Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category
Updating that library thing
I’ve had a day of catching up on things that I’ve been meaning to do for a while but haven’t got around to. One of them was updating some of the books I’m reading on the Library Thing website. It’s been a while since I’ve visited the site but I highly recommend it as a way of keeping track of your books and finding out about related reading through other users of the service. They have added a lot of extra functionality since I last visited and increased the number of books you can have on your virtual shelves (to 200), but I’m nowhere near that yet. Anyway, the widget in the right hand margin shows what I’m currently reading. Why not create an account of your own and let the world know what’s on your bookshelf?
Bennett Reimar’s new book
Here’s a book that’s worth a read. The blurb says that Seeking the Significance of Music Education: Essays and Reflections offers arguments, proposals, and critiques of long-standing issues of central importance to music education. I’ve ordered a copy for the MMU library but I am confident of highly recommending it to all. A review will follow.
Levitin’s recent book: The World in Six Songs
Thanks to Adam for spotting this. Daniel Levitin has published a new book this year. The World in Six Songs
Through a process of co-evolution of brains and music, through the structures throughout our cortex and neocortex, from our brain stem to the prefrontal cortex, from the limbic system to the cerebellum, music uniquely insinuates itself into our heads. It does this in six distinctive ways, each of them with their own evolutionary basis…
Each of the six distinctive ways receives a chapter within the book. Intrigued? I was.
Lucy Green’s Music, Informal Learning and the School: A new classroom pedagogy
I’ve was asked to write a book review for Lucy Green’s new book and thought I’d post a draft here for comment. If you’ve read the book, what did you think? If you haven’t read it, it is well worth a read. There is lots of good stuff in there. Here it goes …
Music, Informal Learning and the School: A new classroom pedagogy describes work carried out by Professor Green through a large music education programme in England called Musical Futures. Further details about this programme can be found at the project website (www.musicalfutures.org). But this book goes considerably beyond what are a collection of teaching resources and strategies. It presents a rigorous analysis of aspects of the project, asking important questions about how the pedagogy of music education could, or should, be extended.
Green’s previous work, in particular her 2001 book How Popular Musicians’ Learn, (Green 2001) sets an important context for Musical Futures and this publication. It analysed the musical skills and understanding of a number of musicians whom were broadly described as having developed their skills in an ‘informal’ manner, i.e. outside of ‘formal’ music education within schools or colleges. Through this analysis, Green described what she considered to be a common set of informal popular learning practices. The final chapter of the 2001 book sketched out some of the implications of this work for the world of ‘formal’ music education, i.e. schools.
In that context, this book is an exposition of well established, and in some senses, pre-rehearsed themes. The Musical Futures project, with its significant funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, provided a useful vehicle through which these themes have been developed (recapitulated if you like) and applied. As one would expect from a major, influential international figure in the world of music education, the result is a scholarly account of the work of teachers, pupils and researchers throughout the project.
The introductory chapter outlines the aims and rationale for the book. It sets these in an historical context and hints at, for this reader somewhat too briefly, a range of other related research in this area. The research methods are introduced. Apparently quantitative and qualitative data was collected, although the data cited throughout the book is almost entirely drawn from observations of pupils work, recorded data (i.e. audio and video recordings) and transcribed interview data.
Chapter 2 describes the project’s pedagogy and curriculum content. The project was organised in seven main stages:
- Stage 1 involved pupils choosing a piece of music, listening to it in friendship groups and copying it by ear on selected instruments;
- Stage 2 required pupils to create a version of a funk track by ear through listening and copying fifteen riffs (provided separately and in combinations). Worksheets with note names were provided to assist pupils if needed;
- Stage 3 was a repeat of Stage 1;
- In Stage 4 pupils composed, rehearsed and performed their own music, directing their own learning in friendship groups;
- Stage 5 was about song writing with a band of peer musicians or community musicians;
- Stage 6 provided pupils with recordings of five pieces of familiar classical music. In friendship groups pupils had to listen, discuss, select, copy, arrange, rehearse and perform the music as an ensemble.
- Stage 7 was similar to Stage 6, except the classical music provided was unfamiliar to the pupils.
As the book progresses, it becomes clear that the majority of the text is devoted to Stage 1 only (Stages 6 and 7 are singled out for a chapter of their own). Each stage of the project related to a set of four to six lessons within the case study schools and these are helpfully summarised in an Appendix (p.193). From the teacher’s perspective, each stage was characterised by a deliberate teaching strategy of non-interference. Teachers were told to ‘empathise with pupils’ perspectives and the goals that pupils set for themselves’ and to diagnose (internally) their pupils’ ‘needs in relation to these goals’ (p.24). Following a period of pupils’ experimentation, they could offer suggestions and act as ‘musical models’ through demonstration (p.25). Green is not naïve about the significant challenges that this would present for the average music teacher. Throughout the book she is up front about the tensions, problems and, on occasions, downright disbelief that teachers expressed throughout the project. She rehearses a number of explanations for teachers’ wariness, including their own subject training (many had a classical, by which one can imply ‘formal’, musical background), a sense of their legal and professional responsibility and the existence of curriculum frameworks and associated inspection regimes. Green suggests that none of these in isolation can explain the challenges that teachers felt. But it was interesting to note throughout the book that many of these initial concerns subsided throughout the project and initial scepticism turned into a devout faithfulness to the informal learning cause for many teachers.
Chapter 3 gets down to the business of making music. It focuses on the first stage of the project, primarily where pupils had to bring in a CD of their own choice and, in friendship groups, choose one song and learn to play it on instruments of their own choice (within the selection available at the school). Through this chapter Green explores issues related to gender and singing, playing the various instruments (including guitars, un-tuned percussion and pitched instruments) and, perhaps most interestingly, issues of musical progression. She identifies what many of us experience when learning things in everyday life. You often get worse before you get better! Brief mention is made to learning in other subjects (p.53), but Green identifies a crucial issue for teachers. At what point is it helpful to intervene in the learning process? Should we let pupils get worse before they get better?
This chapter focuses mainly on processes of musical performance. In a short paragraph (p.62), Green mentions that processes of composing and improvising were part of other stages of the project (especially Stage 4 and 5) but that these are not a primary focus on this book. I found this disappointing. As a firm believer in the educational benefit of integrating the musical processes of performing, composing, listening, etc, this approach seemed peculiar. Additionally, the ascription of creativity to composition in this paragraph seems problematic. It would seem from a wider reading of the creativity literature that this should extend to all processes of learning (and teaching for that matter) and not just be ascribed to compositional activities. It is also interesting to note that the new National Curriculum for Music highlights creativity as a ‘Key Concept’, and one that should permeate all processes of musical learning through an integrated approach (‘Integration of Practice’ is also a key concept).
Chapter 4 moves on to an exploration of listening and musical appreciation. After some introductory comments about the use of vocabulary (and the obvious tensions between teachers perceived need to introduce specialist technical vocabulary and pupils’ natural vocabulary and response when talking about music), Green explores what she calls ‘purposive listening’. This is contrasted with what Green seems to think is pupils’ default ‘passive’ listening stance (see p.73) in their wider musical lives. Indeed, Green suggests that there was some evidence that suggested that the development of pupils’ listening skills within the project had affected their musical listening outside of the project. I found this a little unconvincing. In my experience as a high school teacher and parent, young people listen to music, often very intently, and can talk coherently and passionately about aspects of musical meaning, style, technique and much more besides. This is often achieved in what I (as a middle-aged male) might consider less than ideal listening surroundings, i.e. friends chatting, the television blaring, homework being done, sibling’s banter and parents moaning, etc. Listening is contextualised as an integrated part of their musical consumption. In other words, we hear what we think it is important to hear. Musical appreciation is a similarly loaded notion, although it was pleasing to note the development of what Green calls ‘critical musicality’ through the project. The association of this term with ‘critical literacy’ and ‘critical pedagogy’ was particular powerful (pp.83-84).
Chapter 5 discusses issues of enjoyment and autonomy. It was encouraging that the vast majority of pupils enjoyed the project as a whole. Green makes some very interesting comments here about the ways that pupils compared work within the project to their ‘normal’ music lessons. These comments emerged unprompted as part of the interview process. Although little information about the project schools (and their associated musical tradition, curriculum arrangements and wider extra-curricular programmes is given), it seems that the majority of the schools offered a well-constructed, active approach to musical learning in line with the National Curriculum for Music in England. But pupils’ perception of these ‘normal’ lessons was highly negative in comparison to the work undertaken during the project. Green presents some explanations for this negativity. For example, just playing instruments is not good enough (p.98). Pupils should be offered freedom of choice over which instruments to play. Similarly, control over the choice of music to study (the assumption being that it is good to allow pupils to bring music from outside the classroom into the classroom) was seen as a highly motivational feature for pupils’ work during the project. Maybe this was something that had not happened in their previous lessons.
Given the lack of an historical context that describes the musical provision of the project schools and the associated staffing arrangements, it is very hard for the reader to make head or tail of this. One can say, anecdotally, that pupils can often be overtly negative about traditional approaches to learning particularly when offered something that provides them with a higher degree of personal freedom, choice and responsibility. Ultimately, Green rightly backs away from any kind of comparative judgements (which would be highly controversial given her chosen research methodology and methods) but I was left somewhat precariously balanced in my thoughts and wondering what to make of it all.
Chapter 6 focuses on group co-operation, ability and inclusion. Green’s work is particularly fluent and convincing here. Issues such as peer directed learning, group learning, leadership skills (particularly relevant to the latest iteration of the National Curriculum for Music), ability and achievement are discussed and illustrated with interview material and accompanying analysis. Disappointingly, differentiation receives a somewhat cursory mention. The project tasks were predictably characterised by ‘differentiation by outcome’ at all stages. This default setting did not seem to be challenged at any point and nor are any more sophisticated models presented here for future development.
Chapter 7 moves beyond the remit of the previous chapters by considering Stages 6 and 7 of the project. What happened when thee informal learning practices were applied to performing Western classical music? Basically, in each stage pupils were given a CD with pre-selected classical tracks, asked to choose one of them and copy it (in a similar vein to Stage 1). The Stage 6 tracks were broadly familiar to pupils throughout television advertisements; Stage 7 tracks were unknown to all pupils and chosen by Green. I was not sure that this really constituted, or related to, learning to play a piece of classical music as most classical musicians would understand this. All kinds of issues emerged from this activity. Many of these seemed quite predictable to this reader. But Green presents an honest account of the various issues that teachers and pupils faced.
Chapter 8, an afterword, is a short summing up of what was learnt through the project. It helpfully restates the main focus of the book and signposts some useful areas for further enquiry. It is honest about areas that have been underdeveloped throughout the book, e.g. creativity, assessment, the use of music technology, ability groupings, etc. Green’s penultimate paragraph is particularly interesting. Do what extent will educationalists in other curriculum subjects recognise and support the issues considered in this book? It is interesting that Green spends little time comparing this project to the work of others (although the there are references to research done in mathematics education (p.53), history (p.53) and media studies (p.83) or even seeking to justify this approach on broader, pre-established educational themes. Having just finished reading Summerhill and A. S. Neill (Vaughan 2006), for example, I was wondering how lessons learnt here might relate to the wider inclusive education agenda.
More specifically, music education seems to be dominated by parochialism and tradition. It hangs onto beliefs, myths and traditions about the importance of particular musical styles, technical vocabulary, instrumental technique, instructional approaches and associated pedagogies. This book challenges music educators to think outside their boxes. Ultimately, it seems to this reviewer that effective music teaching is all about a skilful pedagogy. The teacher is not redundant in a Musical Futures-type project. Hopefully they have made a skilful decision about their role. This should be based on a rigorous pedagogical assessment and will result in various conscious, and perhaps even unconscious or artistic, attitudes and actions in the classroom. It is definitely not the easy option. Empowering the skilful music teacher with a range of pedagogical choices or perspectives is important. I would agree with Folkestad (2006) that it is unhelpful to view the formal – informal dimensions here as a dichotomy. Rather, they are a continuum within which teachers will need to make skilful decisions related to the proposed processes of teaching and learning. In that sense, many music teachers throughout the United Kingdom have done ‘musical futures’ for many years. But the sophisticated and methodical analysis that Green brings to this work is a helpful illumination that should empower, promote and extend the activity of music educators across our schools.
References
Folkestad, G, (2006) Formal and informal learning situations or practices vs formal and informal ways of learning. British Journal of Music Education 23: 2, 135-145.
Green, L. (2001) How Popular Musicians Learn: A way ahead for music education. Aldershot, Ashgate.
Vaughan, M. (ed) (2006) Summerhill and A. S. Neill. Buckingham, Open University Press.
Details about the new National Curriculum for Music can be found here:
http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/subjects/music/index.aspx
Book Review of Andrew Brown’s Computers in Music Education
I’m getting into these book reviews! I’ve just written the following for a music education journal but thought I’d share it here first. Do let me have any feedback – particularly if you’ve read the book itself!
Computers in Music Education is written by Andrew Brown, a senior lecturer in computer music at the Queensland University of Technology. It provides a general overview of the key issues associated with using computers (and other pieces of technology) in the classroom and attempts to blend theory about the conceptual and philosophical ideas behind these technologies with the practical implications of using such tools in a learning environment. Brown’s text is divided into five main sections: Context, Production, Presentation, Reflection and Implementation.
In the first section, entitled ‘Context’, Brown gives a theoretical, philosophical and historical background to his ideas about computers and their use in music education. These early chapters are particularly important as they set out Brown’s thesis that adopting technologies for music education will result in significant changes of practice in many different areas. Brown’s contention here is that through changing technologies we can begin to change minds. This is a significant assertion but one that is well argued, although references to wider educational and psychological texts (e.g. Wertsch 1998; Lave & Wenger 1991; which could have been used to underpin and extend several of his key points) are generally avoided.
There is a significant shift in the second section of the book. Entitled ‘Production’, Brown explores several major types of technological tools including audio recording, music publishing, MIDI sequencing, algorithmic music and sound synthesis. Within these chapters, Brown presents a range of knowledge about each particular topic in a helpful, informative style. For example, Chapter 4 is concerned with Audio Recording and here you will find and exploration of sampling, signal flows, recording production techniques and much more beside. As this writing is not related to any specific piece of technology per se, it is generic in nature and should stand the test of time. On the positive side, this should ensure that this basic information is easily applicable to the reader’s particular set of circumstances; on the negative side, perhaps key issues are presented in a somewhat obvious manner and skirted around a little. For example, in discussing ‘clarity’ within the ‘Recording Production Techniques’ section (p.52), Brown states that ‘The recording quality is dictated to a large degree by the equipment and capturing process’ and urges readers to ensure that ‘extraneous noises such as page turns, coughing, foot tapping’ are avoided!
Other more important issues are somewhat underplayed. In the following chapter, Brown makes the point that notation is an ‘abstract representation of the ideas and sounds of music’ (p.59). One could make a similar point about MIDI data and sequencing in the next chapter. But those seeking a detailed analysis of the implications of this in how musicians handle musical data in a digital age may have to look elsewhere, perhaps to Wishart’s work (Wishart 1996) and his comprehensive analysis of notational ‘lattices’ in compositional systems. Perhaps the opportunities to link back to key conceptual and philosophical ideas of the first section could have been taken here?
The third section of the book moves onto issues associated with presenting music. This includes chapters of live performance (the use of synthesizers, other electronic instruments and using the computer as a musical instrument) and the presentation of music through recorded formats and contexts (including process of digitisation, sound design, other forms of interactive media and the Internet).
The curiously titled fourth section of the book is ‘Reflection’. This contains an interesting mix of chapters covering areas diverse as computers and music research (note that this is not ‘music education’ research), different strategies for analysing sound, aural and musicianship training, assessment and administration. I found many helpful ideas contained within these chapters, but I did struggle to maintain a sense of narrative through this part of the book. All too often I found myself thinking about important concepts or writers who had been missed out. As an example, the chapter on assessment is peculiarly idiosyncratic, a little clumsy in places and makes many assumptions. Take the opening sentence of the second major paragraph, entitled ‘What to assess’:
There is evidently, in human kind, a musical intelligence as labelled by Howard Gardner, manifest in a number of ways not least that almost every human culture on the planet has developed a musical practice, even if at time these were closely linked to dance, religion or some other cultural expression. (p. 247)
The richness of an assessment pedagogy that comes through other texts (Black & William 1998; Chapman & King 2005) is missing here. It is one example where an exclusive focus on musical issues associated with assessment and technology can be detrimental to the wider argument. It may result in changes in practice, but may not be the best way forward in changing minds.
The final section is entitled ‘Implementation’. Here, Brown explores practical issues about how to set up a computer music system in an educational context, e-learning technologies, how to integrate new technologies with other more traditional ways of working and a number of possible future applications for computers in music education. As a conclusion to the book, I think that some music educators may find these ideas a little disappointing. Certainly the richness of the debate about how new technologies implicate pedagogical approaches (undertaken in the United Kingdom by organisations such as Becta (Becta 2007) and others) is missing here.
Computers in Music Education is a helpful book for the music educator seeking to extend their knowledge of all types of technology in instructional settings. In that sense, the title of the book is somewhat misleading as the text does much more what it implies. Brown’s text is a bit rambling in places and, on occasions, you have to sift through his ideas to find that important nugget of information. That said, the book is helpfully structured with reflective questions, teaching tips, suggested tasks and chapter summaries at the end of each chapter and a helpful glossary at the end of the book. These will promote thinking about key issues. However, be warned! Sometimes these frustrated this reader and would be quite fanciful, unrealistic and, probably, unhelpful in the United Kingdom’s education system. Take the ‘Teaching tips’ from the ‘Integrating New Technologies’ chapter (p. 307) as an example:
1. Use the computer’s cachet to enhance the perceived relevance of the music program to students. …
10. Encourage students to bring their laptops to class so that activities started in class can be continued at home.
In conclusion, the book is a personal, at times idiosyncratic, walk through the application of new technologies in music education. As a practical guide it has many strengths, not least in its breadth and coverage of key issues and ideas which, despite the increasingly fast rate of technological change and development, should stand the test of time.
References
Becta (2007) Harnessing Technology Review http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=33980 [accessed 26/2/08]
Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998) Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. London, Kings College.
Chapman, C. & King, R. (2005) Differentiated Assessment Strategies: One tool doesn’t fit all. Thousand Oaks, California, Corwin Press, Inc.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation Cambridge, CUP.
Wertsch, J. (1998) Mind as Action Oxford, OUP.
Wishart, T. (1996) On Sonic Art Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers.
Lucy Green’s new book is out
Lucy Green’s new book – Music, Informal Learning and the School: A new classroom pedagogy – is now available.
Part of Amazon’s description reads as follows:
This pioneering book reveals how the music classroom can draw upon the world of popular musicians’ informal learning practices, so as to recognise and foster a range of musical skills and knowledge that have long been overlooked within music education. [I took exception to this and will be interested to read just exactly which musical skills and knowledge Lucy feels have been neglected.] 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.
I liked the understated final sentence! I will certainly look forward to reading it and have ordered the hardback copy for the university library. At £42 I’ll wait for the paperback! Will let you know how I get on with it in due course.
Internet Research Skills
I’ve recently written a book review for Niall Ó Dochartaigh’s Internet Research Skills. I found it a really helpful book. Here’s the review:
Ó Dochartaigh has written a helpful book for those wanting to make effective and critical use of the Internet as a research tool. Through a clear and approachable style, the book shows how you can search the Internet for books, articles, Government statistics and archives; develop effective search strategies using a variety of online resources; interrogate databases of academic materials using well constructed keyword searches; sort out the reliable information from the unreliable; find and sort visual, audio and multimedia materials and much more besides.
The book is illustrated with numerous ‘screen grabs’ from various web pages. These provide a helpful visual dimension to what could have become a dense text. Similarly, helpfully constructed exercises throughout the book give the reader some practical, hands-on experience and are worthwhile for the beginning researcher wanting to become more adept at using the Internet in their work.
As with any book on new technologies, Ó Dochartaigh’s text faces the danger of becoming obsolete very quickly. But general principles for searching, sorting, analysing and storing information are discussed in the book and this should mitigate the potential effects of concentrating on specific tools, which may become redundant, or not catering for new tools which develop and come online quickly.
I particularly liked the way that the book acknowledges (and recommends) a variety of open access resources, open source software and other freely available tools. Publishers and others have all too often hijacked the Internet revolution with a commercial agenda. But here, Ó Dochartaigh highlights the use of powerful tools such as Google Scholar, OAIster, Wikipedia and a whole host of Web 2.0 social networking software to illustrate his point that the Internet’s community of enquiry can provide a tremendously rich source of data and evidence for researchers without great financial cost. This is especially important for those professionals interested in research but not affiliated to an HE institution. Burgeoning journal subscriptions costs can be problematic, and even within HE institutions budgets are often limited, but Ó Dochartaigh’s observation (p.51; from Antelman 2004) that ‘open access articles are cited more frequently that those in pay databases’ may produce a shift in publishers’ future thinking.
In conclusion, perhaps I should declare my colours as a moderately technologically-savvy researcher. But that said, there was plenty in this book that I found helpful, interesting and useful for my work. For those researchers and students with less technological experience, Ó Dochartaigh clear, direct and personable style will guide you through the Internet’s potential as a research tool with care and consideration. There is something here for everyone and I highly recommend it.
