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This pioneering book reveals how the music classroom can draw upon the world of popular musicians' informal learning practices, so as to recognize and foster a range of musical skills and knowledge that have long been overlooked within music education. It investigates how far informal learning practices are possible and desirable in a classroom context; how they can affect young teenagers' musical skill and knowledge acquisition; and how they can change the ways students listen to, understand and appreciate music as critical listeners, not only in relation to what they already know, but beyond. It examines students' motivations towards music education, their autonomy as learners, and their capacity to work co-operatively in groups without instructional guidance from teachers. It suggests how we can awaken students' awareness of their own musicality, particularly those who might not otherwise be reached by music education, putting the potential for musical development and participation into their own hands. Bringing informal learning practices into a school environment is challenging for teachers. It can appear to conflict with their views of professionalism, and may at times seem to run against official educational discourses, pedagogic methods and curricular requirements. But any conflict is more apparent than real, for this book shows how informal learning practices can introduce fresh, constructive ways for music teachers to understand and approach their work. It offers a critical pedagogy for music, not as mere theory, but as an analytical account of practices which have fundamentally influenced the perspectives of the teachers involved. Through its grounded examples and discussions of alternative approaches to classroom work and classroom relations, the book reaches out beyond music to other curriculum subjects, and wider debates about pedagogy and curriculum. Contents: Introduction; The project's pedagogy and curriculum content; Making music; Listening and appreciation; Enjoyment: making music and having autonomy; Group cooperation, ability and inclusion; Informal learning with classical music; Afterword; Appendices; Bibliography; Index. Lucy Green is Professor of Music Education in The Institute of Education, University of London, UK.

\"The Oxford Handbook of Music Composition Pedagogy provides a compendium of perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of music composition so that music educators can indulge their curiosities and become more knowledgeable about young composers and their work. The forward-looking practices presented offer teachers tools and strategies to ensure that every child can experience composition as part of their music education. The forty-three chapters of the volume address nine major themes: philosophical foundations, identity and inclusion, compositional processes, approaches to composition teaching and learning, nurturing young composers, composing in classroom and ensemble settings, international perspectives on composition in music education, and how the future of composition in music education might be shaped. Readers engaging with this work will find strategies for embracing diversity as it is found in the individual nature of each student-composer and in the broader community of composers, understanding the value of individual and collaborative work as a function of artistic action, including a wide range of experiential contexts so that students can embrace traditional and emerging musics, and ways to help students sustain and extend their cultural heritage through composing. This volume makes clear the potential that composition holds for advancing student artistry in music education and offers guidance for those working to achieve that goal\"-- Provided by publisher.

Popular musicians acquire some or all of their skills and knowledge informally, outside school or university, and with little help from trained instrumental teachers. How do they go about this process? Despite the fact that popular music has recently entered formal music education, we have as yet a limited understanding of the learning practices adopted by its musicians. Nor do we know why so many popular musicians in the past turned away from music education, or how young popular musicians today are responding to it. Drawing on a series of interviews with musicians aged between fifteen and fifty, Lucy Green explores the nature of pop musicians' informal learning practices, attitudes and values, the extent to which these altered over the last forty years, and the experiences of the musicians in formal music education. Through a comparison of the characteristics of informal pop music learning with those of more formal music education, the book offers insights into how we might re-invigorate the musical involvement of the population. Could the creation of a teaching culture that recognizes and rewards aural imitation, improvisation and experimentation, as well as commitment and passion, encourage more people to make music? Since the hardback publication of this book in 2001, the author has explored many of its themes through practical work in school classrooms. Her follow-up book, Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008) appears in the same Ashgate series. Lucy Green is Professor of Music Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her other books include Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008); Music, Gender, Education (1997) and Music on Deaf Ears (1988). Contents: Foreword, Robert Fripp; What is it to be musically educated?: Research methods; Concluding thoughts; Skills, knowledge and self-conceptions of popular musicians: the beginnings and the ends: The ’beginnings’; Professional musicianship: the ’ends’; Some self-conceptions of popular musicians; Learning to play popular music: acquiring skills and knowledge: The overriding learning practice: listening and copying; Peer-directed learning and group learning; Acquiring technique; Practice; Acquiring knowledge of technicalities; Summary; Attitudes and values in learning to play popular music: Discipline and osmosis; Enjoyment; Valuing musicianship; Valuing oneself; Attitudes to ’other’ music; Summary; Popular musicians in traditional music education: Classical instrumental tuition; Traditional classroom music education; Summary; Popular musicians in the new music education: Popular music instrumental tuition; The new classroom music education; Popular music in further and higher education; The musician’s views of popular music in formal education; Summary; The formal and the informal: mutual reciprocity or a contradiction in terms?: The neglect of informal learning practices in formal music education; Informal learning practices, attitudes and values: their potential for the formal sphere; What can teachers do?; Appendix: summary profiles of the musicians; Bibliography; Index.

Critical of technologically determinist assumptions underpinning current educational policy, Victoria Armstrong argues that this growing technicism has grave implications for the music classroom where composition is often synonymous with the music technology suite. The use of computers and associated compositional software in music education is frequently decontextualized from cultural and social relationships, thereby ignoring the fact that new technologies are used and developed within existing social spaces that are always already delineated along gender lines. Armstrong suggests these gender-technology relations have a profound effect on the ways adolescents compose music as well as how gendered identities in the technologized music classroom are constructed. Drawing together perspectives from the sociology of science and technology studies (STS) and the sociology of music, Armstrong examines the gendered processes and practices that contribute to how students learn about technology, the repertoire of teacher and student talk, its effect on student confidence and the issue of male control of technological knowledge. Even though girls and female teachers have technological knowledge and skill, the continuing material and symbolic associations of technology with men and masculinity contribute to the perception of women as less able and less interested in all things technological. In light of the fact that music technology is now central to many music-making practices across all sectors of education from primary, secondary through to higher education, this book provides a timely critical analysis that powerfully demonstrates why the relationship between gender and music technology should remain an important empirical consideration.

Black Music Matters: Jazz and the Transformation of Music Studies is among the first books to examine music studies reform through the lens of African American music, as well as the emergent field of consciousness studies. It is inspired by conversations on race and a rich body of literature on the place of black music in American culture.

Offers a simple, visual guide to helping children understand music with Carol Vorderman. Reduce the stress of studying music and help your child with their homework, Help Your Kids with Music is a unique visual guide to music theory which will demystify the subject for everyone. Including the latest updates to the UK National Curriculum, covering everything from semitones and note values, to harmony and music appreciation, Help Your Kids with Music helps you work through music step-by-step. Using clear, accessible pictures and diagrams you'll learn to approach even the most complex musical theory with confidence. Includes a glossary of key musical terms and symbols. Help Your Kids with Music is the perfect guide for every parent and child, who wants to understand music theory and put it into practice.

Writing music for games is an art that requires conceptual forethought, specialized technical skill, and a deep understanding of how players interact with games and game audio. The Game Music Handbook embarks on a journey through numerous soundscapes throughout video game history, exploring a series of concepts and techniques that are key to being a successful game music composer. This book organizes key game music scoring concepts into an applicable methodology, describing them with memorable distinctions that leave readers with a clear picture of how to apply them to creating music and sound. Any music composer or musician who wishes to begin a career in game composition can pick up this text and quickly gain a solid understanding of the core techniques for composing video game music, as well as the conceptual differences that separate it from any other compositional field. Some of these topics include designing emotional arcs for nonlinear timelines, the relationship between music and sound design, discussion of the player’s interaction with audio, and more. There is also much to be gained by advanced readers or game audio professionals, who will find detailed discussion of game state and its effect on player interaction, a composer-centric lesson on programming, how to work with version control, information on visual programming languages, emergent audio, music for virtual reality (VR), procedural audio, and other indispensable knowledge about advanced reactive music concepts. The text often explores the effect that music has on a player’s interaction with a game. It discusses the practical application of this interaction through the examination of various techniques employed in games throughout video game history to enhance immersion, emphasize emotion, and create compelling interactive experiences.