"More Than Just Composers": Teachers' Identities as Music Creatives and the Impact on Teaching Composition

Abstract

The large research study on which this paper draws examined the preparation of early-career teachers (ECTs) in New South Wales to teach composition and musical creativity. Presenting data collected through a Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) research design, and semi-structured interviews and themes, this article explores the theme of Musical Identity as it arose in the larger study. Through discussions with ECTs and composers who have experience teaching composition in NSW secondary schools, this study examined and compared these groups’ personal definitions of composition and perceptions of composer/creator identity and explored the implications of these definitions and identities on how these groups approach composition instruction in NSW secondary schools. These discussions revealed that participants held a wide variety of definitions of composing and the composer identity, stemming from composition’s strong Western Art Music (WAM) connotations, and these ambiguities presented themselves as barriers for the participants to teach composition effectively. Literature in this area indicates that, with relatively little pedagogical understanding of it, composition is neglected in initial teacher education (ITE) programs in Australia, Canada, Finland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As music education activities should be facilitated using processes and paradigms that reflect the paradigms of students, music teachers’ personal definitions of composition need to be broadened through their ITE experiences. In order to democratise the act of creating music, syllabus terminology and requirements should be revised to reflect these broader definitions of music creation in NSW secondary schools.