Abstract
This article reports an exploratory study into applied music teaching at a tertiary level. The study was staged as a case study where the case comprises one performance teacher of piano and nine students. The focus of the study is how a performance teacher with no formal training fares in the training of musical performers, how students respond, and what are the particular successful or unsuccessful issues in what could feasibly be termed ‘commonsense teaching’. The data were gathered through participant observation, informal interviews and questionnaires. The findings suggest, after content analysis, that the distinction between the role of the instrumental teachers and the role of the expert performer is an essential distinction. In spite of good intentions the participating teacher failed to provide a successful instructional strategy. The article concludes by tentatively proposing some instructional considerations for applied music teaching, as drawn from the case study.
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