My inquiry, centered on the applied practice of teaching, confronts the detachment that often disassociates the intellectual study of music theory from the physical experience of music. This pedagogical detachment, perceived as a split between opposing views of knowledge, privileges positivist science over interpretive art (Aróstegui, 2003), producing written competencies that have little or no musical meaning (Rogers, 2004). Endeavouring to re-attach music theory and the music it was initially intended to explain (Dirié, 2014), I constructed four Listening Guides to align with the intermediate-level theory curriculum of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Their construction incorporates elements of design research along with an underlying framework derived from the Kodály Method’s four-step instructional process. Given my multi-faceted personal/professional interactions with music theory, my research project is presented in the form of a quest narrative that weaves together my story and the stories of participant teachers who established the Listening Guides’ potential usefulness through reviewing and implementing interactions. This narrative, as a creative representation of arts-based research practices (Leavy, 2015), is derived from the blurring of specific cognitive findings and less definable aesthetic knowings (Greenwood, 2012). My data, both the prototypical data I designed and the empirical data I collected from focus group discussions with my participants, are filtered through an a/r/tographic lens that acknowledges the coexistence of my artist/researcher/teacher identities. The analysis of our aggregate narrative, as an exploration of music theory pedagogy with, about, in, and through music, relies on the evaluative tools of educational criticism (Eisner, 1991). Unfolding in a mostly linear climb, my quest for a fully integrated music/theory (art/science) pedagogy reaches its apex in the understanding that a music-logic organization confounds the subject-logic of traditional teaching approaches. Thus, my inquiry challenges the customary practices of scientific knowledge-building with a model for artistic “ways-of-knowing” in music theory pedagogy.

This study explores the topic of music theory pedagogy in conjunction with the Kodály concept of music education and its North-American adaptation by Lois Choksy. It investigates the compatibility of the Kodály Method with post-secondary instruction in tonal harmony, using a theoretical framework derived from Kodály’s methodology and implemented as a teaching strategy for the dominant-seventh chord. The customary presentation of this concept is authenticated with an empirical case study involving four university professors. Subsequently, Kodály’s four-step instructional process informs a comparative analysis of five university-level textbooks that evaluates the sequential placement of V7, examines the procedure by which it is presented, and considers the inclusion of correlated musical excerpts. Although divergent from traditional approaches to tonal harmony, Kodály’s principles and practices are pedagogically effective. By progressing from concrete to abstract, preceding symbolization with extensive musical experience, conceptual understandings are not only intellectualized, but are developed and internalized.

This study explores the topic of music theory pedagogy in conjunction with the Kodály concept of music education and its North-American adaptation by Lois Choksy. It investigates the compatibility of the Kodály Method with post-secondary instruction in tonal harmony, using a theoretical framework derived from Kodály’s methodology and implemented as a teaching strategy for the dominant-seventh chord. The customary presentation of this concept is authenticated with an empirical case study involving four university professors. Subsequently, Kodály’s four-step instructional process informs a comparative analysis of five university-level textbooks that evaluates the sequential placement of V7, examines the procedure by which it is presented, and considers the inclusion of correlated musical excerpts. Although divergent from traditional approaches to tonal harmony, Kodály’s principles and practices are pedagogically effective. By progressing from concrete to abstract, preceding symbolization with extensive musical experience, conceptual understandings are not only intellectualized, but are developed and internalized.

This study explores the topic of music theory pedagogy in conjunction with the Kodály concept of music education and its North-American adaptation by Lois Choksy. It investigates the compatibility of the Kodály Method with post-secondary instruction in tonal harmony, using a theoretical framework derived from Kodály’s methodology and implemented as a teaching strategy for the dominant-seventh chord. The customary presentation of this concept is authenticated with an empirical case study involving four university professors. Subsequently, Kodály’s four-step instructional process informs a comparative analysis of five university-level textbooks that evaluates the sequential placement of V7, examines the procedure by which it is presented, and considers the inclusion of correlated musical excerpts. Although divergent from traditional approaches to tonal harmony, Kodály’s principles and practices are pedagogically effective. By progressing from concrete to abstract, preceding symbolization with extensive musical experience, conceptual understandings are not only intellectualized, but are developed and internalized.