I n t r o d u c t i o n : I n f o r m a l l e a r n i n g a n d t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f a c r i t i c a l p e r s p e c t i v e t o w a r d s m u s i c e d u c a t i o nAt the age of four, a child I knew drew extraordinarily vibrant, imaginative trees. Crayon, chalk, colored pen, and silly putty were all useful. These trees were remarkable in how clearly they showed the bulbous lobes and branchy veins of individual leaves in a kind of cubist, all-the-way-around view that would have delighted Picasso. Meticulous observation of real trees, and a certain daring that is characteristic of four-year-olds, combined to produce these striking artworks.Downloaded
This article focuses on children's conception of musical improvisation as exemplified in their practice of spontaneous music making. Fieldwork was carried out with a class of ten eight-year-olds. An ethnographic, open-ended process of generating data was employed, the researcher adopting the stance of an informal interviewer, an empathetic receiver of the music, and, at times, a co-player. In their engagement with music making the children were immersed into a meaning-making process, giving specific meanings to notions such as "player", "audience", "teacher", "playing", "inquiring". Interpreting the children's insights within the context of their musical conduct became the principal means for the organisation of analysis. In the process of interpretation, the children's specific and contextually-determined understandings are placed within the wider theory of music making as collective action. The study suggests three analytic concepts as a means for capturing the essential principles of the children's understanding and practice of improvisation: (a) Objectification; joint creation of the notion of improvised "piece", based on the development of a participation framework which emphasises the irrevocable "diving into" creating music, with the player(s) feeling a sense of "being inside" a framed musical journey attended by the group. (b) Thoughtfulness; the children's awareness of their immersed involvement into self-determined musical thinking. (c) Shared intentionality; a sense of being heard, and a sense of listening, a feeling that music making is essentially a form of joint action and communication of intentions. The examples presented in this paper constitute instances of positing questions and developing answers through self-determined action. These questions have little to do with skills: they have to do with concepts, which are immanent to the nature of music and its making. I want to listen to music with my ears, and not to see it with my eyes. To make it myself, not to be told how it is made. [Manos, aged 8]
This systematic literature review aims to identify and critically examine the prevailing general trends of music education research that addresses issues of improvisation from 1985 to 2015. The study examined the main features of studies with impact that focus on musical improvisation and have been published in peer-reviewed music education journals. Data were organised on the basis of the following: 1) General publication features; 2) Topic; 3) Methodological approach; 4) Participant features; 5) Type of improvisation; 6) Definition of improvisation; 7) Findings; 8) Suggestions for practice. The study also takes a close look at the construction of the discourses through which improvisation has been framed in the field of music education, providing insights on how such discourses create particular pedagogical visions of improvisation. To this end, we have created a map of the different visions of improvisation pedagogy that the studied works point towards. These visions have been clustered in the following five categories: (i) from rupture of certainties to creative problematisation; (ii) return to the “natural” beginning—in search of humanness; (iii) improvisation as a learning tool; (iv) conserving and enlivening traditions; (v) improvisation as an impetus for creativity. The map proposed in this study is meant as a possible representation of the general trends that underpin music education research focusing on improvisation. This map can also be seen as a “tool” through which music educators can situate their practice and reflect on their particular ways of working with improvisation, possibly envisioning alternative ways forward.
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