Sometimes we hear music (when we play it or hear it, whether live or recorded) and that experience is felt as a singular event. In those moments we find ourselves in an existential situation that, because it is singular (rare, unique, unintended), reveals the formative power of an aesthetic experience of listening to music, what we might call…

After learning about Frank Sinatra's life, the first author sensed the need to study him in depth. Sinatra played many roles during his lifetime, the most significant of these as an actor, singer, and producer. Sinatra was one of the greatest influential artists in the 20th century. The first author sought personal and professional growth and…

Parents and guardians inherently become involved in diverse aspects of the music learning process and retain the potential to foster a musical home environment, influencing the musical growth, attitude, and level of participation of their children. Research suggests a relationship between parental support and successful development of music skills…

Music, considered as a field of discourse, has important implications for how educators think and act within their classrooms. Based on the work of Ruben Gaztambide-Fernandez, Murray R. Schafer, and feminist music education scholars, this paper aims to delineate these implications and to propose "sound education" as an alternative.…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the process of composing educational music. As part of a research project titled "Sound Connections: Composing Educational Music" Canadian composers completed email interviews, responding to semi-structured questions about the process of composing educational music. Using…

On November 15, 1981, the University of Illinois British Brass Band performed its first concert, conducted by University of Illinois Assistant Director of Bands James Curnow. The ensemble's antecedents lay in the brass bands established in Victorian England that were populated by members of the working classes, while its 1980s founding occurred in…

In secondary ensembles, teachers navigate the demanding balance of developing music literacy skills while preparing for concerts. This challenge intensifies in online learning environments due to limited opportunities for instant feedback, ensemble synchronization, and fostering a sense of community. The problem was the lack of understanding of…

Improving concert attendance is a concern for most classical music organizations, both for continued financial stability and for artistic fulfillment. According to a statistical report from the League of American Orchestras (2015), slightly more than a third of orchestras' total revenue comes from concert sales. Good concert attendance can also…

Despite music education being endorsed by researchers as an effective tool to improve the social-emotional competence of students who live in poverty, African American students, who are overrepresented among the population of students who live in poverty, often fail to take advantage of music education programs (Elpus & Abril, 2011; Hoffman…

Children's picture book biographies on composers and musicians can prompt powerful music learning experiences. Biography breaks are the reading aloud of a picture book biography and the questions or activities the teacher engages students in while and after reading the book. In the music classroom, biography breaks can be used with children of all…

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of black women band directors at the secondary and collegiate levels. The goal was to understand their experiences that shaped them as educators and contributors to the profession. A secondary goal was to explore the personal and structural factors that served as support systems and…

The overlapping of pragmatic philosophy and the Aristotelian concept of praxis is explored with application to music and music education. John Dewey's philosophy of "Art as Experience" is contrasted with tacit aesthetic assumptions about music that music teachers often hold as a result of the aesthetic meme inherited from their…

Music is a human action (praxis), guided by intentionality, that embodies sociality. The many significant "social" values of music, however, get lost in high-minded but faulty claims that music's essential value is to promote aesthetic experience. A survey of some basic aesthetic premises demonstrates that claims for "proper"…

In recent years, opera companies throughout the United Kingdom have begun to provide educational programs for children that offer opportunities for "apprenticeship" training in the context of professional opera productions, alongside formal choral musicianship training. This article outlines a qualitative case study of a recently…

This qualitative research examines the influence of learning Javanese gamelan on aspects of musicianship, attitudes and approaches relating to the learning and performance of Western instruments experienced by a sample of UK university music students. In addition to benefits to musicianship, students delineated positive developments in attitudes…