Attitudes of Members of the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors Toward Their Own and Their Students’ Teaching of Applied Music Lessons

Abstract

The current study was designed to help examine attitudes toward private lesson teaching of a cross section of wind and percussion instrument instructors (N = 72) who represent teachers with the potential to influence present and future instrumental music education students. The subject pool was drawn from the membership of the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors (NACWPI). Results were similar in many ways to responses in previous studies involving music faculty and music students. These respondents indicated that they liked teaching, liked the challenges of teaching musicians, indicated that teaching served to help their personal performing, and that good teaching technique was not obvious and needed to be taught. They also enjoyed talking about pedagogical issues with students, periodically shared pedagogical information as part of students’ lessons, but were not committed to recommending that students take a pedagogy class. Engaging the membership of organizations such as NACWPI will be necessary if the music teacher education profession is to find ways to include the pedagogy of individual music lesson teaching for musicians interested in becoming teachers.