This article reports on a case study of three directors of large ensembles within a large conservatoire and the ways in which they attempted to scaffold their students into professional music careers. The core aim in this article is to respond to the question "What is the role and function of the ensemble experience on the training of the…

Highlighting the application of ethnomusicology beyond the traditional boundaries of the academy, this article investigates the use of music in adult literacy education. In 2005, as part of the Literacy and Equality in Irish Society (LEIS) project, adult literacy tutors working in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom (UK), were invited to enrol in…

This study examined and qualitatively described the music practice behaviors, strategies, and thoughts of four high school string students who indicated a high string playing self-efficacy. Concepts of practice, motivation, achievement, and self-efficacy were linked together to analyze tendencies and summarize strategies. These students were…

Research regarding music teaching in primary school reveals generalist teachers' and student teachers' low musical abilities and low confidence in teaching Music, and even more, in including creative activities in music teaching. This article reports on a study which sought to create a fruitful and supportive environment that would allow 64…

The purpose of the study was to determine Canadian secondary school choral students' skill in singing the national anthem. The sample (N = 275) consisted of students from 12 schools, representing six provinces in Canada. Students were audio taped singing "O Canada" in English, French, or in a combination of both languages and subsequently…

Identity development is a continuous process framed within changing social contexts, and is particularly problematic for musicians and other artists whose work contradicts the mythologized image of the artist. The purpose of this article is to examine the professional growth of music students in relation to developing teacher identities. The…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of disability simulations on the attitudes of individuals who will be working with children with special needs in music settings and to compare these attitudes between student music therapists and pre-service music educators. Each participant completed a questionnaire on the first day of class…

In this paper I examine the music learning and teaching in the Banjo Hangout online music community (www.banjohangout.org/) using cyber ethnographic methods of interview and participant observation conducted entirely through computer-mediated communication, which includes Skype and written narrative texts--forum posts, email, chat room…

The current study, a preliminary examination of whether music teachers are more susceptible to vocal problems than teachers of other subjects, asked for expert evaluation of audio recordings from licensed speech-language pathologists. Participants (N = 41) taught music (n = 23) or another subject (n = 18) in either elementary (n = 21), middle (n =…

The myth of Orpheus is intricately implicated in the origin of song. For centuries, myth and music have cooperated in a variety of genres, foremost among them in opera. The myth, open to reinterpretation across linguistic, national, and temporal boundaries, served as a starting point for an extracurricular opera project in the metropolitan region…

The present study was designed to pilot test an adjusted version of a questionnaire, used in earlier studies with college music students, to determine opinions of college music faculty on the topic of private lesson teaching. Full-time tenure-track college music faculty, with primary appointments in applied music at two universities in the United…

Music teachers often encounter obstructions in teaching beginners in music reading. Conventional notational symbols require beginners to spend significant amount of time in memorizing, which discourages learning at early stage. This article proposes a newly-developed color music notation system that may improve the recognition of the staff and the…

While there have been many efforts to define community music, definitions have tended to be either too specific or too general to be of great use to practitioners. Much of the published research on the topic seems to be based on single projects, often conducted by the facilitators involved. While this has led to valuable contributions to…

This article discusses the adoption of a wiki to support the processes of collaborative research between members of an international team involved in the project MyPlace: MyMusic. The focus is on how new technological communications, here specifically the wiki, can enable and transform the methods and processes of research. We propose two main…

Previous studies demonstrate that private music training has benefits which may transfer to other domains, including verbal memory, intelligence and self-esteem. The current paper reports on the impact of an increase in school-based music training on a range of cognitive and psychosocial measures for 10-13-year-olds in two independent studies. In…