Making Music in Britain looks at music from the unique perspective of the inspirers and motivators of today, exploring their development as musicians as well as placing their work in the musical context of our time. Those interviewed... more
Making Music in Britain looks at music from the unique perspective of the inspirers and motivators of today, exploring their development as musicians as well as placing their work in the musical context of our time. Those interviewed include:
Dame Janet Baker
Django Bates
Hilary Finch
Graham Fitkin
Howard Goodall
Antony Hopkins
Stephen Hough
Nicola LeFanu
Richard McNicol
Sir Roger Norrington
John Rutter
Andy Sheppard
Kathryn Tickell
A survey of final-year music students at the University of York for the Investigating Musical Performance research project found that 45% (23 of the 51 students in the year group) regularly gave instrumental or vocal lessons.... more
A survey of final-year music students at the University of York for the Investigating Musical Performance research project found that 45% (23 of the 51 students in the year group) regularly gave instrumental or vocal lessons. Semi-structured interviews with sixteen students revealed a range of teaching activities including workshop leading, one-to-one lessons and group teaching. This paper examines the attitudes of the nine students engaged in giving instrumental lessons and explores their development as teachers and their understanding of some of the key concepts of teaching and learning. Findings suggest that students learned to teach through increased experience rather than formal training, and although they were enthusiastic, reporting benefits to their own learning and performing, they could have been more pro-active regarding their development as teachers and more resourceful in their approaches towards lesson content and materials, strategies relating to modelling and motivation and the teaching of practice techniques. Increased provision of support and training opportunities could be made by Higher Education institutions, giving students feedback regarding their effectiveness as teachers, opportunities to discuss their teaching, and enabling learning through mentoring partnerships with more experienced teachers.
The Investigating Musical Performance (IMP): Comparative studies in Advanced Music Learning research project was funded by the UK Government’s Economic and Social Research Council as part of its Teaching and Learning Research Programme under award RES-139-25-0101. The award holders are Welch, Duffy, Potter and Whyton and the two-year research project (2006-2008) commenced in April 2006. See http://www.tlrp.org/proj/Welch.html
Research in higher education has established a relationship between student approaches to learning and their perceptions of the learning environment. This study aims to make a contribution to music education literature by investigating... more
Research in higher education has established a relationship between student approaches to learning and their perceptions of the learning environment. This study aims to make a contribution to music education literature by investigating undergraduate music students' perceptions of the learning context and their attitudes towards learning and performance. The research design included a large questionnaire survey followed up by 13 case study interviews and six focus groups. Survey participants were 170 undergraduate musicians ...
This paper explores the concept of instrumental/vocal learning when studying the same instrument or voice with more than one concurrent teacher. In this context, teachers may be working as a team, or one or both teachers may not know of... more
This paper explores the concept of instrumental/vocal learning when studying the same instrument or voice with more than one concurrent teacher. In this context, teachers may be working as a team, or one or both teachers may not know of the other’s contribution to a student’s learning. Qualitative data from music students and teachers at the University of York sheds some light on this often hidden learning context. This paper examines students’ reasons for studying with more than one teacher; their views on negotiating teacher demands; teacher-student-teacher dynamics; and assessment of the success of this context for learning. Teachers’ views are considered through discussion of their attitudes to this context, and their evaluation of its effect on their teaching. Findings suggest that although there may be problems for students regarding issues of teacher loyalty and dealing with conflicting advice, there are also many benefits including exposure to a greater range of musical and technical ideas and added pedagogical insight. There are also potential benefits for teachers if they are working as a team.
The Investigating Musical Performance research project was devised to explore how musicians develop their learning about performance in undergraduate, postgraduate and wider community contexts. Analysis of questionnaire data from 264... more
The Investigating Musical Performance research project was devised to explore how musicians develop their learning about performance in undergraduate, postgraduate and wider community contexts. Analysis of questionnaire data from 264 respondents revealed that mental rehearsal was the least popular aspect of musical learning, but verbal data from case study interviews showed that student musicians used musical imagery in various ways and ascribed many meanings to the term. This paper, through a short, specially devised questionnaire, explores how undergraduate musicians at the University of York and their professors use musical imagery. Many reported using it for specific musical activities such as practice, composition, performance, and thinking music in the mind for pleasure, although it was not necessarily a developed skill. Because the benefits are significant, it is proposed that imagery work should become a more formal part of musical training rather than a peripheral part of musical experience.
Educational and psychological research suggests that gender and musical genre can influence musical learning and the development of musical identities, particularly during adolescence. However, there is a relative paucity of educational... more
Educational and psychological research suggests that gender and musical genre can influence musical learning and the development of musical identities, particularly during adolescence. However, there is a relative paucity of educational studies in higher education (HE) concerning the possible impact on musical learning of gender and musical genre, either individually or collectively. As part of a two‐year comparative study funded under the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) that is focused on musical learning in HE, we investigated the effect of musicians’ gender and chosen musical performance genre (embracing Western classical, jazz, popular, and Scottish traditional music) on undergraduate and postgraduate (career‐based) learning. Data were gathered through a web‐based survey of participants (n=244) drawn from four HE institutions (HEIs) in Glasgow, York, Leeds and London and the wider workplace, supplemented by semi‐structured case study interview data from a sub‐set (n=27) of these participants. Statistical and qualitative analyses indicate that gender and genre can impact individually on some aspects of participants’ psychological and socio‐psychological make‐up and in their attitudes to learning. However, there was no evidence statistically or qualitatively of any major interaction between the variables of genre and gender in the data from the chosen measures. Furthermore, irrespective of musical genre, skilled musicians had many aspects in common in terms of their core musical identities and behaviours, implying that the requirements for highly skilled musical performance can transcend particular group characteristics.
This paper, following on from our previous paper focusing on findings regarding students’ approaches to learning, explores students’ approaches to performance with particular focus on musical self-efficacy beliefs and experiences of... more
This paper, following on from our previous paper focusing on findings regarding students’ approaches to learning, explores students’ approaches to performance with particular focus on musical self-efficacy beliefs and experiences of performance anxiety in solo and group performances. The research design included a large questionnaire survey followed up by 13 case study interviews and six focus groups. Survey participants were 170 undergraduate musicians studying in three distinctively different higher education institutions, encompassing classical, popular, jazz and Scottish traditional music genres. Findings suggest that the context of music performance learning and the prevailing institutional culture relate to students’ approaches to performance. By statistically controlling for gender and genre biases across the three institutions, we were able to observe both similarities and differences between students’ self-reported self-efficacy beliefs, as well as experiences, perceived causes and strategies used to cope with performance anxiety. Implications of findings from the two ‘institutional culture and learning’ papers for learners and educators in higher education are discussed.
