Adopting a fresh approach to the assumptions and concepts which underlie musical learning, Taking a Learner-Centred Approach to Music Education provides comprehensive guidance on professional and pedagogical aspects of learner-centred practice. This essential companion offers a pedagogy which is at once informed by theoretical understandings, and is underpinned by experience, practical examples, case studies and self-reflection. Initial chapters explore the theoretical dimensions of learner-centred music education, touching on aspects including collaborative learning, the learning environment and pedagogical sensitivity. Latter chapters delve deeper into the practical application of these teaching strategies and methods. The book invites its reader to reflect on topics including: music, emotions and interaction the voice and body as instruments making music visible and tangible improvising and learning music with instruments working with groups in creative activities the music pedagogue as a sensitive and creative instrument. Taking a Learner-Centred Approach to Music Education will deepen understanding, facilitate reflection and inspire new approaches to teaching in the field of music. It is essential reading for current and future practitioners involved in music education, early childhood music practice, community music, music therapy and special needs education.

Investigation of the role of music in early life and learning has been somewhat fragmented, with studies being undertaken within a range of fields with little apparent conversation across disciplinary boundaries, and with an emphasis on pre-schoolers' and school-aged childrens' learning and engagement. The Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning and Development in Music brings together leading researchers in infant and early childhood cognition, music education, music therapy, neuroscience, cultural and developmental psychology, and music sociology to interrogate questions of how our capacity for music develops from birth, and its contributions to learning and development. Researchers in cultural psychology and sociology of musical childhoods investigate those factors that shape children's musical learning and development and the places and spaces in which children encounter and engage with music. These issues are complemented with consideration of the policy environment at local, national and global levels in relation to music early learning and development and the ways in which these shape young children's music experiences and opportunities. The volume also explores issues of music provision and developmental contributions for children with Special Education Needs, children living in medical settings and participating in music therapy, and those living in sites of trauma and conflict. Consideration of these environments provides a context to examine music learning and development in family, community and school settings including general and specialized school environments. Authors trace the trajectories of development within and across cultures and settings and in that process identify those factors that facilitate or constrain children's early music learning and development.

This book explores a child-centred perspective on music education. It examines how children engage with, and think about, music and how an understanding of this can support high-quality teaching and learning.

The Oxford Handbook of Music Composition Pedagogy presents an illuminating collection of philosophy, research, applied practice, and international perspectives to highlight the practices of teaching and learning in the field of music composition. The Handbook offers various strategies and approaches in composition for teachers, music teacher educators, and students of music education.

There is compelling evidence that music can enhance parental wellbeing, yet to date there have been few attempts to bring together current endeavours in the field. Music and Parental Mental Wellbeing provides readers from music, health, and beyond, with a new and comprehensive opportunity to consider how music can support parental mental wellbeing. Drawing on recent ground-breaking practice, research, and evaluation the book illuminates how music can support mental wellbeing in pregnancy and the postnatal period, childbirth and perinatal hospital settings, and in the early years. Each chapter provides introductory context, describes the relevant musical practice, consider the intersections with parental wellbeing, and end with implications for practice and key take-aways for the reader. With an interdisciplinary and international team of authors, including music and health practitioners, experts by experience, and researchers, this book explores and establishes the role of music, in its many forms, in supporting and enhancing parental mental wellbeing.

This title works to provide students with an introduction to different types of artistic expression within early childhood. Combining theory, research and practical strategies, the authors present how the arts can be beneficial in fostering inclusion through a range of settings.

In recent research, there has been growing emphasis on the collaborative, social, and collective nature of musical behaviour and practices. Among the emerging hypotheses in this connection are the idea that listening to music is always listening together and being with the other; that music making is a matter of intercorporeality, mutuality, and emphatic attunement; and that creative agency in musical practices is fundamentally a distributed phenomenon. Chamber music provides an ideal context for the testing and actualization of these notions. This Special Issue on chamber music and the chamber musician aims to explore the psychological, social, cultural, historical, and artistic issues in the practice of classical chamber music in the twenty-first century. Contributions are invited on any of these aspects and issues involved in being a contemporary classical chamber musician. Authors are encouraged to contextualise their research by reference to the recent literature on collaborative musicking, and among the topics they may choose to address are the cultural and musical demands chamber musicians face and the implications of these demands for their artistic practice, the ways the twenty-first-century chamber musicians engage with historical practices, the newly emerging musical identities and artistic roles available to them, and expressivity in current chamber music practices.

This book sets out a contemporary perspective on music education, highlighting complex intersections between informal, non-formal and formal practices and contexts. At a time when the boundaries between music learning and participation are increasingly blurred, this volume is distinctive in challenging a ‘siloed’ approach to understanding the diverse international music education landscape. Instead, the book proposes a multi-layered continuum of practices that can be applied across a range of formal, informal or non-formal concepts to support the development of musical possible selves. It challenges existing conceptions of learning in music education in part by drawing on research in adult learning, but also by considering the contexts in which learning takes place, and the extent to which this learning can be classified as formal, informal or non-formal.

Viewing the plurality of creativity in music as being of paramount importance to the field of music education, The Routledge Companion to Creativities in Music Education provides a wide-ranging survey of practice and research perspectives. Bringing together philosophical and applied foundations, this volume draws together an array of international contributors, including leading and emerging scholars, to illuminate the multiple forms creativity can take in the music classroom, and how new insights from research can inform pedagogical approaches. In over 50 chapters, it addresses theory, practice, research, change initiatives, community, and broadening perspectives. A vital resource for music education researchers, practitioners, and students, this volume helps advance the discourse on creativities in music education.

This book advocates for a radical change in music teaching and learning methods, allowing for a break from the traditional conservatory model still in use in many classrooms. The product of twenty years of interdisciplinary work by musicians, music teachers, and psychologists, the book proposes to place the focus of music education on the students themselves and on their mental and physical activity, with the aim of helping them to manage their own goals and emotions. This alternative is based on a new theoretical framework, as well as numerous real, concrete examples of how to put it into practice with students of different ages and in different environments. This book focuses primarily on teaching instrumental music, but its content will be useful for any teacher, student, musician, or researcher interested in improving music education in any environment, whether formal or informal, in which it takes place Chapters 3, 4, 6 and 18 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.