Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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‘Instrumental Music Education’, newly published by Bloomsbury Academic, is a compendium of well-researched articles written by a team of 27 authors, all associated with the music department at the University of York, compiled and edited by Elizabeth Haddon.
For those interested in academic insight into instrumental teaching trends, this is a wide-ranging and thought-provoking book sporting 19 chapters, each a distinct article covering an area of special interest.
An endorsement of the book from Professor Stephanie Pitts, University of Sheffield explains that:
“This collection offers insights on topics as varied as dealing with transfers from one instrumental teacher to another, overcoming barriers to practice, and understanding cross-cultural differences in teaching philosophies. There is inspiration here for new and established teachers, as well as for music education researchers seeking an up to date overview of research-informed pedagogy.”
Instrumental Music Education is available as a FREE ebook here, with open access funded by the University of York. This gives you the chance to explore it for yourself without further commitment, while of course guaranteeing that the publication wins five stars for ‘value for money’.
Bloomsbury have also produced physical hardback and paperback editions. My review is based on the handsomely presented hardback (whose excellent aesthetics I think justify the price) but I will focus attention on the content, common to all versions, and recommend readers sample the ebook in the first instance.
First impressions
Instrumental Music Education invites instrumental teachers to reflect on our practical approaches, pedagogy understanding, and teaching philosophies. And lest we assume the content comes from writers with little experience in teaching learners of all ages and abilities, Haddon informs us,
“The contributors all include instrumental/vocal teaching within their work, and have drawn on a wealth of experience and original research to examine teaching contexts, cultures, processes and resources supporting the development of instrumental/vocal pedagogy.”
This practical bias certainly sets the writing apart from other academic texts I’ve read, and I personally found most of the content an accessible and engaging read. Having said that, the publication still seems predominantly aimed at a University-educated audience.
Most contributors have a PhD qualification in music education, a background which is conspicuous in their writing style. Sentences commonly end with (in parenthesis) references to academic studies which I suspect most provincial piano teachers will neither recall nor have an appetite to investigate.
Nevertheless, despite having a scholarly tone, practical observations and suggestions abound throughout the book, making it in my view as useful and illuminating a read for practising instrumental teachers as it is for scholars and policy makers.
An overview of the content
A crucial aspect of reviewing any title is identifying an intended audience; here, given the variety of authors and wide range of content, I would suspect that different chapters will interest different groups of readers.
The content is divided into four distinct sections:
Part I: Philosophies and Personas
1. ‘Unseen Influences’: The Effects of Philosophy and Biases on Approaches to Instrumental Teaching
2. Considering the Effects of the Instrumental Music Teachers’ Personality and Persona on the Student-Teacher relationship
3. Teacher-Performer? Performer-Teacher? How Musical Identity Shapes Teaching and Learning in and Beyond the Lesson
There is certainly a logic to beginning the book with these chapters, which deal with the some important theoretical, philosophical, psychological, and relational aspects of instrumental teaching.
When did you last seriously consider the matrix of confirmation bias, cultural background and identity that underpin your teaching approach and learning expectations? How would you describe your “teaching persona”?
These are without doubt fundamental questions that require reflection. But those eager for more practical insight might find these early chapters a little heavy going. For example, just two paragraphs into the first chapter, we read,
“We have tried to keep the philosophical jargon included to a minimum…”
And yet before the paragraph has ended, we have been regaled with words and ideas such as ‘ontological belief’, ‘epistemology’, ‘positivism and constructivism’. Crumbs: not the patois of the typical music teacher staff room!
I would certainly recommend that this content and these ideas are worth grappling with, and returning to. But remember, the nature of this book is that one can dip into sections at will, so feel free to skip to the later, more practically based articles if that’s where your immediate interest lies.
Part II: Contexts, Roles and Relationships
4. Avenues for pedagogical training in music education in China and the UK: Aims, availability and implications
5. Cultivating Collaborative Relationships and Positive Working Environments between Instrumental Teachers and School Staff
6. A Shared Approach? Peripatetic and Classroom Teachers’ Perspectives on Pedagogy and Professional Relationships,
7. Developing Instrumental Teaching Cross-Culturally: International Pre-service Teachers’ Pedagogical Understanding with Consideration of Cultural Intelligence
8. Navigating Apprenticeship to Mentorship across Cultures: Adaptive Insights from Chinese Masters Students Working as Instrumental Teachers in China and the UK
9. Understanding Subject-Specific Language Challenges for Music Learners with English as an Additional Language (EAL): What Are The Impacts and How Can Teachers Provide Support?
Part II could be taken for a field guide to what is going on in instrumental music teaching today. Early chapters here explore the availability and quality of teacher training, avenues for employment, and collaborative working with colleagues in schools to deliver joined-up music education opportunities.
There’s plenty of good advice here, and these chapters reminded me of the challenges and joys that I experienced during my time as a peripatetic teacher visiting schools, back when I was running the piano and keyboard faculty for our local Music Service. Chapters 5 and 6 should be required reading for all who work in and support school music departments.
Subsequent chapters significantly draw on their authors’ research, and it’s apparent that the University of York has attracted many PhD students from China in recent decades, and maintained strong continuing bonds with them. Their insights highlight cultural challenges and differences in approach between the UK and China, and offer food for thought in this context.
I found the chapter about apprenticeships and mentoring rather thought-provoking, but suspect that while these chapters impress as research papers, they may have a somewhat niche appeal, and prove of more particular interest to higher education providers and policy makers than to practising instrumental teachers.
Practical considerations
Part III: Skills-building
10. Improvisation: Developing Skills and Confidence as Teachers and Learners
11. Music Theory in the Instrumental Music Lesson: Built In or Bolted On?
12. Embodiment in Music Learning and Teaching
13. Hurdles not Brick Walls: Supporting Students to Overcome Physical and Mental Barriers to Instrumental Practice
This third section places the focus more clearly onto practical instrumental teaching content. Piano teachers exploring the publication will very likely want to begin by reading these chapters online, and should find their effort richly rewarded in doing so.
The chapter on improvisation (how neat that this comes first!) is particularly brilliant, viewing the art of creating new music spontaneously firstly through the Western Classical tradition, then through Jazz, and finally as adapted in rock and pop musics.
The chapter’s authors include Nina Kümin, who has not only explored Baroque improvisatory practices through the prism of academic interest, but has also taught them to violin students from pre-ABRSM Grade 1 to diploma level, aged 8 to 50. Here, she offers ten improvisation ‘games’ which she has found to be effective, and it’s a list I certainly plan to revisit and mine for ideas.
How refreshing that our understanding of classical performance practice and interpretation has improved in such leaps and bounds since the days of the pedantic score-bound regurgitation that informed my early learning experiences. But I suspect there are many yet in our profession who lack an understanding of these issues, and for whom this chapter will prove revelatory.
I should certainly add that the sections dealing with Jazz and Pop/Rock improvisation are equally well conceived, and practical in their content.
Next, Haddon includes a thought-provoking chapter on the value of including theory within the instrumental lesson, not as a bolt on or separate course, but as an integral element of the music learning process. Chapter authors Owen Burton and Anca Eskandar reflect on the way that in the UK, our education and assessment systems unhelpfully segregate these areas of learning, noting in their conclusion that,
”We have drawn attention to an intriguing lack of consistency across the UK sector in how music theory might relate to the instrumental lesson.”
And indeed they have! Meanwhile, the chapter dealing with hurdles and mental barriers to instrumental practice masterfully offers another trove of sensible, practical advice that teachers will readily welcome, and strategies which learners of all ages will surely benefit from.
Part IV: Inclusivity, Support and Resources
14. Specific Learning Needs: An Exploration of Inclusive and Accessible Approaches
15. Working with Transfer Students: Instrumental and Vocal Teachers’ Experiences of ‘Bridging the Gap’
16. Examining a Tradition: Teachers’ Views on the Content, Accessibility and Use of Graded Performance Examinations
17. The Language of Tuition Books
18. Teachers as Creators of Educational Material for Music Learners
19. Resilience, Autonomy and Well-being in Instrumental Teaching and Learning
And so we come to the final section of Instrumental Music Education, and the chapters here should also prove hugely useful for practising teachers, shining a light on a range of topical issues that are uppermost in many of our minds.
From the chapter titles listed, you’ll have an idea of the ground covered, so it remains to say that in all cases the issues are superbly addressed. Happily, these chapters are also the least ‘academic’ in tone: this is material which brilliantly gets to the heart of contemporary concerns in instrumental teaching.
It’s perhaps worth highlighting that Chapter 17, The Language of Tuition Books, offers an extended consideration of a single publication, Tommy Igoe’s Groove Essentials: The Play Along for drummers (2005), but here the authors bring to the surface a number of interesting generic points to inform wider reflection.
Meanwhile, the chapter covering grade exams is fair, balanced, but disappointingly slight given the hegemony of exam boards in the UK system, and the impact their (often ill-conceived) syllabi currently seem to exert on the content and quality of teaching, and indeed, the repertoire actually played by most learners.
The remaining chapters are, I think, truly worth their weight in gold. Here we find considered advice, practical suggestions, personal accounts of effective teaching and learning, and plenty of valuable insight that we readers might reflect on at length. I very highly recommend that we all do just that!
Closing thoughts
Instrumental Music Education is undoubtedly a book which sets out with high ambitions, and in my view it mostly succeeds. Neither designed as a practical manual for piano teachers, nor as a dry assortment of ‘ivory tower’ aspirations, the book succeeds by neatly straddling the dual worlds of academic study and professional practice.
Elizabeth Haddon certainly deserves special mention and high praise for her skill in handling these disparate chapters, editing and combining them to create a publication that is more than the sum of its parts.
Sure, ideas for improving piano teaching aren’t hard to come by elsewhere, but it’s immensely encouraging to see a publication which so meaningfully elevates the instrumental music teaching profession, and which offers so much well-researched food for thought and reflection.
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