Research Studies in Music Education

This paper reports the findings of an ethnographic study of processes of variation and transmission in Australian children's playground singing games, conducted in a multiethnic inner city primary school in Sydney from 1990 to 1994. The paper focuses on children's processes of innovation or composition in relation to text, music and movement in these games and children's own awareness of these processes. Findings of the study are used to challenge the notion that children's compositional processes fit an invariable model such as that proposed by Swanwick and Tillman (1986). Instead, the author proposes that compositional processes vary according to the context in which they are enacted. Implications for teaching practice are outlined with particular reference to provision of a challenging classroom environment in which the considerable compositional and performance skills of children are acknowledged and the importance of group interaction is recognised.

This paper explores systems of music transmission, teaching and learning in evidence within the rehearsals of rock bands. Informants were nine musicians in two Seattle rock bands, all white males, ranging in age from fourteen to sixteen. Through interviews and observations of practice sessions, 'song-getting' and' skill-building' processes were noted. Attention was given to the young musicians' analytical listening behaviours, their evaluative remarks, and the social interactions of the groups' leaders as 'expert' musical models with other members of the group. Early home and school musical musical influences were examined, and ways in which the school music curriculum might be made more relevant to the needs and interests of young rock musicians are discussed.

Research in lifelong music learning can provide a basis for relating school music programs more closely with the larger society. In addition, understanding of relationships between adult development and music learning can broaden the scope and depth of life-span education in music. Three fruitful areas for developing a research agenda include: adult development and learning; creativity; and intergenerational learning. Implications for research involve forging stronger links between the nature of adult learners and appropriate practices in music education.

Music is an important element in the expression of cultural identity among Torres Strait Islanders. Although the culture of the Torres Strait Islands is a dynamic one in which change is expected, concerns have arisen that traditional music is at risk, and, with it, many distinctive elements of Islander identity. Efforts to counteract this situation have been introduced through Cultural Studies programs in schools which supplement and reinforce community musical practice. While recognising broader music education needs of Islander children, the current school music curriculum does not always address the cultural needs of Islander children. In response to this, a collaborative project has been developed to devise A Culturally Appropriate Music Curriculum for Torres Strait Island Schools. In the following, differences between community musical practices and those expected in schools are examined, and considerations regarding the inclusion of Island song in a culturally appropriate curriculum are explored. A substantial part of the article is based on the contemporary opinions of Islander elders, musicians and teachers.

This paper is conceived of as an irruption into the central spaces claimed and inhabited by the orthodoxies of Queensland's music curriculum policies: policies which are embedded in the discourses of western high culture. Such an incursion challenges canonical legitimacy from a social construction perspective, and provides a critique of the assumptions upon which the authority of 'official' music and its discourses rest. Using theoretical tools borrowed principally from the foreign territory of postcolonialism (Said, 1993), and with brief references to feminism (Harding, 1986 and 1991; McClary, 1991), cultural theory (Frith, 1987; Eagleton, 1991; Regan, 1992), gay and lesbian musicology (McClary, 1991; Brett, Wood and Thomas, 1994; Koestenbaum, 1994), it scrutinises musical representations of culture and seeks to problematize them in the context of the Queensland Senior Syllabus in Music (1987).