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How musical are primary generalist student teachers?
Get PDFCurrent inclusive pedagogical thinking advocates that learning should begin with what the learner can already do. As children bring rich musical experiences with them into school, primary generalist student teachers also bring rich experiences of music and music-making into their initial teacher education programmes. Yet debate still continues as to whether primary generalists can teach music. The research reported in this paper originated from the reflective practice of a primary generalist teacher educator. Through anecdotal evidence in her teaching, she found that the musical profiles of students undertaking a one-year postgraduate primary teacher education programme were changing. Younger students were beginning to discuss experiences of widening participation opportunities when reflecting on their own musical learning journeys. Moreover, the richness of musical experiences reported by the primary generalist student teachers each year was consistent. The current research resulted from a desire to document these experiences, and also to find a way to gather this information prior to the students starting their course in order to improve teaching; by finding out what the students could already do, teaching could be planned so as to practise and model effective inclusive pedagogy and use the allocated time for music in the best possible way. The paper opens with a review of recent research, raising new research questions as a result of a potentially changing student musical profile. The integration of reflective practice and research to form a research methodology is discussed, and a theoretical framework of what is meant by musical is given. The initial findings of the research are presented and discussed; the paper closes with an overview of the next stages of the research project and the implications for initial teacher education are identified
‘Next you’re Franklin Shepard Inc.?’: Composing the Broadway musical, a study of Kurt Weill’s working practices
No full textThis article contextualizes the working processes of musical theatre composers, revealing their work to be profoundly immersed in collaborative practices. Several recent publications have destabilized the authority of the author figure, by addressing the practicalities of referring to Broadway musicals as the work of one or two creative figures: Dominic McHugh’s recent exploration of the work that post-World War II Broadway musical theatre composers do reveals a network of interactions between the composers and amanuenses, orchestrators, and vocal arrangers. Even within this framework Weill is seen to be unlike other Broadway composers, since he does much of this work himself. This article proposes that the term ‘Broadway composer’ is unhelpful in fully understanding what Weill and others like him actually do, beyond putting notes on a page. The article lays out Weill’s actual working practices; collaboration in proposing new projects, the pre-production and rehearsal process, utilizing music after publication across different mediums, and his careful management of his own public reputation. Having done this, it calls for McHugh’s paradigm to be extended much further in order to acknowledge what composition in Broadway musical theatre involves – writing Broadway musicals means necessarily being a composer-as-collaborator. ***** An open access version of this article is available on WIRE (Wolverhampton Intellectual Repository and E-Theses) here: https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/618731 ****
Flexibility of expressive timing in repeated musical performances
No full textPerformances by soloists in the Western classical tradition are normally highly prepared, yet must sound fresh and spontaneous. How do musicians manage this? We tested the hypothesis that they achieve the necessary spontaneity by varying the musical gestures that express their interpretation of a piece. We examined the tempo arches produced by final slowing at the ends of phrases in performances of J. S. Bach’s No. 6 (Prelude) for solo cello (12 performances) and the Italian Concerto (Presto) for solo piano (eight performances). The performances were given by two experienced concert soloists during a short time period (3½ months for the Prelude, 2 weeks for the Presto) after completing their preparations for public performance. We measured the tempo of each bar or half-bar, and the stability of tempo across performances (difference of the tempo of each bar/half bar from each of the other performances). There were phrase arches for both tempo and stability with slower, less stable tempi at beginnings and ends of phrases and faster, more stable tempi mid-phrase. The effects of practice were complex. Tempo decreased overall with practice, while stability increased in some bars and decreased in others. One effect of practice may be to imbue well-learned, automatic motor sequences with freshness and spontaneity through cognitive control at phrase boundaries where slower tempi and decreased stability provide opportunities for slower cognitive processes to modulate rapid automatic motor sequences
Conservatoires in society: institutional challenges and possibilities for change
No full textEducational sociologists and philosophers have long recognised that educational institutions play a significant role in shaping as well as supporting societal norms. In the face of growing global social, political, and environmental challenges, should conservatoires be more overt in expressing a mission to sustain and improve the societies in which they are located? In times of ever-increasing scepticism emanating from governments and the broader populace alike about the efficacy of public spending, if not the public sphere itself, this essay suggests it is both timely and necessary for conservatoires to reconsider, reinvigorate and re-articulate their capacity to contribute to broader social goods. Drawing on the authors’ professional experience as well as current literature and debates, the essay is both deliberately provocative and open-ended, articulating a number of points of departure that institutions might consider in addressing the challenge of maintaining and exercising their relevance to broader society
Playing from open score 1: Froberger’s Fantasia, FbWV 206.
No full textReading music from open score was a prerequisite of seventeenth-century keyboard fugue performance. This tradition began in Naples with Rocco Rodio's Libro di ricercate, a 4 (1575), and widely adopted across Europe until beyond the time of J.S. Bach. This article offers a brief introduction and considers the Fantasias FbWV 201 and 206 by Johann Jacob Froberger (1616–1667) as exemplars of fugal organisation, motivic construction and the performance practice of partitura scores. Today the practice is generally neglected and none of Froberger's contrapuntal music has been published in open score in modern editions. The author's transcription of FbWV 206 edited from the Parte Seconda of the Froberger’s Libro Secondo (1649) typeset in open score notation with modern treble and bass clefs is appended to the article to assist players who wish to perform this music from a visual presentation similar to that of Froberger's autograph but which does not require fluency in C-clefs
Stalin's music prize (Music Matters, BBC Radio 3)
No full textStalin's Music Prize is a new book by the Russian music expert Marina Frolova-Walker, which aims to shed new light on musical, cultural and political life in Stalin's Soviet Union. Using recently declassified sources which show Stalin’s personal role in a bureaucratic and often controversial decision making process, Frolova-Walker explores the annual prizes which were awarded to composers and musicians from 1940-1954 to represent the best in Soviet Culture. Petroc Trelawny talks to the author, and is joined to review the book by the writer, broadcaster and former BBC Moscow correspondent, Martin Sixsmith, and Christina Guillaumier from the Centre for Russian Music at Goldsmiths, University of London
Carl Florian Mandel and the production, consumption and status of "military" brass-wind instruments in the nineteenth century
No full textDescription of book: Instrumental Odyssey: A Tribute to Herbert Heyde offers essays by seventeen prominent scholars of musical instruments in celebration of the 75th birthday of an esteemed colleague. A leading historian of Western instruments with a long, distinguished museum career, Herbert Heyde continues to inspire others with his breadth of interests, his imaginative approach to fundamental issues of musical instrument design, manufacture, and authentication, and his advancement of the highest ethical and critical standards.
These well-illustrated essays range from biblical antiquity to the 21st century and address subjects appealing to collectors and curators, musicologists and musicians, and everyone desiring to grasp more fully the construction, characteristics, and functions of musical instruments. Emphasizing brass and woodwind topics which lie at the center of Herbert Heyde's work, Instrumental Odyssey also covers string and keyboard instruments, classification and commerce, performance practices and iconography, and the motives of makers and collectors.
Detailed studies of important instruments in major collections add fresh information and interpretations, while new analyses of documentary sources enhance our understanding of how various instrument types were used historically. The influences of the Early Music movement and of politics and economics are also explored by experts who illuminate modern approaches to organology pioneered by Herbert Heyde
Concurrent arm swing-stepping (CASS) can reveal gait start hesitation in Parkinson’s patients with low self-efficacy and fear of falling
No full textBackground: Movement incoordination, freezing of gait, fear of falling, low self-efficacy, and multi-tasking can all contribute to falls in Parkinson’s disease. How these multi-factorial risks interact in individual patients remain poorly understood.
Methods: Concurrent arm swing-stepping is a simple motor test in which subjects are first asked to swing their arms before being instructed to initiate the secondary task of leg stepping-in-place. We postulated that in patients with multiple fall risks, sensorimotor impairments in upper- and lower-limb movement control can render concurrent arm swing-stepping a demanding dual task, thereby triggering gait hesitation. A total of 31 subjects with Parkinson’s disease were enrolled in the study.
Results: It was found that concurrent arm swing-stepping induced hesitation primarily in Parkinson’s disease patients with low fall-related self-efficacy and a fear of falling. By contrast, concurrent arm swing-stepping led to limb incoordination in both patients and in healthy elderly controls. The calculated specificity and sensitivity of the concurrent arm swing-stepping test was 100 and 42 % for hesitation and 12 and 77 % for incoordination.
Conclusion: These results suggest that the concurrent arm swing-stepping test can be used in conjunction with conventional psychometric assessments to facilitate multi-factorial assessment of potential fall risk
BBC Radio 3 record review: building a library: Scriabin: Prometheus
No full textWilliam Mival reviews recordings of Scriabin's Prometheus and makes a recommendation in this programme broadcast on 2 May 2015. This discussion is also available (UK only) on the Record Review Podcast, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tn4f6