Teaching young musicians expressive performance: an experimental study

Abstract

Twenty-nine pupils (aged 8-15) took part in an improvisation test and an experimental vs. control group teaching session. The aim of the improvisation test was to explore whether participants had knowledge about the use of expressive cues to convey basic emotions in improvisations. Assessments of the improvisations by four adjudicators indicated that most pupils in this sample could convey happiness, sadness and anger effectively in improvisations, providing a useful starting point for expressive music performance, which was examined in the experimental study. The experimental study investigated whether discussion of musical character is effective for improving pupils' expressiveness, by comparing outcomes with a control teaching session that focused on accuracy and technical fluency. Participants' performances of a 'happy' and 'sad' musical excerpt pre-and postteaching were assessed by four adjudicators. Results indicated that the experimental teaching had been significantly more effective for improving expressiveness in the 'sad' extract than control teaching. ARTICLE HISTORYThis study is the first in a larger project that aims to develop and test instructional strategies for facilitating pupils' learning of expressive performance of Western classical music. Although several studies have investigated strategies for teaching tertiary students and adults performance expression (e.g. Lisboa et al. little is known about effective strategies for teaching primary and secondary school pupils expressive performance. It is important to develop a systematic pedagogy for facilitating pupils' learning of expressiveness (see Laukka 2004;Williamon 2014;Woody 2000) and the reported study has been designed to contribute towards this goal. Literature review Expressive music performanceExpression in music performance is a multifaceted phenomenon, consisting of various aspects of expressiveness (Juslin 2003;Schubert and Fabian 2014). First, music can be seen as expressive of emotions, affects, feelings, characters and patterns of sound (

Young Musicians' Learning of Expressive Performance: The Importance of Dialogic Teaching and Modeling

“…Empirical research has demonstrated that musicians employ expressive devices, such as articulation, dynamics, tempo, timing, and ornamentation, to communicate their interpretation of the musical structure (e.g., Sloboda, 1983;Clarke, 1988;Palmer, 1996Palmer, , 1997 and character (e.g., Gabrielsson and Juslin, 1996;Gabrielsson, 1999;Timmers and Ashley, 2007). For this study we define an expressive music performance as a performance in which the musician communicates their interpretation of the compositional structure and musical character of a work convincingly to a listener (Meissner, 2018;. Expressiveness describes the expressive quality of a performance.…”

Comparison of beliefs about teaching and learning of emotional expression in music performance between Spanish and English HE students of music

“…Nevertheless, the number of teaching approaches exemplified were limited, as were the number of presented beliefs. Furthermore, in reality, teachers may use a combination of methods, which together may be seen as more optimal for teaching expressiveness, such as a combination of modelling and constructive dialog (Meissner, 2018).…”

“…Taking a more constructionist approach, Meissner (2018) encouraged fellow music teachersÕ to adopt a dialogic teaching approach to enhance expressive performance and awareness of it in pupils. She found that dialogue about emotional character and expressive devices successfully contributed to improved expressive performance compared to a control teaching strategy (Meissner & Timmers, 2018). What specific teaching strategy is employed seems related to teachersÕ beliefs regarding the nature of musical expressivity (Laukka, 2004), implying that to change educational practices, conceptions and beliefs will need to be addressed as well.…”

El aprendizaje expresivo y las diferencias de género en la Educación Superior de Música

“…Otra aproximación similar fue la de Juslin et al (2006) que plantea cuatro estrategias básicas utilizadas por el docente: a) modelado que parte de la imitación; b) metáforas o imágenes con el uso de estas herramientas; c) emociones propias dirigiendo al estudiante hacia sus sensaciones emotivas al tocar; y d) técnica que aporta instrucciones específicas para producir cambios sonoros en la ejecución expresiva. En la práctica diaria se considera que se emplean diferentes modelos, combinados o no (Meissner y Timmers, 2019), en función de los objetivos planteados y las necesidades del estudiante.…”