What can be done to re-orient a field of education like music, when far too many teachers teach the way they were taught using traditional procedures that stupefy and deaden students to the subject matter, rather than working creatively to invigorate and empower them to become thoughtfully engaged, independent music makers? The essays in this…

This qualitative research examines the influence of learning Javanese gamelan on aspects of musicianship, attitudes and approaches relating to the learning and performance of Western instruments experienced by a sample of UK university music students. In addition to benefits to musicianship, students delineated positive developments in attitudes…

Music is increasingly recognised as important in facilitating healthy ageing, yet little is known of what musicians themselves learn when they teach older adults. This article reports the practices of the "Rhythm for Life" project at the Royal College of Music in the UK, in which conservatoire students taught 10-week programmes of group…

Historically, in the professional training of musicians, the master-apprentice model has played a central role in instilling the methods and values of the discipline, contributing to the rigorous formation of talent. Expert professional musicians advocate that certain thinking skills can be modelled through the master-apprentice model, yet its…

The power of one-to-one tuition in Higher Music Education is evidenced by its continuing place at the heart of conservatoire education. The need to examine this student-teacher relationship more closely has been emphasised in the last decades by increasing understanding of processes of student learning in Higher Education as a whole, and in…

This article presents some of the findings from a mixed-methods case study that investigated collaborative learning for pairs of higher education students working in a music studio on a drum kit recording. A stratified purposive sampling technique was used and students were allocated a partner of similar ability; often referred to as a…

A survey of final-year music students at the University of York for the Investigating Musical Performance research project found that 45% (23 of the 51 students in the year group) regularly gave instrumental or vocal lessons. Semi-structured interviews with 16 students revealed a range of teaching activities including workshop leading, one-to-one…