This study explores young people's arts participation through music-making in Finland and the factors that may regulate that participation. It seeks to understand the construction of active modes of arts participation in and through adolescents' musical life courses. The interview study was conducted with young people (N = 18) participating in…

The purpose of this study is to explore the life and work of Pierre Sancan (1916-2008), an exemplary piano teacher who, like many masters in the apprenticeship tradition, is chiefly remembered today by his pupils alone. An all-round musician, Sancan had early success as a composer when he won the Prix de Rome in 1943, and enjoyed a flourishing…

Much like an effective speaker, a flexible musician is competent across multiple settings. The sociolinguistic theory of code-switching can be a useful tool to better understand how musicians acquire a set of skills and knowledge to support music-making in a range of activities in and outside of school and throughout society. In this article,…

Scott Joplin was an African American composer and pianist of singular merit and influence. This article is the final entry in a three-part series considering the biographical, artistic, and cultural contexts of Joplin's life and work and their use in K-12 general music education. "Ragtime Spaces" focuses on cultural globalization and the…

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the impact that small ensemble free improvisation experiences had on dispositional empathy development when compared with other forms of collective music making; and (2) to examine the relationship between co-performing musicians' empathy levels and their performance achievement in small ensembles using…

Approaches to teaching music notation and instrumental technique have been standardized and codified in the United States with great success in beginning instrumental programs. While these skills are important, we do a disservice to students if we do not equally develop comprehensive musicianship and creative thinking at a young age. Creating…

Performing jazz offers students the opportunity to participate in a unique group activity where notated passages are blended with exciting moments of improvisation. Expectations have risen over the years as middle and high school jazz ensembles have proved that they can perform at a very high level. This expectation however, has led to the…

This article explores a comprehensive, student-centered alternative to traditional ensemble instruction with the goal of promoting better opportunities for musical independence and lifelong musicianship. Developed by Caron Collins from the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York-Potsdam, the Curious, Collaborative, Creativity…

Introduction: This paper explores the relationship between musicians' information seeking behaviour and their personality traits within the context of musical creativity. Although previous research has addressed different socio-technological and behavioral aspects of music information seeking, the role of personality characteristics around…

Improvisation, the third content standard for the National Standards for Music Education (Music Educators National Conference, 1994), has received less attention from music teachers. This article advocates for more improvisation specifically free improvisation in general music classrooms. The nature of free improvisation, and its evolution in the…

Theoretical approaches to learning in practice-based jazz improvisation contexts include situated learning and ecological perspectives. This article focuses on how interest-driven, self-sustaining jazz learning activities can be matched against the results of a recent Swedish investigation based on extensive qualitative interviews with jazz…

In this article, narratives of a salsa concert and a lesson with a Native American flute performer provide openings for exploring grooves and their application in the music classroom. The term "groove" is examined, along with some non-Western ideas about time as represented in the music of the West African Kpelle people. A sixth-grade…

This article describes a collaborative clinical field experience initiative conceived to provide meaningful fieldwork for preservice music educators, musically engage underserved students in a high-poverty school, and include instruction on composition and improvisation. The author chronicles the planning, implementation, and subsequent revisions…

Ensembles such as rock and pop bands are places of exciting creativity and intense, enjoyable music making for young people. A recent review of New Zealand's secondary school qualification, the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA), has resulted in a new composition assessment of individuals' achievement in groups. An analysis of…

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…