‘I’ll sing with my buddies’ — Fostering the possible selves of male choral singers

Abstract

The stories of three high school boys about their experiences in school-based choral music provide the framework for a discussion of the role music educators can play in retaining male singers. The 'possible selves' construct (Markus & Nurius, 1986) is explored alongside research-based implications about specific steps toward developing boys' identities as choral musicians. Possible selves are future conceptions of the self that are either positive (hopedfor) or negative (feared). The changing of the adolescent male voice occurs at approximately the same time as major social, academic, and other physical changes. It is thought that these issues coincide in a manner that discourages boys from participation in choral music (Freer, 2007). Drawing upon a successful non-musical model, the author proposes a variant of the 'Possible Selves Program' (Hock, Deshler, & Schumaker, 2006) for use in music settings.

The Adolescent Female Changing Voice

“…Beyond Cooksey, researchers associated adolescent male voice change with various topics, including participation in choir (Kennedy, 2002), attrition and retention of males in choir (Freer, 2006), male gender identity (Elorriaga, 2011), and the theory of possible selves (Freer, 2009b(Freer, , 2010. Despite different foci, each of these studies highlighted the influence (both positive and negative) of peer and teacher interactions on developing male singers as well as the importance of vocal modeling for male changing voices.…”

Developing musical and educational identities in university music students

“…Structured surveys are the most widely used data-gathering tools (see Markus and Nurius 1986), with narrative techniques and those requesting visual data becoming more common (Bruner 1990;Clandinin 2006;Hollingsworth and Dybdahl 2007;Whitty 2002). Participant drawings and improvised scene acting have also been used within research concerning possible selves (Packard and Conway 2006), including projects in music education settings with adolescent boys (Freer 2009) that led to a curricular model for the identification of possible selves in music, and university teacher preparation programmes (Brand and Dolloff 2002). The latter study compared the musical and pedagogical identities of Chinese and North American methods course participants as depicted in drawings, finding that North American students held rigid, highly compartmentalised images of the distinct identities of musician and teacher, while Chinese students viewed these two identities as more fluid and interactive.…”

Perspectives of European boys about their voice change and school choral singing: developing the possible selves of adolescent male singers

“…Previous narrative research with a small number of adolescent boys (n=3) identified topics associated with the development of possible selves through vocal-choral music experiences (Freer, 2009b). Each topic identified in the earlier study was found in this larger data set.…”

“…These studies suggest that the development of possible selves is developmental and sequential, with six stages that progress from conception of an envisioned future self to realisation of that future self (see Hock, Deshler & Schumaker, 2006;Freer, 2009b). The six stages and descriptions are:…”