What makes a great music teacher? What are those characteristics, qualities, personality traits, behaviours, attitudes, skills, knowledge, approaches that make him/her different from the average music teacher? The present study investigates the profile of the ideal music teacher through the lens of secondary school students and music teachers. 518…

This study is a qualitative insider-researcher investigation into aspects of social development that emerged through collaborative music practice with young people aged 16-25. The work took place in the Welsh capital, Cardiff, as part of a UK-national funded project facilitated by a major radio station. The data includes observations of rehearsals…

Expert musical memory has been the fundamental focus of research in the field of musical memory, and this line of research has demonstrably informed the ways memory is understood by the current generation of music professionals. In this theoretical inquiry, we draw on Foucault to first argue that the dominant Western classical music expert gaze in…

The aim of this research was to give insight into the perceived impact of psychosocial, environmental and cultural conditions on playing-related discomfort/pain among tertiary string students. Participants, including 40 Bachelor of Music string majors at a music institution in Australia, completed questionnaire/interviews twice yearly for the…

Civic engagement and social justice have received heightened attention in music education in the decade since Jorgensen posed the question 'Why should music educators not be interested in justice?' To this end, a social-justice focused initiative was piloted with choral ensembles at two public universities in the Midwestern US using human…

Reflective practice is seen as a method for professional growth and lasting learning outcomes, but what this means in the context of Higher Music Education (HME) has not received sufficient attention. This paper explores how reflection is ontologised and justified as part of performing musicians' education. The data utilised derive from a…

This study examines group robotics' impacts on elementary students' attitudes toward music, attitudes toward group work, and music composition when they are composing music via a robotics platform in collaborative and cooperative groups. One hundred ninety-one students in fourth and fifth grades completed the music composing project over the…

Group singing encourages social bonding, which brings a plethora of positive side effects. Music as a subject in the training of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) teachers nonetheless faces cutbacks in many countries. Furthermore, ECEC staff often lack confidence in their singing and music-making abilities, and we might therefore say that…

This article explores the ways in which a musical learning project acted as a space for critical artistic and relational engagements in two middle school (ages 11-14) music programs. Drawing from work on cultural production and border crossing pedagogies, this project invited students to create soundscape compositions that explored the question…

Investigations pertaining to career trajectories and vocational identities of professional classical Australian singers are uncharted and lack specific empirical evidence. Rarely do studies explain the professional singers' experiences and the processes they undertook to reach goals, to comprehend their deep identification with the craft, and…

A survey of 80 graduates of an Australian popular music degree revealed that graduates had a deep understanding of the value of soft skills to their employability and musical livelihoods. Soft skills are defined here as interpersonal and intrapersonal transferrable skills such as effective collaboration and communication, as opposed to the hard…

While it could be argued that musicians have been long conditioned to the current Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) global environment, it appears the recent challenges are testing even the most resilient and adaptable, causing one to question future professional sustainability. The methodological practice of Strategic Foresight…

This study presents an investigation into the multiple and often marginalised ways of being, knowing, educating, and performing the complex identity of migrant musicianship. It examines the lived experiences of migrant musicians in South East Queensland and is based on the premise that cultural diversity as experienced through music creates value…

When discussing any livelihood, a key consideration is monetary support. This is of particular concern for music livelihoods, as many art music organisations rely on external sources of funding. As both public and private funding levels are influenced by myriad factors and thus often change, this case study has been undertaken to investigate and…

Neoliberal education policies -- viewing students' life as human capital, economic investment for the labour market and consumer power -- may increase students' workload in higher education. In this mixed methods study, we examined music students' experiences of workload in Finland and the United Kingdom in connection with stress and livelihoods.…