Metodiske innfallsvinkler

This chapter examines the communicative role of invented notation in children’s experiences. It provides an overview of research in children’s thinking as users of invented notation; examines the communicative role of invented notation as initiation into the use of conventional symbolic systems and/or externalization of musical thinking; and explores the potential relationship of invented notation to other forms of sign-making activity (drawing, writing, using mathematical symbols). To provide a context for the discussions some of the roles of notation in musical communication in the broader context of western music are briefly examined.

Concerned with the relationship of representational development to perceptual and performance development in the domain of music pitch as a prime ingredient of musical cognitive development music perception.

This chapter presents various reviews about the acquisition of music reading skills. Music reading is a process of converting special visual symbols-music notation-into sounds. The chapter discusses the relationship of music reading to the brain, eye movements, pattern recognition, motoric activity, and other music variables, such as playing by ear or improvising. It also provides a brief overview of the origin of music reading. Eastern countries use ekphonetic notation, which are symbols added to text, as an aid to chanting or singing, while Western countries use neumatic notation for plainchant for their music. Recommendations for practitioners are also included in this chapter.

What do we mean when we say that a child is ‘musically literate?’ How can musical literacy be defined and what types of competencies might it infer? Because this term is widely used, it makes sense to address it in this book. As will become evident during the discussion to follow, however, our view, consistent with approaches to language literacy, is that literacy in situations related to Western classical music occurs as a result of children having developed their capacity to make music, reflect on the music in which they are engaged, express their views on music which they play, hear or create, speak about and listen to music in order to form judgements, and read, write, comprehend and interpret staff notation. Each of these aspects of literacy has been dealt with elsewhere in this volume, so most of our comments in this chapter will detail the fundamental aspects of learning how to use staff notation, even though we recognize that this is only one dimension of the literacy acquisition process, and that staff notation is only one type of music notation.

Reading music notation with fluency is a complex skill requiring well-founded instruction by the music teacher and diligent practice on the part of the learner. The task is complicated by the fact that there are multiple ways to notate a given rhythm. Beginning music students typically have their first encounter with enrhythmic notation when they learn to play in “cut time,” or alla breve, but there are many other types of enrhythmic notation that must be mastered. This article discusses the challenges involved in teaching enrhythmic skills and suggests guidelines for making instruction more effective.

The principles of Hungarian music educator Zoltán Kodály can be particularly useful not only in teaching children how to read music notation but also in creating curiosity and enjoyment for reading music. Many of Kodály’s ideas pertaining to music literacy have been echoed by educators such as Jerome Bruner and Edwin Gordon, as well as current brain researchers. Specifically, Kodály’s emphasis on sound before sight, going from known to unknown, use of moveable do solfège, use of various learning modes, and the importance of providing adequate preparation of pitch concepts can all be useful in our approach to preparing students to read pitch on the music staff. Various vertical as well as vertical/horizontal “pre-staff” activities, including melodic contour, body signs, visual icons, and the solfa tone ladder help to build children’s understanding of pitch placement and create curiosity for seeing how familiar sounds will look on the staff.

Developing readiness skills for music reading is a necessity. Mary Ellen Junda looks at the different categories of music readiness and how they are most effectively taught.

While the field of music education is rife with participation in methodological debates around “best systems” for learning about pitch, the authors in this article explore the possibilities of learner-centered approaches to teaching pitch among students with diverse music backgrounds. Specifically, the article highlights several challenges faced by the students with fixed pitch backgrounds in U.S. music classrooms: confusion around solfège syllables used to represent both movable and fixed pitch systems, and difficulty in transitioning between fixed and movable systems regardless of the symbolic language used. The authors offer a variety of research-based recommendations for deepening students’ understandings of pitch in light of these challenges and emphasize the necessity for a learner-centered approach to pitch pedagogy in U.S. music classrooms. The purpose of this article is to (1) help practicing teachers understand more deeply and empathize with the nature of confusion students with fixed pitch backgrounds might experience in American music classrooms, and (2) develop pedagogical strategies that are sensitive to the experiences of these students while working to deepen understanding of pitch.

Two experiments were conducted to compare the effectiveness of teaching rhythm reading using a traditional approach versus a simplified speech cue method. Results of the first experiment indicated the superiority of the speech cue method. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine whether the speech cue method could be used effectively with minimal teacher training. A 23-item rhythm-reading test was administered to 107 third graders before and after rhythm instruction by each method. In both experiments, the speech cue group made significantly greater gains than the traditional group. The difference between pretest and posttest scores was significant for both treatment groups. The findings have general application for rhythm-reading instruction using the speech cue method for early training.

In this study, I explored children’s development of rhythmic music literacy using a language acquisition paradigm. An emergent, constructivist curriculum was implemented over one academic year with 39 children, 5–8 years old. Children were involved in audiation-based active listening, singing, moving, chanting, and playing instruments and engaged in musical dialogue through imitation and improvisation. They had rhythm stories read to them, they wrote and read their own. A comprehensive musical development progress log, individual and collective music reading assessments, analysis of children’s notated rhythms, and video recordings of children reading their notated music comprised the data set, which was analysed regularly and triangulated for validity. For trustworthiness, early childhood and general music practitioners observed the curriculum in action and reviewed children’s notational artefacts. Findings indicated that, as children wrote and read their rhythm stories, they self-corrected when making mistakes – revising their stories upon reading them aloud, giving clues to their formation of musical meaning through the audiation and sound of notated music.

In the classical music tradition, knowing how to read music is an essential skill and is seen as a fundamental component to develop when learning to play the piano. This research’s focus is to study the possible impact of two different teaching approaches to the acquisition of initial reading skills. By using cognitive modeling, we are hoping to observe through computer simulation the problem solving and decision-making tasks involved in decoding a simple musical score. Our model intends to capture a novice initial coordination of music reading and motor operations on a piano keyboard. As such, it does not aim at modelling advanced sight-reading skills. The paper introduces the Middle-C and Intervallic methods followed by a description of an ACT-R cognitive model and simulation results upon learning with each of the reading methods. Inspection of the simulation results reveals differences in terms of declarative memory and cognitive processing demands. In particular, the Intervallic method requires a larger number of declarative knowledge related to notes, and more execution planning than the Middle-C method.

Rote versus note beginning instrumental pedagogy has been an active topic for music educators. Traditional method books have often comprised a significant portion of beginning instrumental curricula, though content has varied and may have been based on convention. Advocates of a rote-before-note approach have recommended that singing, movement, developing aural skills, teaching expressiveness, and creativity may provide students with enhanced contextual knowledge and experiences to better learn to read notation. However, there may be gaps in research of music reading and teaching method. This literature review includes a discussion of the history of rote and note education in the United States, an overview of five major pedagogical approaches, and an examination of music reading and performance research. The article is intended to initiate a discussion of teaching methods, practices, and curriculum selection for developing literacy and performance skills in secondary instrumental music classrooms.

To relieve some stress during my Ph.D. work in Literacy Education, I participated in the University of Minnesota concert choir. Here, while decoding musical text at a very high level for the first time in many years, I began to understand what less able readers of alphabetic text must feel like. I also observed the many similarities between decoding alphabetic and musical text. This article uses theories and research from literacy, learning, and teacher effectiveness to develop a structured process for learning sight-reading and musical concepts.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of peer-based instruction on rhythm reading achievement of instrumental and choral music students attending a large urban fringe high school in a major metropolitan area. Participants (N = 131) included band (n = 71) and choir (n = 60) students whose backgrounds reflected extensive economic (78% free or reduced lunch) and ethnic diversity (44% Hispanic, 31 % Caucasian, 6% African American, 11 % Asian/Pacific islander, 8% Native American). Using a randomized, post-test only experimental design, students were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: traditional teacher-led instruction or reciprocal peer-based instruction. After a two-week instruction period, results show that students receiving peer-based instruction demonstrated significantly higher levels of rhythm reading achievement than students receiving traditional teacher led instruction. Factorial ANOVA analyses revealed that music reading self-concept did not significantly moderate rhythm reading achievement. A significant interaction was found between ensemble type (band/choir) and method of instruction (on rhythm reading achievement) with peer-based instruction effects on rhythm reading achievement noticeably stronger for choir students.

This investigation compared three methods of teaching keyboard sight-reading to undergraduate music majors. Sixty-nine students enrolled in six piano classes were randomly divided among three conditions: (1) error-detection practice plus “shadowing” (silently playing the notes on top of the keys), (2) shadowing only, and (3) unguided independent practice (contact control). A pretest-posttest design was used to assess subjects’ achievement on five selected sight-reading assignments during the course of one academic semester (15 weeks). Individual pretest and posttest performances were tape-recorded and evaluated across three error categories: rhythm, notes, and hesitations. Results indicated that, while no significant differences were found in overall sight-reading improvement among groups, the EDS (error-detection plus shadowing) subjects achieved modest overall gains, and rhythm was the most improved category, followed by notes and hesitations.

The aim of this research is to test the effectiveness of the teaching piano sight reading program developed in accordance with the systematic learning on music teacher candidates’ sight reading skills at the piano. Teaching piano sight reading program which is based on systematic learning is prepared for this research. This program comprises ten units to be applied in ten weeks. The experimental method has been used for this research. Participants (N=12) in this research are third-year and fourth-year college students in piano performance majors during the 2010-2011 calendar year at the Department of Music education at Marmara University. The experimental method is modeled on the Pre-Test-Post-Test Control Group Design; students are assigned to two categories: the experimental group (n=6) and the control group (n=6). Groups are randomly divided into two categories with equivalent skill levels. The developed program which was prepared for this research is applied to the students in the experimental group whereas students in the control group keep following the regular curriculum. Moreover, pretests and posttests are applied to both groups. During the assessment process Observation Form was used as the research tool. As a result, students in the experimental group demonstrated considerable improvement in term of sight reading skills at the piano. In sum, it showed that the program, which is prepared for this research, outstandingly enhances music teacher candidates’ sight reading skills at the piano towards to the piano lesson compared to the music teacher candidates who are educated with traditional methods.

Artikkelen beskriver utvalgte faktorer knyttet til bruk av komponering og improvisasjon i instrumentalundervisning på kulturskolene i Norge i lys av utvikling av grunnleggende musikalsk forståelse. Spørsmålene det søkes svar på er: I hvor stor grad brukes skapende aktiviteter av instrumentallærere? Hva synes lærerne om bruk av disse aktivitetene i kulturskoleundervisningen? Hva påvirker valgene de tar? Datamaterialet består av besvarelser fra en nettbasert spørreundersøkelse sendt til instrumentallærere ved samtlige kulturskoler i Vestland fylke. Undersøkelsen ble besvart av 65 respondenter. Det viser seg at mens majoriteten av respondentene mener at bruk av skapende aktiviteter bør være en viktig del av instrumentalundervisningen på alle nivåer, bruker svært få av dem disse aktivitetene i sin egen undervisning. Artikkelen drøfter mulige årsaker til dette forholdet, med utgangspunkt i respondentenes kommentarer og relevante forskningsresultater om skapende musikkundervisning. Det argumenteres for at bruk av skapende aktiviteter i undervisningen kan ha positiv effekt på utvikling av notelesingsferdigheter, teknikk og musikalsk forståelse hos instrumentalelever på kulturskolen.

This theoretical article aims to discuss the possibility of using teaching methods for reading and writing used in Norwegian primary schools for teaching literacy for music notation to instrumental pupils at the beginner level, focusing on western tonal music. Language and music reading have much in common as cognitive processes. However, comparison of methods for teaching how to read language and music shows several fundamental differences. They relate to the emphasis on various methodological elements, progression in the introduction of new symbols and choice of the activities used in the teaching/learning process. The article describes musical and linguistic syntax, acquisition of reading skill as a cognitive activity, and compares popular method books for teaching reading text and music in Norway. In the discussion section it is argued that the teaching activities that use writing music, experiencing various elements of music as sound before introducing musical notation and introducing basic knowledge about harmony, as well as adjusting of layout in the books for beginners, will have a positive effect on sight-reading at the beginner level.

One of the many challenges facing music educators is diminishing class time in lower secondary school in the face of the increasingly crowded curriculum and the advent of arts ‘taster’ courses. However, music educators are still expected to be able to produce musically literate students capable of completing high level music courses in upper secondary school. This article reports on an intervention study which set out to accelerate music literacy acquisition among Year 7 students through use of a Direct Instruction (DI) teaching approach. Although controversial, Direct Instruction was chosen because its advocates claim its effectiveness and time efficiency in teaching basic skills. The study involved the development of a carefully scripted 10 minute per lesson DI music literacy program which was then implemented in a control group research setting. Two classes of Year 7 students (40 students) were taught music literacy via the DI program, while two separate Year 7 classes (34 students) acted as the control group. The intervention was administered over a trimester of 20 lessons (13 weeks), with levels of student music literacy tested via Gordon’s Iowa Tests for Music Literacy at both the pre and post-test stages. The results revealed significant increases in music literacy levels among the DI classes, especially on the measures of rhythmic literacy. Given these results, the researchers recommend further investigation of the potential of DI as an instructional method in music education for better utilising diminishing class teaching time and improving student music literacy levels among lower secondary school students.

I artikkelen presenteres en undersøkelse blant en mindre gruppe lærerstudenter av utbyttet av en utbredt gehørmetode innenfor musikkundervisning. Studenter ilærerutdanningen har i en årrekke fått undervisning i trinnsang for å lettere kunne lese noter og forstå melodiske mønstre. Denne undersøkelsen avdekker hvor effektiv gehørmetoden som brukes er, og hvor mye øving som skal til for å få fremgang. To studentgrupper var med i undersøkelsen. Én gruppe fikk undervisning i gehørmetoden, den andre ikke. Funn fra tidligere studier tyder på at denne metoden er effektiv i korsammenheng. Resultatene, målt gjennom pre- og posttest i notelesing og diktat, viser at lærerstudenter som øver til sammen cirka 1000 minutter i en periode over 7 måneder opplever å lese noter bedre og oppfatte tonetrinn lettere.

The purpose of these meta-analyses was twofold: 1) to determine whether experimentally – tested sight reading interventions positively influenced rhythmic or melodic sight reading performance and if so; 2) to explore whether the interventions differentially affected rhythmic and melodic sight reading. Two meta-analyses were conducted; one comprised experimental research measuring rhythmic sight reading (46 studies; 68 individual analyses) and another comprised research measuring melodic sight reading (21 studies; 35 individual analyses). Analyses revealed small overall effect sizes (Rhythmic: d = −0.34, 95% CI [−0.50, –0.19]; Melodic: d = −0.35, 95% CI [−0.59, –0.12]). Moderator variables were used to examine how effect size was influenced by treatment type and other study-level design elements. Treatment type significantly influenced both rhythmic and melodic sight reading. For rhythm, treatments that focused on counting systems and included movement or rhythmic drill positively affected sight reading. Melodic results are preliminary due to the limited number of studies, but based on the information available, treatments using collaboration activities or instrumental training positively affected sight reading. Varying notation did not improve sight reading. The type of sight reading (rhythmic, melodic) significantly affected the effectiveness of some treatments.

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to determine whether experimentally tested sightreading interventions positively influenced sightreading ability. A meta-analysis was conducted with 92 quasi-experimental research studies on sightreading (124 individual analyses) to determine the overall effect size of treatment and to examine how the effect size was influenced by treatment type, sightreading mode (sightreading/sightsinging), age and experience of sight reader, type of sightreading test, and other study design elements. The analysis revealed a small overall effect size for treatment (d = −0.18, 95% CI [−0.24, −0.11]). Of the moderator variables, only treatment-type was significant, with treatments categorized as “Aural Training,” “Controlled Reading,” “Creative Activities,” and “Singing/Solfege” significantly and positively affecting sightreading. There was a moderately strong within-group effect size (d = −0.48, 95% CI [−0.56, −0.40]), indicating that sightreading generally improved pre- to posttest for both control and treatment groups.

This article reports on a three-year longitudinal study with 157 children in school grades 3 and 4 (aged between 7 and 9 years), who commenced learning an instrument in one of eight school music programmes. The children were administered tests at the end of each school year to assess their abilities to perform rehearsed music, sight-read, play from memory, play by ear and improvise, and interviews were completed with the children’s mothers in order to calculate how much practice they had accumulated on their instrument. Data were also obtained to help clarify the quality of mental strategies the children adopted when performing. Findings extend previous research on skill acquisition by proposing that conceptions based on the amount of practice undertaken or that focus exclusively on children’s ability to reproduce rehearsed literature from notation are inadequate to understanding the early stages of instrumental development. It is proposed that a more coherent explanation comes from understanding the range of strategies children employ when performing and that the sophistication of children’s mental strategies provides an important means for understanding why some progress effortlessly in contrast to others who struggle and fail. Conclusions highlight the importance of helping students to develop a repertoire of task-appropriate strategies that will enable them to think musically when performing challenging tasks on their instrument.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of cognitive chunking techniques among first-semester group-piano music majors. The ability to group discrete pieces of information into larger, more meaningful chunks is essential for efficient cognitive processing. Since reading keyboard music and playing the piano is a cognitively complex task, the ability to recognize patterns and execute the necessary motor skills is critical for proficiency in sight-playing. Three groups of beginning group-piano students (N = 43) worked on 12 sight-reading examples during six class sessions. A control group rehearsed the examples without benefit of rhythm or pitch drills. Two experimental groups drilled either rhythm or pitch patterns prior to practicing the sight-reading exercises. Following the treatment phase, all subjects were tested on three sightreading examples to determine whether rhythmic and pitch chunking drills impacted reading performance at the keyboard. Subjects were evaluated on rhythmic accuracy, pitch accuracy and continuity. There were significant improvements from pretest to posttest in several subcategories. The pitch experimental group improved significantly in pitch, rhythm and continuity accuracy. The rhythm experimental group improved in rhythm and continuity, while the control group improved only in pitch accuracy. Experimental subjects reported significant engagement in rhythm and pitch chunking even if lack of motor skills impaired the actual performance.

The purpose of this research was to compare the acquisition of sight-reading skills between two groups of beginning piano students: the control group: students studying sight-reading through traditional face-to-face instruction (n=9); and, the experimental group: students studying sight-reading through live online video instruction (n=10). Online sessions employed digital pianos, Internet MIDI software, acoustic pianos and Skype video-conferencing technology. Analysis of the data revealed significant improvement in sight-reading scores as a result of the treatment, with no significant difference between the groups (t=1.17, df 10=1.81, p=0.05). The gain scores for the online group revealed less standard deviation and a higher mean increase (55.4 per cent) than the face-to-face group (33.7 per cent). Both groups benefited from improved rhythmic security and reported an increase in persistence, enthusiasm, motivation and confidence following treatments. Additional benefits of online delivery were identified suggesting that online sight-reading instruction may be a viable substitute for face-to-face sight-reading training or as a supplement to regular lessons.

The teaching of music-reading skills has been cited as a neglected area of music education needing improvement. Music reading is the process of translating notation into sounds. Producing the notated sounds by singing, more specifically referred to as sight-singing, is especially demanding because it requires the individual to first mentally construct aural images of the sounds, an essential process that is challenging to teach and assess. This article describes a series of activities for teaching music-reading skills in general music or choir, focusing mainly on reading and singing pitch notation, though many of the ideas could also be used to teach rhythm reading. The activities are sequential, are easy to implement, and allow for the assessment of skill acquisition at various stages of development.

The researcher attempted to determine whether instruction using colored rhythmic notation affected first- and second-grade students’ rhythm-reading skills. As a regular part of general music classes, 64 experimental-group students participated in reading, clapping, and vocalizing rhythms notated in color. Seventy control subjects participated in identical activities in which rhythms were notated without color. Subjects were tested individually using both colored and uncolored notation. Results after the 23-week treatment period revealed that the experimental group scored slightly higher when reading both colored and uncolored notation than did the control group. Group differences on the colored-notation task were statistically significant (p < .05). Experimental and control-group means did not differ significantly (p > .05) when reading uncolored notation. Comparison between the scores of each group on the task similar to the training mode (color-trained students reading colored notation versus control students reading uncolored notation) also showed the experimental mean to be slightly but significantly (p < .05) higher. A positive affective influence was noted in that 78% of all students favored the colored-notation task as the exercise they liked performing the most.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pitch and rhythm priming tasks on sight-reading accuracy and fluency. High school wind instrumentalists (N = 182) were assigned to one of four experimental groups: pre-/posttest rhythm, pre-/posttest pitch, posttest-only rhythm, or posttest-only pitch. Participants sight-read selected stimulus exercises from the Watkins-Farnum Performance Scale and completed two priming treatments and a control condition as part of a repeated-measures design. A three-way repeated-measures MANOVA, with rhythm accuracy, pitch accuracy, and fluency accuracy as dependent measures, revealed a significant main effect due to priming condition. Rhythm accuracy scores were significantly lower after both perceptual and conceptual priming than after a control condition. No significant differences in pitch accuracy or fluency existed based on priming condition. No significant differences were found in rhythm, pitch, or fluency accuracy based on treatment condition (pitch or rhythm) or exposure condition (pre-/posttest or post only). Two-way repeated-measures MANOVAs revealed significant main effects based on time. Pitch accuracy and fluency each significantly improved between pre- and posttest and from the first to third study tasks. Results suggest that performing rhythm alone or pitch alone requires different cognitive processes than does performing both together.

Innovations related to learning music notation through audio-visual media of music notation using gamification make teaching and learning more interesting. Also, it may help improve musical notation reading. Failure to master the ability to read musical notation is the main reason most students are not interested in learning to read musical notation. Therefore, to attract the interest of notation reading in Music Education, there must be a method to overcome the problem. Improving the reading of musical notation requires various exercises by utilizing learning media. One of the exercises that can be used in learning is sight reading. Sight reading is not just conventional teaching and learning, in which the teacher explains orally, and the student memorizes the position of the musical notation on the beam. However, it utilizes the learning media that is the use of gamification because it is a method and way to increase the motivation and involvement of students in teaching and learning. This study will discuss the first phase implemented to identify gamification elements. A systematic review based on the prism model was used as the method. Results show that there are 40 gamification elements identified. Thus, using identified elements may boost students’ engagement in music education.

The work in progress reported here attempts to discover if the audition of music notation by means of a score editor software has an effect in the users’ musical achievement operatized as the ability to imagine rhythm and/or pitch sequences in listening, reading, and writing tasks. Also, the study tried to know the users’ perceptions about the role of music score editor programs in their musical instruction. In order to collect quantitative and qualitative data, the same studies were carried out on two different populations; one of them with pupils of Elementary level at one Spanish conservatory (age 8-14; predominantly females). The second study was carried out with students studying for Music Teaching Certification at one Spanish university, (age 19-24; predominantly females). The study consisted of two phases: one quasi-experimental contrasting experimental and control groups, the other qualitative, based on semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data did not show very much improvement in the hearing of written musical notation in building mental sound images of rhythms and intervals. A significant difference was found in the results of the Conservatory experimental group, which obtained differences in completing incomplete rhythm patterns and completing incomplete pitch patterns (without rhythm values). In contrast, qualitative data shows strong users’ preferences for using a score editor software in their initial music instruction because it offered the capacity to immediately hear music transcriptions of the Solfége studies.

This paper evaluates three teaching approaches to improving sight-reading skills against a control in a large-scale study of advanced pianists. One hundred pianists in four equal groups participated in newly developed training programmes (accompanying, rhythm, musical style and control), with pre- and post-sight-reading tests analysed using custom-made software that provided four scores on accuracy: two on pitch and two on rhythm. Mixed-design ANCOVAs were used to analyse the performance data, showing improvement in one rhythm and one pitch variable for each of the training groups and progress in pitch for the control group. The results suggest that training does develop various aspects of sight-reading and that additional sight-reading activities enhance post-test performance. The curriculum combining all three teaching strategies is being currently trialled. Future research needs to focus on instruments other than piano to formulate generic approaches to teaching of sight-reading skills.

The research question addressed in this thesis was: How do beginners on a music instrument acquire music literacy in a music studio setting? The study was designed to identify and describe the learning strategies of 8-9 year old music school students by observing and interviewing them during their first year of instrumental lessons. The study of music literacy acquisition is in this thesis based on a sociocognitive view on literacy as a learning process, where knowledge acquisition is regarded as constructed, and learning seen as active meaning-making processes. In this perspective music literacy acquisition entails the ways the learner comprehends and learns both the culture, the ways of expressing meaning, how to use cultural tools, and the ways that the symbols are written and decoded. Four cases were chosen as an empirical base for the investigation: two trombone students and two flute students. I observed the students for a period of nine months, and interviewed them twice during their first year of instrumental lessons. The observations and interviews focused on learning strategies and literacy events. The data was transcribed and analysed using the computer based program NVivo, and a taxonomy of strategies was constructed in close dialog between the strategies that emerged from the empirical material, and strategy categories derived from research literature in language and music research. The study shows that the four students differed to a large degree in their use of strategies, both when it came to what strategies they used, and how many strategies they used. These differences were relatively consistent throughout the year. The strategies the students used were characterised by the meaning making attempts they did when they tried to make sense of both the sociocultural setting and the musical symbol system. They formed temporary perceptions of how the written music was to be understood and used. These were reconsidered by the students, adjusted, and negotiated along the way. The young learners didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with this temporary knowledge. The main strategy categories observed in the material were social strategies, cognitive strategies, memory related strategies, support strategies and listening strategies. Several of the students used support strategies to compensate for the lack of memory related strategies and cognitive strategies in their approaches to music literacy acquisition. Another aspect of the emergent literacy seen in this study is the multimodal ways that the children seem to approach a new symbol system. They expressed their meaning making through speech, gestures, songs, invented symbols, writings, language narratives, sounds and pictures. The study also showed that it is not enough for the teacher to tell the student what strategies that could be used; they have to be tried out and practised in order to be internalized as tools of learning. Teachers’ knowledge of how their students learn to comprehend written music will potentially affect students’ learning processes. This study illuminates this kind of knowledge through observations of beginner student’s behaviour, actions, and their thoughts of their own learning.

For many piano teachers, developing proficient reading skills in their young beginner students is one of the important aspects of weekly lessons yet it can also be one of the most frustrating tasks to undertake. To assist in this process, teachers look to method books to provide structure and an approach to music reading. Two reading approaches are prevalent in the current marketplace and widely used by teachers; the mixed intervallic approach and the middle C approach. The mixed intervallic approach, which stresses reading by interval, pattern and direction, is favoured and endorsed by current pedagogy and is adopted by many method books. This study compared the reading skills of young beginner piano students (ages 7-11) using either the mixed intervallic approach or the middle C approach to see which approach produced more reliable reading skills. Participants performed several music reading tasks to test keyboard identification (verbal), note identification in treble and bass clef (verbal), single note identification in C and G position (playing), broken and solid intervals in C and G position (playing), 3 note patterns and non-patterns in C and G position (playing), and sight reading. I hypothesized that the middle C students would perform better at single note identification while the mixed intervallic students would perform better in interval recognition, pattern recognition and sight reading. The results showed that the middle C students outperformed the mixed intervallic students in all tests except for keyboard identification and 3 note patterns in G position. These findings are surprising as they may indicate that the middle C approach, which is often criticized, is generating reliable reading skills among beginner piano students.

Rostvall, A-L. & West, T. Interaktion och kunskapsutveckling. En studie av frivillig musikundervisning. 

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, to be publicly examined at the Centre for Research in Music Education (MPC), Stockholm, with due permission from the board of the faculty of humanities of Stockholm University.

In a joint dissertation project, 11 brass instrument and guitar lessons, with 4 teachers and 21 students aged 9-35 years, were videotaped, transcribed and analyzed. Two were group lessons and 9 were private lessons. The object of the project was to study how music teaching and learning can be understood from an institutional perspective by describing, analyzing and interpreting musical instrument lessons. The lessons were viewed as social encounters in which the action of participants creates and re-creates social orders at different institutional levels, by means of communication routines using speech, music and gesture.

Data were derived from micro-ethnographic transcriptions of speech, gesture and music of a total of five hours of videotape, supplemented by text analyses of 14 method-books. The transcripts were analyzed as text from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. At the analytical level the study applied the cognitive concepts of experiencing and learning music, as well as those of educational genres of speech and music use. The analyzed data were interpreted and discussed from the perspectives of interaction-theory and institution-theory.

The results show how the music during the lessons was broken down into separate notes, as read from the score. Music was not addressed as phrases, rhythms, or melodies. Expressive qualities of music performance were not addressed. The characteristics of the interaction were found to be asymmetric, with the teacher being the one controlling the definition of the situation. Student attempts to take initiative were ignored by teachers. This asymmetric pattern of interaction had negative consequences for students’ as well as teachers’ opportunities to learn. The organization of the teaching situation as well as teaching methods is discussed from the perspective of institution-theory. A major conclusion is that the way instrument teaching is organized leaves little room for students and teachers to discuss and reflect on the teaching process.

Denne avhandlingen er en komparativ analyse av fire fiolinlærebøker for nybegynnere. Tre av disse er skrevet av norske forfattere, og den fjerde er skrevet av en svensk forfatter og oversatt til norsk. Disse er for tiden i bruk ved norske kulturskoler. Den faglige motivasjonen for analysen var å finne ut om hvordan lærebøkene kan forstås ut fra en overgripende music literacy-tenkning. Literacy er et begrep som har sine røtter i engelsk språkforskning og som senere har blitt adaptert innen flere fagfelt, inklusive musikk, der det da blir referert til som music literacy. Dette begrepet, heretter kalt musikalsk litterasitet, anvender jeg som et redskap til å kategorisere og undersøke ulike sentrale aspekter ved en bred musikalsk kompetanse som omfatter evne til både å lese og spille musikk. Undersøkelsen baserer seg på fire analysekategorier. Disse er: notelære, samspill, bruk av kroppen og aktiv lytting. Studien viser signifikante forskjeller mellom hvordan stoffet er organisert og presentert i de fire bøkene. Forskjellene gjelder blant annet både den musikkpedagogiske tilnærmingen til stoffet og den rent praktiske fordelingen av dette i bøkene. Dermed viser studien også tydelige ulikheter i måten de fire fiolinbøkene søker å bygge musikalsk kompetanse.

Denne masteroppgaven tar for seg temaet noteleseundervisning for nybegynnere på messinginstrumenter. Oppgavens problemstilling er hvilke metoder bruker messingpedagoger som underviser nybegynnere i notelesing? og problemstillingen er belyst gjennom kvalitative intervjuer med fire erfarne messingpedagoger. Messingpedagogene jeg har intervjuet underviser i trompet og trombone i kulturskoler på Østlandet. Informantene hadde mellom 15 og 28 års undervisningserfaring på tidspunktet intervjuene ble gjennomført. Studien har et hermeneutisk perspektiv, og deltakernes beskrivelser av undervisningsmetodene er fortolket ut fra hermeneutiske prinsipper. Analysen av intervjuene viste at temaet undervisningsmetoder var tett sammenvevd med andre didaktiske temaer som lærerforutsetninger, elevforutsetninger, rammefaktorer og innhold. Undervisningsmetodene som ble omtalt i intervjuene var også nært knyttet til undervisning som rettet seg mot utviklingen av instrumentale og musikalske ferdigheter, i tillegg til notelesing og notelesekyndighet.

I denne oppgaven har jeg vektlagt det informantene fortalte om den sosiale organiseringen av undervisningen og deres beskrivelser ulike arbeidsmåter knyttet til noteleseundervisning. Disse metodene er individuell undervisning og gruppeundervisning, lek, tegning og skriving knyttet til grafisk og konvensjonell notasjon, og munnstykkesumming og sang.

In this study, a comparison was made between the traditional music reading approach and the «Rote to Note» approach of Dr. Alyn Heim in teaching beginning instrumental music. This method is based largely on Dr. Edwin Gordon’s philosophy which utilizes aural skills and delays music reading. Fifth-graders in Dracut, Massachusetts, beginning trumpet, clarinet and saxophone students, took part in the twenty-week study. They were pretested and placed in matched control/experimental groups. For the first ten weeks the experimental groups began instrumental study with the «Rote-to-Note» method which utilizes familiar rote songs and solfege singing. During the second ten weeks they began music reading, using the same book used by the control groups. The control group students began instrumental music study and music reading simultaneously, and continued this for the entire experiment. The Watkins-Farnum Performance Scale was used for posttesting. Although most of the experimental groups’ scores were higher than the control groups’, the results were not significant.

Oppgaven er et pedagogisk utviklingsarbeid med tema flerstemte prima vista-øvelser. Den ene delen er et notemateriale, laget som et supplement til boka Hørelære. Med på notene av Niels Eskild Johansen (2006), og bygger på Johansens metodikk i melodilesing. Målgruppa er musikklinjeelever i videregående skole. Oppgavens hovedproblemstilling er: “Hva slags utforming er det hensiktsmessig at flerstemte prima vista-øvelser har når målet er fortrolighet med flerstemte musikalske forløp?” I den andre delen av oppgaven beskrives og begrunnes øvelsene, og både studier av tidligere utviklingsarbeid og tidligere forskning omkring notelesing er med på å belyse hovedproblemstillinga. Deltagende observasjon ble brukt når øvelsene ble prøvd ut på musikklinjeelever. Et annet forskningsspørsmål i oppgaven er om notematerialet kan være egnet for bruk i voksen-amatørkor. Dette undersøkes gjennom utprøving i et slikt kor, med påfølgende intervju av dirigenten. Oppgavens andre del tolker også empirien etter at notematerialet har blitt prøvd ut på musikklinjeelevene og i voksen-amatørkoret. Hovedresultatet i oppgaven er notematerialet, og utformingen av dette er den viktigste besvarelsen på hovedproblemstillinga.