The original focus of this research paper was to ask the question, “Why are there so few versatile trombonists?” The research suggested that there were curriculum problems in higher education associated with the general lack of performance versatility amongst trombonists. In 2014 the Task Force for the Undergraduate Music Major (TFUMM) determined that the undergraduate curriculum was lacking improvisation and creativity. One of the core musical skills that is essential in improvising is audiation. After determining that audiation is one of the keys to performance versatility, I researched jazz pedagogy and how this area of higher education includes and utilizes audiation and improvisation in curriculum. I concluded that traditional conservatory-style pedagogy is lacking improvisation and audiation in its curriculum because of the bias towards the European music tradition and the institutional treatment of jazz as a legitimate art form that is not equal to the European music tradition.To address the issue of performance versatility amongst trombonists, I created the “Modern Trombonist Curriculum” in 2016. This was my first attempt to address undergraduate curriculum by exposing students to a three-studio model, literature versatility, and utilizing audiation as the foundation of their learning. I sent out this curriculum to ten educators and performers for critique and to provide their thoughts on the current landscape of performance versatility, audiation, and my curriculum. After the interviews and the insight of my dissertation committee, I created a new curriculum titled “The Versatile Trombonist” to address the constraints of time, colleague involvement, student engagement, mental health, fiscal concerns, and other issues that I did not originally consider. Although I plan to continually modify and adjust this curriculum, this current version can be used as a benchmark for future educators that desire to include audiation and performance versatility in their current or future trombone studios.

The aim of this study was to identify the significant influences that effect the way beginning teachers in the A.C.T. incorporate music into their primary classrooms. Twenty-eight teachers from 23 different schools were interviewed in this study. These teachers were chosen on the basis that they were beginning teachers (teachers who were in their first, second or third year of teaching) and had graduated from the University of Canberra from 1988 to 1990. The teachers were interviewed over a 7 week period in Term 4 of 1990. The interview schedule incorporated aspects of a questionnaire and an interview employing both closed and open-ended questions. The study found that although 71% of the teachers taught some music in their classrooms, no teacher actually taught the whole music curriculum (as defined by the A.C.T. Curriculum Guidelines, 1990). Singing, listening and moving were taught by most teachers but areas of the music curriculum such as playing, reading and writing, improvisation and composition were rarely included. These results were influenced by factors such as the musical background of the teachers, preservice courses, the school music curriculum, whether or not teacher's colleagues taught music and the school's utilisation of the music specialist. For example, teachers who taught music were more likely to come from a school that had a music curriculum rather than from a school that did not. This study has implications for the development and implementation of primary school music curricula, the reassessment of future preservice and inservice programs, the utilisation of human resources within primary schools and the development of more positive attitudes towards music in schools and society in general.

The purpose of this dissertation is critically to illustrate discursive recontextualization between sociocultural production and reproduction, with respect to both relations within and relations to music education in Swedish upper-secondary school. The starting point for the study is the Swedish upper-secondary school reform, Gy 2011, which has involved a marked reformulation of the agenda for music education in upper-secondary school. The general Artistic Activities disappeared, at the same time as the significance of a specialising education in the field was strengthened. This dissertation is driven by the desire to understand the results of the upper-secondary school reform by explaining the processes and principles involved. But, in a wider perspective, the dissertation deals not only with a single reform, but encompasses a search for the underlying principles that have had, and are having, a regulating effect on the design and positioning of music in publicly regulated education. The results show that structuring of the subject of music takes place primarily through the classification and framing of social relationships in general, and of interactional relationships in particular. The focus of these relationships has shifted from time to time, and varies from context to context, but has always been in relation to something that has been regarded as sacred. In recent times, the framing within music-oriented knowledge practices has become weaker. At the same time, such knowledge practices have shown an increasing need for the drawing of boundaries in relation to other knowledge practices. The latter also has a value in explaining why general music content was removed from the upper-secondary school curriculum, whereas a special and specialising educational programme was able to gain legitimacy.

The purpose of this dissertation is critically to illustrate discursive recontextualization between sociocultural production and reproduction, with respect to both relations within and relations to music education in Swedish upper-secondary school. The starting point for the study is the Swedish upper-secondary school reform, Gy 2011, which has involved a marked reformulation of the agenda for music education in upper-secondary school. The general Artistic Activities disappeared, at the same time as the significance of a specialising education in the field was strengthened. This dissertation is driven by the desire to understand the results of the upper-secondary school reform by explaining the processes and principles involved. But, in a wider perspective, the dissertation deals not only with a single reform, but encompasses a search for the underlying principles that have had, and are having, a regulating effect on the design and positioning of music in publicly regulated education. The results show that structuring of the subject of music takes place primarily through the classification and framing of social relationships in general, and of interactional relationships in particular. The focus of these relationships has shifted from time to time, and varies from context to context, but has always been in relation to something that has been regarded as sacred. In recent times, the framing within music-oriented knowledge practices has become weaker. At the same time, such knowledge practices have shown an increasing need for the drawing of boundaries in relation to other knowledge practices. The latter also has a value in explaining why general music content was removed from the upper-secondary school curriculum, whereas a special and specialising educational programme was able to gain legitimacy.

Within the last twenty years there have been a growing number of prospective students interested in pursuing musical theater (MT) training in colleges and universities throughout the United States. To meet this demand, the number of schools offering baccalaureate MT degrees has also grown. However, information on how to assess the music and singing training of undergraduate MT programs is not easily accessible to prospective undergraduate students. This is likely due to the fact that colleges and universities have only begun offering degrees in MT since 1970. Research-based information in this area is primarily found in peer-reviewed journals or by attending workshops presented by a few pedagogues specializing in MT vocal methods and techniques. The purpose of this essay is to develop criteria for assessing the singing and music training in MT baccalaureate degree programs that would be useful for prospective MT students, based on the current literature.

‘The young Irish person has the worst of all European musical “worlds”’. This seminal statement was discovered to be symptomatic of a general malaise. The Music Education National Debate (MEND 1994-1996) was a three-phase response to Deaf Ears?, the report from which the above statement was taken. The eventual aim was to set up a forum for music education which would systematically address the difficulties in Ireland. The scope of MEND was, thus, general, ab initio. Its progress was, however, inhibited by a specific concern, which was fundamental to the whole process of reform. It soon became apparent that consensus on a philosophy of music education to inform evolving strategies would be a sine qua non. Coincidentally, this was a time of debacle in the global field, instanced by the publication of a ‘new’ philosophy of music education (David Elliott’s Music Matters [1995]) which threw down the gauntlet to the undisputed classic - Reimer’s A Philosophy of Music Education [1970/1989]. This challenge amounted to a veritable counterposition and demanded a separate, albeit derivative, study before the MEND Report could be completed. This study was to become the substance of this thesis. The aim of this work is to analyse these polar philosophies with a view to reconciling them. Beginning with some commonly held values about music education, the relevance of American music education practice to a wide range of global systems is suggested. The dominance of a western art (music) mentality is called into question by giving prominence to multiculturalism and popular music. Music Education as Aesthetic Education (Reimer) is compared with the praxial approach (Elliott). They yielded to rationalization, albeit posing residual questions of balance, relevance, and time constraints within the curriculum. The indispensability of performance and listening as a complementary pair is re-established. The ascendancy of artistic criteria in defining the music programme is affirmed. Finally the failure of the universal philosophy hypothesis is redeemed by sketching the compromises necessary to convert it to the adaptability of the contextual idea, leading the study to a conclusion of general, rather than specific, application. Note from the UPeTD Team: The final MEND (The Music Education National Debate) report can be obtained from the Academic Information Service, University of Pretoria, email: upetd@up.ac.za. The report is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf document. There are hyperlinks embedded within the document to facilitate internal navigation. The Appendix at the end (which is an index of the MEND debates and presentations) also contains hyperlinks. / Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Music / unrestricted

Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Music / Unrestricted

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the curricular content of elementary music in China between 1912 and 1982. The questions addressed were: (1) What changes in elementary music resulted from China's becoming a republic in 1912? (2) What changes in elementary music resulted from China's becoming a socialist country in 1949? (3) What changes in elementary music in the People's Republic of China resulted from the Anti—Rightist Struggle Movement in 1957? (4) What changes in elementary music in the People's Republic of China resulted from the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)? (5) Have changes occurred in elementary music in the People's Republic of China since the beginning of the reform movement in 1978? (6) Did any of the changes affect curricular goals, contents, methods, required materials, and instruction time allotted in a like manner, or did some of these components remain the same while others changed? (7) Were the changes important enough to attribute them to a changed political ideology? After translating all pertinent documents, the goals, contents, methods, materials, and time allotted for the elementary music curricula between 1912 and 1982 were listed and identified. Subsequently, the areas of focus within those categories as well as changes in focus were identified and their importance determined. The findings were: (1) all important curricular changes occurred after 1950; and (2) changed goals resulted in changed teaching techniques; however, changed teaching techniques did not result in the changing of goals.

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