SEM Student News, Vol. 11 (Fall/Winter 2015) [Justin R. Hunter, Editor] (original) (raw)
Related papers
Integrating curriculum provides rich opportunities for students to focus on relevant applications to the real world and make meaningful connections across different disciplines. This article attempts to go beyond common discourse and platitudes by offering specific examples, showing we—an ethnomusicologist and a mathematics educator—attempted to integrate music and mathematics education curriculum in a graduate mathematics education classroom, with nonmusician graduate students. In our project, we designed and taught a group of graduate mathematics education students a lesson focused on mathematics and world music percussion to explore the ways that nonmusician preservice teachers might experience and use the specific connections between mathematics and music.
Rethinking the Engagement of Ethnomusicologists with Performance and Applied Music Curricula
Voices of the Field, 2021
The primary focus of music schools and conservatories in the United States and abroad is on training performers; one of the reasons ethnomusicologists have had such difficulty expanding their employment opportunities within such institutions is because they have not given enough thought to how they can productively contribute to applied curricula, coursework that falls outside of academic pursuits as typically defined. Ethnomusicologists engage creatively with many fields in the humanities and social sciences. But while this interdisciplinarity has resulted in countless insightful publications, it has typically held little immediate relevance for students studying performance. A surprising number of ethnomusicology programs do not require applied musical training, and ethnomusicology as a field does not dialogue sufficiently with colleagues in applied areas. This essay makes a case for the greater centrality of performance as a component of ethnomusicological training, both as a way to generate new job opportunities and to engage more productively with musical institutions. The ultimate goal of such a shift is to challenge such institutions on their own terms (aesthetic, performative), to expand the conservative focus of most large-ensemble and recital repertoire, and to demonstrate the relevance of ethnomusicology to the broader arts community. My essay begins with reflections about ethnomusicology and performance based on my own experience. I continue by considering what aspiring performers of the twenty-first century need to know in order to be professionally successful, and how the expertise of ethnomusicologists might more directly contribute directly to the requirements of BM programs. Finally, I suggest an approach to playing and teaching about world music that focuses both on performance degrees and
Ethnomusicology and Music Education: Crossroads for knowing music, education, and culture
Research Studies in Music Education, 2003
The influences of ethnomusicological theory and method on scholarly and practical aspects of music education will be considered here, as well as the nature of music education's impact on the scholarship and teaching by ethnomusicologists. An examination of books, monographs, journal articles, instructional materials, and conference proceedings is underway to determine ideas and practices of overlapping interest. The writings of John Blacking, Charles Keil, Bruno Nettl, Tim Rice, and the Seegers and the Lomaxes are among those scholars whose work is relevant to music education scholarship, and issues of mutual interest are emerging: cross-cultural perspectives of music cognition, the mind-body and music-dance dualities, children's music culture, the pedagogy of world music, and research approaches to the study of music, musical thought, and musical behavior. Following a description of the actual influences by each field on the other, discussion will shift to the potential of the fields to learn from one another and to construct deeper understandings of music in society and its schools. Ph.D. Examiner: "We have heard of ways in which music education specialists make use of the fruits of ethnomusicological research in their teaching. Is it just about 'materials', or is method a consideration? And what, if anything, do music educators have to offer ethnomusicology?"
Harmonizing Ethnomusicology & Music Education (A Conversation with Patricia Shehan Campbell
In a recent conversation with Patricia Shehan Campbell, we discussed the relationship between Music Education and Ethnomusicology. For the past twenty-plus years, Dr. Campbell has been a leader and innovator at the interface of Ethnomusicology and Music Education, including work on music for children, world music pedagogy, and ethnographic research on music as it is learned and taught. As the head of ethnomusicology and the Donald E. Petersen
Ethnomusicology and Music Education: Developing the dialogue (Review article)
SAMUS South African Journal of Musicology, 2005
This review article investigates the potential in selected recent South African publications for developing the interface between ethnomusicology and music education, in a relationship that encourages a critical edge. It engages the challenge posed by such texts for reconciling accessibility in the classroom with theoretical rigour in ethnomusicological research, and suggests that the point of accessibility and relevance in ethnomusicology is in informing teaching (methodologically) and developing materials (conceptually and theoretically). The article explores the extent to which the texts constitute a dialogue between ethnomusicological and educational enterprises, and articulate - implicitly or explicitly - with the present Arts and Culture curriculum. It argues that music educators and researchers should engage more deeply with the complexity of Arts and Culture in the context of educational transformation in South Africa, and concludes that not all the texts engage equally or consistently with such complexity.
I drum, I sing, I dance: An ethnographic study of a West African drum and dance ensemble
The purpose of this ethnographic study was to investigate the Montclair State University’s West African drum and dance ensemble. Analyses of the data revealed three themes related to individual participants and the “lived reality” of the group as a whole, and to the social-cultural teaching–learning processes involved: spirituality, community-as-oneness, and communal joy. My motivation for undertaking this inquiry arose from the fact that, beginning in the 1960s, music education scholars in the United States have been concerned about the widespread marginalization of non-Western musics in American music teacher education programs. This situation is still a major concern because American undergraduate and graduate music teacher preparation remains overwhelmingly dominated by Western classical styles. This situation runs contrary to the massive social, cultural, situational, and musical diversity of American students’ lives. As one small effort to advance musical diversity in my own university music school context, I developed the proposal for and initiated the Montclair State University’s West African drum and dance ensemble.
A pile of drums: Putting theory into practice in culturally diverse music education
International Journal of Music Education, 2019
This article provides music educators with practical ways to (a) build school community through culturally diverse music and informal performances and (b) inculcate global perspectives into music programs (including concert band and choir) through culturally diverse music. In an autoethnographic style, the article tells a story that spans 2 years in a challenging situation: an international school in a country wrought with political and economic instability. It examines community building and inculcating global awareness from four perspectives. The first perspective reviews engagement in cultural diversity in music education through the lens of recently completed PhD research. It looks what scholars are writing about culturally diverse music education and how these ideas subsequently look in practice. Second, 30 years of personal experience teaching culturally diverse music are tied in, including ideas for student engagement in music classes. The third perspective includes practical ideas: how culturally diverse music can be integrated to broaden a program and rejuvenate interest in music. Finally, the fourth reveals responses from students experiencing learning through culturally diverse music. Examples, transcriptions, and recommended resources are included, leaving music teachers with useful, sustainable approaches for culturally diverse inclusivity.