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Music literacy and the instrumental teacher
Get PDFIn a report commissioned by the Society for Music Analysis to address a gap in music literacy, McQueen (2020) identified instrumental teachers as an important part of music education both within schools and in the community. This article takes as a starting point McQueen’s (2020) proposal that ‘it is through instrumental tuition that music literacy in its many forms is likely to develop’ (p.65) to tease through some of the implications it might have for contemporary perspectives on music education. In doing so it assesses the relationship between music literacy and music analysis as a complex one involving professional partnerships which can lead to ‘a clash of allegiances’ (p.83) evident in versions of curriculum knowledge and the values underpinning them. My aim is to bring forward discussions surrounding instrumental teaching and school curricula, and to argue that greater collaboration between all those engaged in music education will address issues arising from and perpetuated by their separation
Musical ghosts: re-instating Elsie April in historical narratives of the British musical
No full textAt once a pianist, arranger, accompanist, and musical mastermind, Elsie April (1884–1950) has long been ignored by scholars. Despite her many collaborations with some of the most significant forces in the musical world of London's West End –– spanning several decades from the 1920s onward –– her contributions have been, at most, a footnote in historical accounts of musical theatre. She has been politely dismissed by Coward's biographers as ‘an important assistant to his success’, a statement clearly based on assumptions about the life of female musicians in British theatre. Even a cursory search for compositions written under the name of Elsie April in such major archival repositories as the British Library's catalogues reveals the numerous songs she composed and copyrighted, beyond the published Coward arrangements. Somehow, the full scope of her working practices has never made it into the historical record, despite the high regard in which her contemporaries held her. As theatrical impresario Charles B. Cochran (1872–1951) once noted:
'If you got near enough to inspect a pair of twinkling eyes, in a very expressive face, and delicate hands, it could be her. If you stopped the bike, and found the rider carrying a great quantity of manuscript music, and wearing an extraordinary hat, it must have been our Elsie . . . As a musician, she had few equals and her composers [i.e. those she worked with], orchestras, conductors, singers and arrangers bowed to her superiority . . . it was always a source of wonderment to observe this small person, so mistress of her art.'
Given the recognition by Cochran, one of Britain's most influential producers, her absence in the historical record is puzzling. However, it speaks to common industry practices and mechanisms of gendered erasure. In 1932, Peter Burnup asked in the theatrical newspaper The Era, ‘Why doesn't Elsie April get a credit on the programme? [She] contributes as much as any man to the success of Cochran shows . . . is someone afraid of ghosts?’ His use of the term ‘ghost’ is telling; the answer to this lies in a complex cultural web of market forces, gender parity, and lack of attention to female creators
Group music-making with families affected by Zika virus in Brazil
No full textChapter 12 explores how music-making can promote wellbeing for mothers of children affected by the Zika virus (ZIKV) in Brazil. An outbreak of ZIKV in 2015 had profound effects on children and families in the Northeast of Brazil, where hundreds of children exposed to the virus in utero were born with severe microcephaly, developmental delays, physical disabilities, and special educational needs, now classified under the term congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). This chapter introduces a six-week programme of group online music-making that was developed and run for mothers and their children with CZS, alongside interviews and video observations of music sessions. The learnings of the project are explored through two exploratory vignettes, highlighting the important role of music in everyday life and its potential to support some of the psychosocial needs of families affected by CZS
National Treasures: Vermeer in Edinburgh
No full textVirginal music by William Byrd from RCM MS 2093 (http://www.ekm.org.uk/2093recording.html), performed by Terence Charlston, as part of the visitor audio guide to exhibition Vermeer's painting 'A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal', National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, as part of the bicentennial celebrations of the National Gallery
Exhibition presentation, National Galleries of Scotland, 10 May - 8 September 2024
Expanding perspectives: materialising musical instruments
No full textThis article suggests the potential of organology is under-developed. It proposes an expanded vision for the discipline’s relevance from the perspective of the non-organological world, which in turn, undervalues organology’s potential for informing non-musical disciplines. It argues for re-positioning musical instruments—highly specialised manufactured objects with complex and particular properties, functions, and contexts—alongside, and in relation to other equally complex material objects, their functions, practices, networks, histories, geographies, and ideologies. This re-evaluation aims to encourage organologists to consider the “wider materiality” of the objects they study and to seek out new disciplinary connections beyond their traditional spheres of reference
Networked innovation in classical music: collaborative ecologies for classical music
No full textFinal report of the AHRC Research Network: Networked Innovation
in Classical Music: Collaborative Ecologies in Creative Cities. Authored by Stephanie E. Pitts and Peter F. Peters with the research network team: Karen Burland, Kirsty Devaney, Karolien Dons, Emily Doolittle,
Laura Hogg, Karoly Molina, Jennie Joy Porton, Sarah Price and Constanze Wimmer
Preparing to perform: professional musicians' pre-performance routines and strategies
Get PDFStudies in sport psychology have extensively shown that pre-performance routines (PPRs) - a sequence of cognitive and behavioural actions used prior to performance - optimize performance under pressure. Despite this positive impact, there is hardly any literature on PPRs in the music domain. Therefore, this thesis aimed at filling this gap in the literature.
This thesis consists of 3 studies. The aims of Study 1 were to investigate pre-performance routines in professional musicians and to explore whether these change prior to performance. It also aimed to investigate the reasons behind musicians’ engagement in these routines. Study 2, informed by results from Study 1, aimed to investigate pre-performance routines in professional musicians in greater depth and to explore the functions these were perceived as having. Study 3, built on results from Study 2, aimed to investigate physical activity and exercise (PA/PE) in professional musicians. It also sought to explore the type of PA/PE engaged in and the reasons for this engagement. Finally, Study 3 aimed to investigate what functions PA/PE was perceived as having on professional musicians’ wellbeing and performance.
Study 1 involved the online survey Pre-performance Routines survey which was distributed to international professional musicians. Data were collected from 94 musicians and analysed using the statistical package Jamovi version 1.2.27.0. Study 2 concerned an interview study with 12 orchestral musicians recruited from professional orchestras. Study 3 involved the Fit Musician online survey which was distributed to professional musicians. Data were collected from 144 musicians and analysed using the statistical package Jamovi version 2.3.21.0.
Results from Study 1 showed that professional orchestral musicians engaged in several pre-performance routines prior to performance but that most routines were reported as not changing during their pre-performance period. PA/PE was among these routines. Study 2 showed that PA/PE was part of the daily/weekly routine of professional musicians and that some engaged in it with a view of enhancing performance. Study 3 showed that 83% of professional musicians exceeded the recommended weekly requirements for PA/PE and that type of exercise engaged in depended on performance scenario. Study 3 showed no association between musicians’ perception of physical fitness and health and wellbeing, and no significant difference between musicians’ perception of physical fitness and the perceived impact of PA/PE on performance.
In providing a picture of how professional musicians prepare to perform, this thesis has provided useful information on practice routines and strategies that can be adopted by students. The findings of this thesis also provide the necessary groundwork for future research investing in exploring PA/PE and music performance
HEartS Professional survey: charting the effects of COVID-19 on working patterns, income, and wellbeing among arts professionals in China (October 2020, August 2021)
No full textThese data were collected using the HEartS Professional China survey from performing arts workers in China in October 2020 and August 2021. HEartS Professional China is an adaptation of the HEartS Professional surveys which were used in 2020-2021. All the surveys were designed as multi-strategy data collection tools with two main purposes: (1) to chart working patterns, income, sources of support, and indicators of mental and social well-being to identify trends in the effects of the lockdown at the time and (2) to explore the individual work and wellbeing experiences of performing arts professionals in their own words, to identify the subjective effects of lockdown in terms of challenges and opportunities. The survey covers six areas: 1) demographics; (2) information on illness or self-isolation related to COVID-19; (3) work profiles and income; (4) changes to work profiles and income as a result of the pandemic, as well as sources of support; (5) open-response questions about work and wellbeing experiences of lockdown including challenges and opportunities; and (6) validated measures of health, wellbeing, and social connectedness. The HEartS Professional surveys are adaptations of the HEartS Survey which charts the Health, Economic, and Social impacts of the ARTs (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3r2280gdj)
Unsettling ‘necessities’: a poststructural analysis of curricular policy and its implementation in state secondary level music education in Malta
Get PDFThis research project has grown from my professional concern to grapple with the ‘necessities’ through which curricular policy and music education operate. As a Maltese citizen whose personal and professional identity is deeply intertwined with the institutional practice of music education, I take its curricular context as the site of analysis. Existing scholarship pertaining to the Maltese context takes policy as a taken-for-granted framework for speaking about and researching music education. As a result, there emerges a lack of analytic concern on two fronts: how the ‘necessary’ changes proposed regulate possibilities for the curricular practice of music education, and how taken-for-granted assumptions about music and music education shape acts of implementation. In an attempt to unsettle the assumptions that structure existing research practices and address resulting analytic lacunae, I first direct my focus to the concept of policy as a diverse and tension-laden landscape of practice. Drawing primarily on the work of Colebatch, Hoppe, and Noordegraaf (2010) and Michel Foucault, I evaluate policy through three different perspectives. I then propose the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (Bacchi 2009) and ‘Poststructural Interview Analysis’ (Bacchi and Bonham 2016) frameworks as useful apparatus for the analysis of its proposals and effects, and I discuss how these have been adopted and applied within this research project.
The outcomes of my analysis are presented in four sections. In the first section, I put forward my analysis of the ‘Educators’ Guide to Pedagogy and Assessment: Music’ (2015), which constitutes the latest published curricular policy document relating to music education in Malta. This serves as a useful text for analysing the ‘necessary changes’ proposed by the current National Curriculum Framework and their ‘rationalised’ implications for music education. In the second section, the focus of my analysis shifts to the corresponding syllabus for the end-of-cycle assessment of music (Secondary Education Certificate) as a site of implementation at secondary level. In section three, I bring together the outcomes of each analysis and make use of interview transcripts to discuss the effects which these two sets of proposals carry on ‘educators’ and ‘learners’. The final section draws on marginalised perspectives to unsettle the ‘necessity’ of these proposals and emphasise their inadequacy in light of the discussed effects. I conclude with a set of reflections and recommendations for further research
Bach: the great Toccata [documentary by Daniel Moult]
No full textThis video DVD includes spoken contributions by Terence Charlston as a featured contributor and performances of excepts of BWV 565 and other keyboard works by J.S. Bach on harpsichord and pedal clavichord