How can music educators explore the intersections of spirituality, relationships, and music education? The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Pixar film, "Soul," models the transformation that can occur when a music teacher embraces spirituality and the preciousness of everyday life both in and out of the classroom through…

Songwriting pedagogy is in its infancy in music education. This article presents a new way to think about pedagogy that utilizes student workgroups that more closely align with the ways songs are written in the real world. Implications for music education's connections to the world of contemporary commercial music are provided.

The documentation of popular music curricula in K12 schools is used to suggest the secondary ensemble directors in schools can learn more about the role of popular music in the lives of students. Further, ensemble directors are encouraged to consider bridging music-making in school to young adulthood by way of providing encouragement and…

To investigate how music educators engage their students with Hip-Hop, we adopted a "research remix" approach, combining elements of case study and constructivist grounded theory. This approach allowed us to privilege Hip-Hop culture and to construct new understandings about Hip-Hop teaching and learning. Six elementary and middle school…

This article explores the ways in which popular musicians in Malaysia learn the craft of Western popular music-making in comparison to those in the United Kingdom. Literature that studied popular musicians and their practices had largely focused on communities within Anglosphere regions, and there are insufficient understandings of the journeys of…

Chengdu's popular music, with its profound historical and cultural significance, serves as an educational resource at the intersection of music, literacy, and cultural education. This research aims to propose guidelines for the teaching resource of Chengdu popular music for fostering literacy and cultural education. Located in the culturally…

Purpose: The aim of the article is to develop a framework for assessment for contemporary commercial music (CCM) in a music department that is still organised in a traditional way. Assessment of CCM in tertiary institutions and external graded music exams were described and analysed, followed by the presentation of an assessment framework.…

In consideration of white music educators' perceptions of and engagement with matters of race and music, the purpose of this qualitative study was to problematise the acceptance and valuation of "Hamilton", and possible hypervaluation of Whiteness through the perceptions and experiences of eight White music educators who were fans of the…

Bel canto singing style is a foundational cornerstone for vocal technique in choral ensemble classes. Yet there are reasons to question whether bel canto pedagogy alone can help students navigate the many different genres they sing as part of a diverse and balanced curriculum. This article examines the specific performance demands associated with…

The purpose of this study was to investigate ensemble members' perceptions of their studio orchestra experiences. Survey data were collected from participants (N = 50) enrolled in a studio orchestra at a major collegiate institution in the Southeastern United States. A studio orchestra is a group of musicians who collaborate, compose, arrange,…

The pedagogical strategy of students choosing their own friends with whom to work in classroom contexts (under the guise of democratic participation) because this is how popular musicians learn, has mostly gone uninterrogated in the literature. Approaching the question of how to create a common world through a critical examination of the…

This study explores the impacts of popular music education in classroom practices from different aspects such as learning by ear, motivation, musicianship, peer learning and creativity. The Sing by Ear approach was created based on the concepts of informal learning in singing a cappella. A total of 323 participants aged 11-14 were invited to…

In this article, I examine the potential of social media to meaningfully connect students and educators with First Nations popular musicians. Utilising yarning-as-method under the theoretical frame of storying, I present accounts of attempts to embed the practice in high school classes before exploring how the process was refined for an initial…

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes, values, and beliefs of New York music teachers towards the inclusion of popular music in the classroom. This research was guided by the following questions: (1) To what extent are K-12 teachers interested in teaching a variety of popular music instruments and styles?; (2) What attitudes and…

I argue that an analysis of antiblack racism in music education discourse is crucial in identifying and addressing potential for harm in the music classroom. I contend that Black children are particularly, and regularly, subjected to poor stereotypical depictions of their identity in digital media. Furthermore, I contend that this digital…