Research involving the learning processes of musicians seldom examines specific pieces of music, and limited attention has been devoted to the earliest stages of learning a stylistically challenging or new piece of 20th-/21st-century art music. This article describes the processes by which two pianists (the authors) learned Ross Edwards's…

Australia is a country of ongoing migration that embraces diversity, creative expression and cultural activity. Membership of community music groups by older people can enhance life quality, and may provide a space through which cultural and linguistic identity may be shared and celebrated. This qualitative phenomenological case study explores…

Ensemble work is a key part of any performance-based popular music course and involves students replicating existing music or playing "covers". The creative process in popular music is a collaborative one and the ensemble workshop can be utilised to facilitate active learning and develop musical creativity within a group setting. This is…

This study is an evaluative analysis of 13 Music Education programs in Colombia that provide training for secondary school music teachers for 6th to 11th grade in the Colombian education system. The study utilized an analysis matrix from the International Research Project ALFA II-0448-A, which developed a similar study with Latin American and…

The use of music technology in the enhancement of young pianists' musical improvisations has been scarcely explored in instrumental music teaching and learning research. In the present study, 19 piano pupils aged 6-10 from the UK and Greece used an interactive improvisation system called Musical Interaction Relying On Reflexion (MIROR)-Impro…

In the present study, education majors minoring in music education (n = 24) and music performance majors (n =14) read and performed the original version and melodically altered versions of a simple melody in a given tempo. Eye movements during music reading and piano performances were recorded. Errorless trials were analyzed to explore the…

This article presents a case study of a group of approximately 70-year-old women who are learning to play rock band instruments in a formal music school context. The study examines the individual and shared meanings that the participants assigned to taking part in the rock band. The study aligns with John Dewey's view that the meanings of…

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…

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…

For many people, the appeal of music lies in its connection to human emotions. A significant body of research has explored the emotions that are experienced through either the formal structure of music or through its symbolic messages. Yet in the instrumental music education field, this emotional connection is rarely examined. In this article, it…

In the most recent Ministry of Education work plan seminar (Ministry of Education, 2010), a clear signal was sent out that arts education, primarily music and visual art, would become one of the key areas of focus in pursuing the goal of holistic education of a primary school child in the Singapore school system. This article, as part of a larger…

There has been little published pedagogical research on popular music group rehearsing. This study explores the perceptions of tutors and student pop/rock bands about the rehearsals in which they were involved as a part of their university music course. The participants were 10 tutors and 16 bands from eight British tertiary institutions. Analysis…

The purpose of this study was to determine what effect body movement would have on listeners' (N = 90) perceptions of a professional chamber ensemble performance. Specifically, an audio/video recording of a trombone quartet performance was used for the music stimulus. Listeners were asked to rate each performance on the basis of perceived…

There's extensive research on infant's discrimination of speaking voices but few studies have focused on infant's discrimination of singing voices. Most investigations on infants' perception of timbre in music have been based on instrumental sounds. We completed an experiment with 7-and 13-month-olds (n = 16 and n = 17…

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of using music and/or sign language to promote early communication in infants and toddlers (6-20 months) and to enhance parent-child interactions. Three groups used for this study were pairs of participants (care-giver(s) and child) assigned to each group: 1) Music Alone 2) Sign Language…