1857 research outputs found
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Investigating how composing teaching and assessment in English secondary school classrooms reinforce myths about composers and their creative practices
No full textAlthough composing has been a significant part of formal classroom music education in England for over 30 years, there still remains uncertainty about how to teach and assess composing in secondary schools. This research investigates the under-researched area of teaching and learning of composing in upper secondary schools in England whereby students (aged 14–18) may opt to study music for a national qualification. Taking a mixed methodology approach, data were collected through a survey of 182 music teachers, interviews with five prominent composer-educators, as well as research with five case study schools involving observations of teaching and interviews with teachers and students. This paper reports on three prominent beliefs about composers that seem to underpin teaching and assessment practices; firstly that composers have innate musical talents; secondly that composing is solely an individual process and finally that students must learn the ‘rules’ of composing before being creative. This article proposes that these perceptions do not reflect the diversity of composers’ creative practices and may result in reinforcing stereotypes and myths about composers that have the potential to disadvantage certain students in the examination. ***** This article is available open access at the Official URL given below. ****
The impact of culture-, health-, and nature-based engagement on mitigating the adverse effects of public health restrictions on wellbeing, social connectedness, and loneliness during COVID-19: quantitative evidence from a smaller- and larger-scale UK survey
Full text linkNumerous UK surveys conducted during COVID-19 examined the pandemic’s detrimental effects on health, and the consequences of lockdown and other public health restrictions on mental health. Some surveys considered specific populations and social inequities exacerbated during COVID-19. Fewer surveys examined the ways in which the adverse effects of public health restrictions, such as lockdown, shielding and social distancing, might be alleviated. Drawing upon self-determination theory, the purpose of the current study was to assess whether culture-, health- and nature-based engagement would mitigate the effects of these restrictions on psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness. Quantitative data from a smaller-scale survey (n = 312) and a subset of questions embedded in a larger-scale survey (n = 3647) were analyzed using univariate and multivariate methods. Frequency of engagement, whether participation was online or offline and with or without other people, and the extent to which type of participation was associated with psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness were examined. Sports and fitness, gardening and reading occurred frequently in both surveys. For the smaller-scale survey, increases in connectedness and frequency of participation and decreases in loneliness were significantly associated with improved wellbeing, whereas the type of participation and age range were not significant predictors. Outcomes from the smaller-scale survey approximated the larger-scale survey for measures of loneliness, type and frequency of participation and proportion of respondents in each age range. As the frequency of participation was a significant predictor of wellbeing, but the type of participation was not significant, the findings implied that any type of participation in a sufficient quantity would be likely to boost wellbeing
Specialist support for performers: counselling psychologist
No full textLearn how a counselling psychologist can help performers optimise their mental health
Understanding the history of 1930s musical migrants to Britain through minimal computing-led digital humanities: the Hamburger-Lidka-Fuchsová Database and Datasets
No full textLíza Fuchsová, Maria Lidka, and Paul Hamburger all left Nazi-occupied Europe during the late 1930s and settled permanently in the UK. Fuchsová (1913-1977) was a Czech pianist who became an advocate for Czech musical culture as well as an important piano soloist; Hamburger (1920-2004) was an accompanist and teacher who left Vienna for London and became a senior figure in BBC radio and Guildhall professor; and Lidka (1914-2013) [Marianne Liedtke], was a violinist, orchestra leader and later Royal College of Music professor. Their careers have been underexplored, but machine-read digitised archives have opened new possibilities for finding and sorting what can seem like an overwhelming amount of performance data. This is the underpinning data for the project, the set of files are outputted from the Hamburger-Lidka-Fuchsová Database (HLFDatabase), a database compiled by Sarah K. Whitfield as part of the AHRC funded Music, Migration and Mobility project. The full working database is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ts0wXoudIToWN0r0iaSLZWIradiXLsdqx5OjoVqT4yA/edit#gid=1338942989
These supporting datasets cover six different aspects of the project:
1) Venues (This dataset contains the full details of 163 venues used in the HLFDatabase);
2) Composers (this will be useful for anyone working on chamber music or concert music in 1940s and 1950s);
3) Repertoire (this will be useful for anyone working on chamber music or concert music in 1940s and 1950s);
4) Maria Lidka (this dataset covers her performance career from 1940-1954);
5) Paul Hamburger (this dataset covers his performance career from 1940-1954);
6) Líza Fuchsová (this dataset covers her performance career from 1940-1954).
The entire dataset is released under CC BY-NC 4.0 permission (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
Book review: Denis Herlin: Claude Debussy: Portraits et Études, George Olms Verlag (Hildesheim 2021)
No full textChapter interlude IV: ways to teach composing
No full textComposing teaching in schools can look and sound very different depending on various circumstances, such as the age, ability, and interests of the students, the tradition of composing in a country's music education system and their curriculum, as well as the musical background, confidence, and experiences of the teacher, not including the infrastructure, technology, and resources available to the teacher in the classroom. Also relevant is the question of who is teaching composing, as a professional composer coming into a school and conducting a time-limited composing project might teach very differently from a generalist classroom teacher. This interlude will take a closer look at the variety of approaches, methods, and practices used to teach composition in music education and how diverse pedagogies have been developed over time
Becoming the right musician for the job: versatility, connectedness, and professional identities during personalized, online music-making in hospital maternity wards
Full text linkThe beneficial potential for music in hospital contexts is well established, with research showing that music can promote patient well-being and support recovery. However, less attention has been paid to the ways in which musicians’ practices and professional identities are informed by working in hospital settings. As arts-and-health approaches continue to proliferate, it is essential to recognize the values, emotional labor, and skills associated with these approaches through understanding the experiences of practitioners. As part of an international collaboration led by Hanze University in the Netherlands, the ProMiMiC project explores the professional development of musicians and nurses through person-centered music-making in hospital settings. The current study focused on five conservatoire-trained musicians’ delivery of personalized music-making via Zoom in a hospital maternity setting in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their experiences of adapting to the new context, and the impacts on their personal and professional development, were explored using reflective journals, group discussions, and semi-structured interviews. The data were interpreted using the theoretical lens of vocational habitus to examine the skills and dispositions required to be the right musician for this job. Qualitative synthesis revealed the musicians’ developing musical values as they adapted to the online maternity setting, highlighting the centrality of communicative and musical versatility as well as the ability to connect and empathize through music. The findings offer insights into possible ways of supporting emerging music practitioners in healthcare settings and emphasize the imperative for higher music education to prepare and train musicians for this type of work
Modularity, technology, and geometry in compositional practice: a portfolio of original compositions
Full text linkThis project, comprising of twelve original compositions and accompanying commentary, explores several key concepts that play a significant role in my creative practice, including the deconstruction and reassembly of materials; non-linear media; geometric construction of musical patterns; interactive audience elements; technology; and probability. Discussed across four chapters, these concepts lead to the development of unique compositional techniques and processes that feature heavily in my work. Chapter one focusses on deconstruction and non-linearity, from ensemble-led modularity to large-scale prerecorded
compositions for radio. Chapter two is a study of how random elements and audience interaction can be facilitated through the use of technology, and takes examples from my generative audiovisual artworks. Chapters three and four cover geometry: introducing the mathematical concepts of perfect balance and aperiodic order, and discussing their use in my installations and compositions for orchestra. Throughout the project, a consideration of performance spaces and the audience experience is maintained, and the variety of ways a technique might be applied across different settings is explored
Musical migrants at Wigmore Hall in the 1940s
No full textWigmore Hall’s substantial programme collection, of concerts in which musical migrants played during the 1940s, reveals that mobility of musicians has always been a fundamental part of professional music making. **** This article is available as part of the Music, Migration and Mobility online resource at the Official URL given below. ***
Addressing gender inequality in and through music composing studies
Full text linkComposing remains a male-dominated field within the domain of Western art music. Through analysis of two case studies of composing education schemes in Finland (Equity in Composing/Yhdenvertaisesti säveltäen), and England (Young Composers Project), this paper seeks to better understand how music education may play a role in addressing and alleviating gender inequality in music composing. Thematic analysis of qualitative data identified three ways in which the two educational projects addressed issues related to inequality in composing, namely by (1) challenging narrow perceptions of “The Composer”; (2) addressing the lack of diverse role models; and (3) introducing diverse pedagogical approaches in composing. The findings illustrate how music education has the potential to challenge narrow and stereotypical perceptions of what it is to become and be a composer, and provide alternative and more diverse narratives