Search

When music educators discuss repertoire, they often discuss "what" pieces to perform and "when" in the year to perform them. In this article, I ask, "Who should choose the music for ensemble study, and "how" should it be chosen?" I share a rationale for why music educators might include students in ensemble repertoire selection and several ways they might open the repertoire so their students can contribute to the process. Based on my interest in how teacher-student dialogue can occur in this process, I draw from conversations I had with six orchestra teachers and twenty-seven of their students. The approaches presented here come from my interviews with these six teachers, from others with whom I have since collaborated, and from my own experience as an educator. Music educators may find these approaches useful for discussion, study, and implementation of more inclusive practice.

In this article, we query how action is contextualized and used in music education, centering the discussion around problems of calling for change without taking action, what Paulo Freire terms "narration sickness." Narration sickness manifests in social media, conferences, and professional development sessions--where words convey ideas as grand narratives, devoid of context, causing a division between those who present ideas from those who enact them in practice. We describe how music educators may become unintentional slacktivists, "woke" to the need for action, attempting to improve the field with limited (if any) action at all. We invite music educators to counter "wokeness" with what Maxine Greene calls being "wide awake," offering examples of educators who demonstrate change. We seek to expand the definition of action, drawing upon what Freire and Marx term as praxis, seeking actionable approaches in teaching, researching, and learning across age levels, settings, and contexts. [Note: The page range (53-83) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range for this article should be p53-84. The following article begins on page 84.]

The choice to study an instrument is an important decision for a child and family. Research shows that children select instruments because of preferences for sound, to be in community with friends, because of family influences, physical factors, perceived ease, timbre, and gender influences. This study investigated selected instrument choices of my own 3rd grade string students. Children and their parents completed a questionnaire, and this constituted the primary source of data. Open-ended response provided further insight into how children arrived at their instrument selection. Results indicated that string students considered the sound of the instrument most important when choosing, though social influences such as family and gender were also at play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]