2-3, 2012
Volume 4, Issue 2-3, 2012
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Key research in music technology and music teaching and learning
More LessResearch on the use of technology in music teaching and learning continues to grow in both quality and quantity. This article summarizes some of the important work since 2000, placing an emphasis on studies completed in the last few years. Both conceptual and philosophical publications are included as well as qualitative and quantitative work on technology in service to composition, listening and performance. One major conclusion is that we need more substantial studies on teaching strategies that use technology, issues of gender and technology, equity in accessibility to the best resources and the real effect of technology's use on long-term learning in music for professional musicians and the educated public as a whole.
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The non-traditional music student in secondary schools of the United States: Engaging non-participant students in creative music activities through technology
More LessThis article discusses the 'non-traditional music' (NTM) student in secondary education in the United States as a unique population of students who are 'non-participants' in traditional music ensembles. Through the use of current music technology, teachers are offering technology-based music classes (TBMCs) and are successfully engaging NTM students in performing, recording and composing. Eight attributes are proposed to characterize NTMs. An estimate of the non-participant music population and the validity of the proposed NTM attributes are examined through an analysis of anecdotal and empirical data from several extant studies. The results suggest that these attributes reasonably describe NTMs with some modification. NTMs are in the sixth through twelfth grades, do not typically participate in traditional performing ensembles, and most likely do not read standard music notation. More than 67 per cent of these students may play an instrument or sing, 28 per cent have an active music life outside of school, and many aspire to a career in music industry or performance. There is also evidence that TBMCs are motivationally beneficial to academic- and discipline-challenged students. Revisions to the set of attributes for NTMs are offered and suggestions for future research are proposed with special attention to parallels in music programmes internationally.
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Redefining Music Technology in the United States
By Fred J. ReesWhile its presence in the commercial music world has long been obvious, music professors and school teachers in the United States have largely ignored or retreated from engaging in or creating technological tools for their work. Many had no experience with music technology during their education while others who employ technological resources have had to learn about them on their own. At the same time, there is growing evidence of interdisciplinary research, particularly in music cognition and neuroscience along with creative initiatives in telematics and new instrument development that hold implications for the future of the field. As an academic discipline, music technology is young, with a growing number of tertiary degree programmes that cover a vast territory of specializations related to the field, thus offering no clear identity to it. To address these issues, this article proposes a comprehensive definition of music technology that takes them into account.
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Educational leadership, musical creativities and digital technology in education
More LessMusic has long been at the forefront of technological advancement, with music educators well-positioned to exploit its potential. This article uses various scenarios to illustrate the visions and values required of educational leadership to change the culture of music in schools. In it I elaborate on some of the diverse musical creativities that can be broadly construed as a composite of practices that are refreshed and re-envisioned through digital technology. I present vignettes and narratives from the field of music in education that allow us to enter the realms of resourcefulness and reflectiveness of artist-musicians and, importantly, examine student-teacher experiences that lie behind an understanding of multiple musical creativities. These vignettes and personal narratives provide examples of how: (1) musical creativities are fostered by utilizing digital technologies in educational practice; (2) musical creativities and digital technology underpin innovative educational practices; and (3) leaders in education and elsewhere have the power and influence to change school culture and promote diversity in musical creativities and the use of digital technology in education.
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'Getting there': Do we need to study how people compose music?
By Dave CollinsThe study of musical composition as an aspect of creative cognition remains underresearched in comparison with other facets of the musical experience such as perception and performance. This short position article questions why this might be the case and any associated implications for music education. As a foil to lingering Romantic and post-Romantic notions of creativity as unexplorable 'inspiration', it posits a stance of viewing the act of musical composition (in terms of 'getting there' from silence to a sound object) as one aspect of human problem-solving that can be interrogated through a research methodology that circles around verbal protocol analysis.
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Discovered whilst entering a new millennium: A technological revolution that will radically influence both music making and music education
By Leigh LandyThis brief position paper considers opportunities related to music making in general and music education more specifically that are evolving as a consequence of our increasingly networked world. It calls for music education to introduce music's diversity to young learners in the knowledge that the widest variety of musical repertoire is globally available by way of the Internet. Increasingly, pedagogical tools and information are supporting online communities related to this musical diversity. It proposes, too, that aesthetics, a means of encouraging musical communication, return to musical discourse, in particular in schools.
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Conceptual frameworks, theoretical models and the role of YouTube: Investigating informal music learning and teaching in online music community
More LessIn this article, I discuss framework models, approaches and theories advanced by new media and social science researchers for conceptualizing and investigating online communities, including the role of YouTube – and the implications this has for music learning and teaching in online and offline contexts. I will draw on my research of one online community – the Online Academy of Irish Music – (www. oaim.ie) to illustrate how these ideas, frameworks and artefacts such as YouTube videos are relevant for and applicable to music education research and practice.
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eBILITY: from tool use to partnerships
Authors: Andrew R. Brown and Steve DillonIn this article we identify how computational automation achieved through programming has enabled a new class of music technologies with generative music capabilities. These generative systems can have a degree of music making autonomy that impacts on our relationships with them; we suggest that this coincides with a shift in the music-equipment relationship from tool use to a partnership. This partnership relationship can occur when we use technologies that display qualities of agency. It raises questions about the kinds of skills and knowledge that are necessary to interact musically in such a partnership. These are qualities of musicianship we call eBility. In this paper we seek to define what eBility might consist of and how consideration of it might effect music education practice. The 'e' in eBility refers not only to the electronic nature of computing systems but also to the ethical, enabling, experiential and educational dimensions of the creative relationship with technologies with agency. We hope to initiate a discussion around differentiating what we term representational technologies from those with agency and begin to uncover the implications of these ideas for music educators in schools and communities. We hope also to elucidate the emergent theory and practice that has enabled the development of strategies for optimising this kind of eBility where the tool becomes partner. The identification of musical technologies with agency adds to the authors' list of metaphors for technology use in music education that previously included tool, medium and instrument. We illustrate these ideas with examples and with data from our work with the jam2jam interactive music system. In this discussion we will outline our experiences with jam2jam as an example of a technology with agency and describe the aspects of eBility that interaction with it promotes.
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Tom's story: Developing music education with technology
More LessTom is a keen, young guitarist. When traditional methods of musical instruction failed, he sought out alternative approaches using online social tools. These transformed his learning, engaged him and helped him develop his playing in significant ways. Tom's story is unremarkable in many respects. However, on reflection, it does reveal four important ideas that will continue to drive forward music education. First, the Internet is the most powerful technology available to us today; second, making and learning is all about connecting; third, teachers and learners need to be careful about the technologies they choose to use in their work; and, finally, curriculum development is inextricably tied to teacher development. In the United Kingdom, music education as a core entitlement for all young people as part of their formal education is under threat. The development of a rich, varied, broad and balanced curriculum and the skilful, professional role that teachers play in delivering this are inextricably linked. As teachers and researchers, we have a responsibility not to fail young people like Tom.
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The seductions of technology
More LessThis article considers today's neo-liberal capitalism and its reliance on new digital technologies in commoditizing everything, including education. The rise in the use of digital technologies is one way that neo-liberal ideologies have entered the university, changing the relationships between faculty and students, and changing the way students learn. Some teaching technologies have proved to enhance students' learning experience, some, in my view, have not. But the ideology of the importance of new technologies in education seems to be here to stay, bringing the university increasingly into the neo-liberal world of the commoditization and marketization of everything.
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Navigating the emerging futures in music education
By Samuel LeongOur globalized world is having to rediscover and reinvent itself in the face of emergent futures resulting from multiple dynamics, including the breakdown of traditional structures, new capabilities of advanced technologies, new educational agendas and new human needs. This article navigates through several key predictions and recent developments relevant to music education and technology, and urges for a new music education future that is strongly linked with the global knowledge economy in the digital and conceptual age. The new future should give more attention to learners who were under-served in the past, be more coherent with real-world issues and problems, harness the powers of ICT to actualize worthy educational and societal transformation, and locate music effectively as an essential, integral and vibrant aspect of human lives and civilization.
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The arts and humanities, technology and the 'English Baccalaureate': STEAM not STEM
More LessThe article argues that the music should (a) be a core subject within any revision to the English National Curriculum for schools and also (b) integral to the UK Government's English Baccalaureate where the arts do not feature at all. Such a national policy approach flies in the face of research evidence of the crucial significance of the arts and humanities, including music, in human culture and development. Government policy is also ambiguous concerning its view of technology, either as a curriculum subject or as a tool for learning and creativity. Nevertheless, it is argued that technology is a core feature of our engagement with the arts (including music) and humanities. Their combination offers a vital and rich resource in the education of our young people.
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