This article builds on enquiry aimed to discover Kenyan music teachers' perceptions and expectations of their role; their view of the training they received; head teachers' perceptions and expectations of the role of the music teacher; and the expectations of both music teachers and head teachers of a music teacher education programme in Kenya.…

In this study I set out to investigate why many students drop out from elective instrument programmes, particularly in lower secondary school. I examined the values and beliefs a sample of students in their first year in secondary school attach to learning an instrument, and the impact of the instrument lesson upon these values and beliefs.…

The relationships between discipline specialization, teacher identity, and pedagogy can be seen as the crux of practice in the music classroom--impacting on all the actions of the teacher, both within and outside the classroom. Crucially, the impact of music teacher identity on the nature of music teaching and learning is one that has the…

This study explores the understandings of cultural diversity as enacted in multicultural music education and is located in Victoria, which is identified as the most culturally diverse state in Australia with a population that comes from various countries and speaks many languages. This cultural diversity is reflected in the schools. This…

Idea generation is an integral component of jazz improvising. This article merges theoretical origins and practical experiences through the examination of two seminal works from Pressing and Sudnow. A comparative analysis yields three common sources with distinct characteristics. The greater body of jazz literature supports this potential link…

While there is a great deal of scholarly inquiry focusing on student teaching experiences in the field of classroom education, there are few resources devoted to student teaching in the context of the applied music lesson. In this article, a teacher educator in the field of piano pedagogy uses self-study to combine reflection on personal…

In 2010, the authors conducted a formal review of the Queensland Conservatorium's Bachelor of Music programme to determine to what extent the programme prepared graduates for professional life in the 21st century. The process was informed by comprehensive performance indicator data and substantial feedback from staff, students, and other…

Teaching and learning piano poses challenges when the student is clinically blind. This article addresses the following question: What can be learned from a case study of teaching piano successfully to a student who is blind? The article has three purposes. The first is to document the achievements of a young student who met these challenges. The…

The purpose of this article is to provide a mnemonic device that when incorporated into practice behavior is shown through case study to help students develop an understanding of the relationship between exercises, new and old, and the music that they are preparing. I developed the mnemonic "Preparation of Relevant Activities Causes Technical…

This article focuses on the early childhood years and describes research that has examined children's music experiences in formal care and education settings in Melbourne, Australia. This research uses a contextual view of children and their learning and is based on an assumption that learning is social, involves engagement with others and is…

The purpose of this study was to examine individual differences in the field of music education. The "Big Five" model of personality served as the framework to help meet the purpose. Using a sample of 83 music pre-service teachers enrolled in a department of music education, we found that music pre-service teachers scored high in the Openness,…

Few studies have been conducted on the physiological effects of creative art activities. In this study, the effects of creative art activities on human stress were investigated, and their effects were compared in 57 healthy college students (27 males and 30 females). Subjects were divided into four groups, each of which participated in 30-minute…

This study analyzes infant vocal responses in order to determine whether infants exposed to both linguistic and musical stimuli exhibit different types of vocalizations in response to those two different kinds of stimulation. Twenty-one infants, from 9 to 11 months of age, were observed in four weekly sessions over the period of a month. Each…

The aim of this study is to analyze and describe how musicians who are also music therapy students separate music as artistic performance from music as a therapeutic tool. The data consist of 18 written reflections from music therapy students that were analyzed according to a phenomenographic method. The findings are presented as four…

Guitar songleading is a critical component in music education and music therapy training curricula. However, at present, there is no standardized instrument to evaluate guitar songleading performance that is both valid and reliable. The purpose of this article is to describe the construction, development, and testing of a guitar songleading…