The focus of this study is music in the compulsory schooling context, where the subject ‘music’ is designated as a specific learning area and guided in an overall sense by a related curriculum. Speaking out of a European context, but of relevance to the situation in Aotearoa New Zealand as described in Chapter 1, Hennessey (2012) commented on the ‘uneven quality’ of music education in primary schools while grappling with the question of how to provide ‘consistently “good enough” music education for all children’ (p. 626). Rather than entering into the often polarizing and ultimately non-productive debate about the comparative efficacy of generalist versus specialist music teachers, she drew attention to the ‘documented fact that many students coming into primary teaching do not feel confident to teach music and…a good number continue to feel this throughout their careers’ (p. 627). She argued that, regardless of the ways particular schools choose to provide music education for their students, pre- service and in-service education needs to ensure that teachers are enabled to develop ‘high quality music learning opportunities for all children’ (p. 628). For those who teach music in the school context, issues of content and
progression or sequences of learning are matters of importance, as they seek to develop meaningful programmes that enable learning to occur. The following review section addresses issues of music programme design, content and
progression in the contemporary school classroom context in the western world. From a Nordic perspective and following Dewey’s pragmatic stance, Vakeva and Westerlund (2007) argue for a ‘method’ of democracy (p. 96) to be used to address curricular issues in music education, which takes account of the
dynamism of student experience as well as, and within, a cultural context. This implies a democratic process involving situation-specific conflict resolution in
which contextual rather than universal solutions are required. In their view, school-based music education cannot settle for pre-established solutions to pre- established problems. Rather, new, creative possibilities need to be opened up, bearing in mind that ‘what is really meaningful in any learning cannot be entirely objectified before the fact of the actual learning experience’ (p. 104). In a similar vein, but operating out of the United States context, Eisner (2002) describes the process of curriculum planning as one that seeks the ‘realisation of certain
ineffables’ (p. 126) rather than the implementation of received formulaic solutions to problems identified independently of the particularities of any given context. Writing out of the English context, Mills (2005) also cautions against dogma or formulaic solutions to problems of classroom practice. On the basis of her
extensive teaching background and research, she suggests that dogma is produced when what may be a very good idea (or theory) spreads, and is implemented in an uncritical fashion as a set of procedures which specify both content and
progression. She points out that such sets of procedures can also become commodified and marketed as packaged programmes to the detriment of quality pedagogical practice, a view which resonates with Regelski’s critique of
‘methodolatry’ (2002) discussed later in this chapter.
Cain (2001) questioned the imposition of a model of progression implicit in the English music curriculum, in which assessment is related to discreet aspects of musical knowledge. Taking the view that musical development may not occur in this step-by-step, ‘straight-line’ manner, he describes a holistic model of
progression in which the self-taught rock or folk musician aims to achieve a level of musical ‘authenticity’ (p. 112). Cain suggested that school-based music
education needs to establish a progression of learning that is congruent with the nature of music-making in authentic contexts. Paynter (1982) put it this way:
Musical insight is not the sum of an agreed series of theoretical points. The true rudiments of music are sensitivity to and delight in sound and its expressive qualities, and the progression we create must be within this mode of understanding and derived from the musical experience itself. (p. 59)
Green’s (2008) work, which is also concerned with authentic music-making in the school context, led her to develop a new classroom pedagogy (to complement rather than replace other pedagogical approaches) aimed at engaging adolescents in a school-based music programme. Her approach adopted and adapted aspects of popular musicians’ informal music learning practice, of which the key principles were:
• Learning music chosen by the students themselves; • Learning by listening and copying a recording; • Peer directedness without adult guidance;
• Learning in haphazard holistic ways with no planned structure of progression;
• Implicit integration of listening, performing composing and improvising. (Green, 2008, p. 25)
Like researchers mentioned previously, her approach contests formulaic or overly prescriptive approaches to content and progression.
McPhail (2014) argued for a balance of emphasis in music curriculums between ‘knowing how’ (the knowledge derived informally from procedural experience) and ‘knowing that’ (the more traditional forms of theoretical knowledge). McPhail’s study showed that students in Aotearoa New Zealand high-school settings did not necessarily see music in terms of strict binaries such as formal/informal music, popular/classical, in-school/out-of school (p. 307). He concluded that the interplay between an ‘enabling pedagogy and curriculum content appeared to be pivotal in developing and maintaining the pedagogic rights of students for inclusion, participation and enhancement’ (p. 307). In his view, a praxial approach currently runs the risk of becoming an orthodoxy, which de- emphasises the potential of conceptual knowledge to enhance practical experience. His critique is a welcome counterpoint to other views and is of relevance to the aims of this study, which is concerned with an approach that places a strong emphasis on practical aspects of music-making.
Hallam (2001) described music learning as involving ‘enculturation’ (p. 69), which does not rely on instructional processes and can occur anywhere, as well as the development of generative processes (p. 70) involved in creating music through performance, improvisation and composition. Both of these, she suggested, is the concern of music education in school. In her view, music can
provide a ‘diversity of tasks that will match the diversity of skills in students and provide opportunity for further development’ (p. 69). Music programme
‘coherence’ is achieved by individual teachers identifying overall aims, which will in turn guide the development of a programme (p. 69).
O’Neill’s (2012) call for a paradigmatic shift in the way we think about music learners, from one in which musical talent is seen as the ‘domain of a relatively few individuals’ to one in which ‘all music learners in all contexts of development have musical strengths and competencies’ (p. 166), links programme design with ethical considerations. She draws attention to the complexity of students’ (and teachers’) musical lives in a digital age that offers an ever-increasing range of musical experiences and pedagogical opportunities. Arguing for ‘transformative music engagement’ (pp. 166-167), she challenges music educators to ‘examine more deeply what it means to engage music learners in multimodal and
participatory forms of music-making’ (p.178). Transformative pedagogy is characterised by the following elements:
• Teaching begins with student knowledge.
• Skills, knowledge, and voices develop from engagement in the activity. • Teaching and learning are both individual and collaborative processes
The role of the instructor is one of facilitator organizer leader and source of knowledge but not the primary source of learning.
• Teaching and learning are transformative processes. Learners share creative representation and engage in processes of dialogue and shared meaning making. (O’Neill, 2012, pp. 177–178)
2.4.1 Music education and cultural diversity
Literature addressing cultural diversity and music education is of relevance to the focus of this study in its overall concern with the adaptation of a particular
approach in the Aotearoa New Zealand context. As mentioned in the introduction, the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) challenges teachers to take account of both the bi-cultural and culturally diverse nature of the students in New Zealand schools. In particular the research question ‘What part do
considerations related to the indigenous culture of Aotearoa New Zealand play when considering the application of Orff approach in this country?’ calls for a theoretical framework to be established within which this question may be addressed. This section of the review will briefly review literature offering a
of children’s musicking, multi-culturalism and music education, and finally, indigenous culture and music education.
2.4.2 Cultural diversity and children’s musicking
Shehan Campbell (1997) and others (e.g., Burke & Evans, 2012) in the music education community have readily acknowledged the potential richness that a culturally diverse society offers in terms of access to and opportunity for the celebration of and incorporation of diverse musical practices into the classroom music programme. In her investigation into the meaning and value of music in children’s lives, Shehan Campbell (2010), found the culture of children’s music to be ‘large, multifarious and decidedly pluralistic’ (p. 235). She was able,
nevertheless, to describe this ‘diversity of musicking’ (p. 239) within broad categories, which contain a potential wealth of relevant information for teachers planning programmes in schools (pp. 239-274). Her research comprised an extended act of listening to and observing children engaging with music, which resulted in findings that in her view are ‘a testimony to music as a human
phenomenon dwelling within the very young and awaiting the call to expression’ (p. 276). She argued that teachers should pay close attention, albeit in a
piecemeal and/or day-by-day manner, to children’s existing knowledge and interests in music in order to ‘honor children’s earlier and concurrent pathways of enculturative knowledge’ (p. 232). Such knowledge, defined by Shehan Campbell (2010) as ‘natural and without formal instruction’, develops largely outside of school and certainly without the ‘direct attention of adults’ (p. 230). She acknowledged school-based instruction (at least in the United States setting) as mostly ‘highly structured and sequential in process’ (p. 230) but on the other hand emphasised the need to ‘fit’ (p. 231) content and learning sequences to individual students rather than the other way round. Her challenge to teachers ‘to find ways to associate what children know with what they need to know’ (p. 232) is not an innovative pedagogical strategy in itself. However, her ethno-musicological study provided a breadth of perspective and depth of information about the musical lives of children, hitherto inaccessible to adults in any systematic form.
2.4.3 Culturally diverse musics and music education
Theories of dynamic multi-culturalism (Elliott, 1990) and, more recently, critical multiculturalism (May & Sleeter, 2010) call for a dismantling of simple categories of cultural difference. Rather, one needs to take account of many kinds of
difference: differing musical tastes; differing practices; and differing forms, purposes and sources of legitimation of musicking (Davis, 2005; Jorgensen, 1998; Lamb, 2010).
Kwami (2001) addressed the challenges music teachers face in developing music programmes that incorporate a variety of musicking practices. Describing the participatory, aural, embodied, improvisatory musicianship that is valued in African (and other non-western) music[s], he highlighted the inappropriateness and inadequacy of imposing a western model of notation-based musicianship in school-based music education in a pluralistic society. He also suggested that, given that the process of enculturation results from a long-term engagement with particular music, it is unrealistic for teachers to attempt to replicate such a process within the classroom. On the other hand, he argued that the exploration and recreation of carefully chosen pieces can be done with integrity, if teachers ensure familiarity with the source, the musical content, and adopt an appropriate manner of transmission (e.g.,learning aurally rather than using staff notation). In his view the classroom is a valid communal context in its own right, where an open stance to non-western musics needs to be apparent in order to avoid ‘exclusions’ (p.153), and within which new ‘syncretic’ (p. 145) forms of music-making may occur. The importance of musical material being taught in relation to its cultural context is widely acknowledged (Abril, 2006b; Boyea, 1999; Damm, 2006; Dunbar-Hall, 2005; Parsons, 1999; Power & Bradley, 2011; Shi, Goetze, & Fern, 2006). All songs and musical games are culture-specific in their purpose, value, and contexts of use and production. They reflect a culture’s values and ways of being in the world and embody a way of life (Russell, 2006). Not acknowledging the cultural implications of music when drawing on a range of sources can result in a
2.4.4 Indigenous culture and music education
In relation to indigenous performing arts traditions and music education, ethnographic studies of children’s songs and singing games, and other cultural musical practices, show the embedded-ness of arts practices in the culture and values of communities (Russell, 2006). If a child’s experience at school is disconnected from what they experience in their community, a disjunction may occur and ‘students may find it difficult to relate what they learn in school to those things that are more meaningful to them. They may fail to be engaged’ (Russell, 2006, p. 20).
Boyea (1999) called for authentic curriculums supplemented by authentic teaching in which indigenous arts are not treated as artefact but as living culture. Pointing out that music and story are closely aligned in indigenous cultures Boyea (2000), suggested that indigenous musics may become more accessible to non- indigenous ears and minds through story. The music may sound ‘alien and incomprehensible’ but ‘stories help ease the relationship, expose the beauty and soften the initial exposures to what may seem ‘odd and difficult sounds’ (p. 16). The use of authentic indigenous instruments is advocated by researchers such as Abril (2006a) and Burton (2000). The latter has argued that using instruments made by Native American craftspeople fosters respect for the musical culture and as well provides for authentic learning.
Despite the widespread recognition that indigenous musics provide opportunities for curriculum integration (e.g., Rose, 1995), research suggests that many teachers are ill-equipped in terms of both content and pedagogy in relation to indigenous performing arts (Marsh, 2000; Whitinui, 2010b). Marsh (2000), for example, in an Australian study found that many teachers commented on failings in their pre- service, music education learning as explaining their lack of confidence. In another Australian study, Dillon and Chapman (2005) drew attention to the importance of teachers understanding the historical and contemporary
relationships between the dominant white culture and the marginalised indigenous culture as a precondition to an adequate grasp of indigenous arts.
Another thorny issue in the relationship between mainstream music education and indigenous culture is the question of song ownership, and knowing the protocols
of seeking permission for the use of materials from the appropriate group
(Costigan & Neuenfeldt, 2011). In Canada, for example, much Aboriginal music belongs to a person or a ceremony, so permission needs to be obtained and acknowledgement made (Kennedy, 2009). For this reason, there can be problems for teachers in accessing suitable material for classroom use in the public domain.