This article describes a collaborative and emergent approach utilizing Tupac Shakur's "Brenda's Got a Baby" to leverage theory education. This song/video uses a fictionalized account of a pregnant 12-year-old African American girl to chronicle the ecological realities of life in the inner city (e.g., teen pregnancy, drug addiction and…

"What's So Important About Music Education?" addresses the history of rationales provided for music education in the United States. J. Scott Goble explains how certain factors stemming from the nation's constitutional separation of church and state, its embrace of democracy and capitalism, and the rise of recording, broadcast, and computer…

For the Tower-Tannerts of Texas, music education runs in the family, and that's been the case for more than 100 years. Matriarch Mollie Gregory Tower is a lecturer at Texas State University and a former elementary school teacher, textbook writer, music supervisor, and president of the Texas Music Educators Conference (TMEC). Her daughter Debbie…

In an effort to enhance the quality of education, universities and colleges are developing programs that help faculty and staff internationalize curriculum. These programs will purposefully develop the intercultural perspectives of students. "Curriculum Internationalization and the Future of Education" is a critical scholarly resource…

This article profiles James Sewrey, founder of the Percussive Arts Society. A passionate percussionist who's spent more than 60 years teaching at all levels from kindergarten through university, Sewrey was called out of retirement in 2007 to serve as adjunct professor of percussive studies at Wisconsin Lutheran College. As a founding member of the…

This article discusses the five-string kantele as an example of the Finnish national heritage, a school instrument and an example of sustainable design. A qualitative case study was made by collecting the data from the Finnish students--prospective teachers--and the sixth form pupils, who had designed and carved their own five-string kanteles. The…

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurogenetic developmental disorder characterized by an increased affinity for music, deficits in verbal memory, and atypical brain development. Music has been shown to improve verbal memory in typical individuals as well as those with learning difficulties, but no studies have examined this relationship in WS. The aim…

In our growing digital age, young children are inevitably exposed to a variety of technology and media devices. We see 2-year olds taking "selfies" on their parents' phones, iPads and e-readers filled with children's books and games, and thousands of songs stored on iPods for children to listen to and sing along. The ways in…

In this case study, the author investigated intersections of secondary students' musical engagement in a Songwriting and Technology Class (STC) and outside of school. The study traces the experiences of three individual participants and three participant groups (six embedded cases in total) in the creation, performance, recording, and production…

In this paper I retrace the line of thought that led me to the position of a praxial philosophy of music education, from a perspective 20 years after the inaugural meeting of the International Society for the Philosophy of Music Education. I discuss how I conceive of the general project of the philosophy of music education and recapitulate some of…

German Romantic Art Songs or German "Lieder" constitute a consistent part of every aspiring classical singer's repertoire around the world. This study investigates a contemporary Australian audiences' appreciation of the genre; it asks further what role the various Romantic characteristics play in German "Lieder" genre, gauges…

This article explores the process of determining an approach to the analysis of qualitative data collected as part of a case study research project involving children and teenagers from a community of musical practice--an all ages community-based fiddle group in central Scotland. The researcher's overarching goal is to find ways to increase…

After more than half a century, the music of Motown not only thrives, it transcends generations. The iconic sound of Motown has led a handful of scholars to write, teach, lecture and share the music, history and business of Motown on their campuses. In its golden age, from 1959 to 1972, the sound Berry Gordy pioneered at Motown Records in Detroit…

This article explores the possibilities for effecting Transformative Learning in students of German language and culture through the use of popular music videos, in both the target and the students' own languages. Transformative Learning, a term that has differing valences in numerous academic disciplines, is employed here in its social-scientific…

In this article, the author describes a multimillion-dollar project that aims to save traditional expressions of music from around the world and reflects a shift in ethnomusicology. The $5-million project led by Huib Schippers on "sustainable cultures for music futures" is using nine case studies, including Western opera, Balinese…