Evidence found throughout the history of Western European art music reveals traditions that encompassed improvisation. This furthers the idea that without improvisation, music education based on canonized works of Western European art music is incomplete. When the goal of music education is to preserve works exactly as notated, improvisation…

The development of new music technologies necessitates changes in the content of music education. Musical pedagogy is faced with the task of educating creative musicians who are capable of innovative activities and inventive musical thinking. Therefore, primary music education should introduce creative learning technologies aimed at developing…

The "Listening to Music" course is an important link in the music education of a child. The "Listening to Music" course fosters love and interest in music, teaches to understand its language, and develops emotional responsiveness in children. The article considers new opportunities in teaching the "Listening to Music"…

Improvisation is an area of interest to both music education researchers and music educators alike. The purpose of this literature review was to examine extant studies related to improvisation at the elementary level. Selected research included the nature of improvisation, the amount of instructional time and activity type used, the development of…

As the U.S. population has become significantly more culturally diverse, many music educators have acknowledged the necessity to implement culturally diverse musics in music curricula. One of the challenges in teaching culturally diverse musics is designing a balance between performing-based activities and other activities such as listening,…

Work produced during a course of study in the creative arts may differ from assessment in other disciplines in the following ways: (1) it is non-text-based: work may consist of a performance, video recording, digital or interactive work, music composition, audio recording, or physical artefact; and (2) it is creative: works demonstrate individual…

The praxial philosophy of music education in "Music Matters" (2015) argues that music educators should teach democratically, creatively, and ethically toward empowering students' abilities to achieve full human flourishing through critically reflective music making and listening of all kinds. Moreover, "Music Matters" contends…

This paper discusses two projects that use practice as research to explore learning that takes place in liminal spaces--within the university but not formally in the classroom, while bridging discursive fields. In each project, university faculty participants and student participants in the fields of music, dance, and education, came together to…

Approaches to teaching music notation and instrumental technique have been standardized and codified in the United States with great success in beginning instrumental programs. While these skills are important, we do a disservice to students if we do not equally develop comprehensive musicianship and creative thinking at a young age. Creating…

Performing jazz offers students the opportunity to participate in a unique group activity where notated passages are blended with exciting moments of improvisation. Expectations have risen over the years as middle and high school jazz ensembles have proved that they can perform at a very high level. This expectation however, has led to the…

This article explores a comprehensive, student-centered alternative to traditional ensemble instruction with the goal of promoting better opportunities for musical independence and lifelong musicianship. Developed by Caron Collins from the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York-Potsdam, the Curious, Collaborative, Creativity…

This case study employed multimodal methods and visual analysis to explore how a young multilingual student used music improvisation to form a speech rap. This student, recently arrived in Australia from Ethiopia, created piano music that was central to his music identity and that simultaneously, through dialogue with his mother, enhanced his…

Ubiquitous music is a relatively new research area which seeks ways to involve novices in music learning, playing and improvisation. Despite the ambitious goals, ubiquitous music is still unknown territory in schools. In this study, we have tried to identify whether ubiquitous music environments can enable novice music students to participate in…

Some American high schools include Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory within their course offerings. Students who pass the AP exam can receive college credit either as a music or humanities credit. An AP class, however, offers music students more than future college credit; it ultimately improves musicianship skills and promotes deeper…

The study reported in this article investigates students' experiences (n = 41) of their primary school songcrafting, examining the potential to support creative agency within school music education programmes. Songcrafting refers to a collaborative composing practice in which everyone is considered to be a capable creator of melodies and lyrics,…