Research Studies in Music Education

Alexander Clark, a trained tonic sol-faist, became an Inspector of South Australian schools in 1884. Under his guidance music secured a place in state-supported schooling. Clark was an enthusiastic, committed educator who lead by example and encouragement. He was warmly regarded and respected by his peers, teachers and school pupils. He championed the cause of music, pushed for teacher training in the subject, and was its strongest advocate in the public domain. Despite retrenchment from the inspectorate he continued his fight for music and was still teaching and conducting at the time of his death in 1913. This paper seeks to outline his career and contribution to the development of music in state schooling in South Australia. Effectively, Clark established the content and delivery practices of school music. Clark's efforts on behalf of the discipline were tireless and his enthusiasm converted many. His contribution requires documentation and acknowledgment.

Designing Sound is the title of a research and development project, and also of resulting computer music software and curriculum materials. Too often the production of computer software has been driven by commercial pressures, not educational needs. A five year project ran from 1987 involving a number of schools in England in a program of action research. A computer program to support creativity in music education with children from 4 - 19 years of age was developed and published from this project. The software enables all children to become involved in composing as a curriculum activity, whatever their musical ability. Supporting materials provide guidelines for classroom applications and include approaches to the assessment of creative work.

Criteria for evaluating educational software in curriculum music are proposed, and the program has been written in versions which will run on a range of computers. Designing Sound represents a concept in the use of new technology in music. Future developments may enable this philosophy to be incorporated into multimedia computer platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of small group activities in the secondary school music classroom. Small group work has been shown to be of value in general classroom teaching in developing a positive classroom climate, encouraging the development of social skills, and enhancing academic achievement. However, research with music student teachers has demonstrated that the music classroom raises special problems for the use of small groups. These special problems are discussed, the related literature is reviewed and suggestions are made for the effective management of small groups in the music classroom.

This article describes a study which examines how task designs, the compositional context set by the musical requirements, influence students' experience of composition. A total of forty-four compositions were collected from a class of eleven Year 11 music elective students over one school year. In addition to the analysis of draft and final forms of compositions, data were obtained as self-report documents including 'Composer's Diaries', 'Composer Writes Pages', and questionnaires. Data were presented in two ways involving a larger comparative study and a sampling of several case studies. The findings of this study suggest the conditions set by tasks determine how students relate to composition and the nature of musical outcome. There were indications that students experience task constraints and freedom differently, in part determined by their working style, background, and self-concept as composers. Overall, constraint and freedom were identified as artistically significant in the realisation of a composition. Implications for teaching practice include the suggestion that tasks should differentiate between 'Instructional' tasks for learning and 'Composition' tasks which empower students to participate as makers in the role of artistic creator.

This paper examines the physical structure of gender wayang instruments, the nature of the ensemble, and the processes involved in learning gender wayang music. A personal viewpoint of learning gender wayang by the traditional Balinese rote method is explored and comments are made on the mental tussles involved, the visual interaction between players, the physical memory when hands keep playing even though concentration is lost, and the long term memory which develops with the rote learning method.

This article argues that the development of music education since the middle of the nineteenth century has not simply been a case of slow growth and gradual improvement, but rather that it entered the curriculum, at worst by default, and at best under a different guise. It provides an overview of curricula and practises in both state and private schools in Australian from the second half of the nineteenth century, and follows their development from then until the recent past. It considers the reasons why music was introduced, the purposes it was intended to fulfil, and identifies some factors, such as class, gender and the creation of public school systems themselves, that have had ongoing effects. It illustrates changes in the ways music was taught and the purposes it was perceived as fulfilling, by looking at three time periods - from 1880 through the 1890s, from 1910 through the 1920s and from 1950 through the 1960s.