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This chapter employs a cultural psychology lens to explore the ways in which Balinese children's learning of traditional music and dance is shaped by their culture's uses and valuing of music, and beliefs and practices concerning teaching and learning. The discussion begins by emphasizing reasons for children's learning of music and the methods through which children acquire music with reference to literature on Bali that, since the 1930s, has tangentially alluded to children as learners and performers. It then interprets aspects of Balinese culture and society as sites of music learning and teaching that are culturally specific. This demonstrates how children's music activities are important contributions to the life of Balinese communities and how community expectations mandate teaching strategies and learning styles. Much of the discussion is based on fieldwork in Bali conducted between 1999 and 2007.

This chapter focuses on the processes concerned with learning and the development of musical expertise which are common to all human beings but which develop differentially depending on the environment (cultural and ecological) within which individuals are located. It considers what we know about human learning, the way that the brain develops in response to the particular musical environments to which the individual is exposed, and how these changes are expressed as musical expertise develops. The evidence regarding the importance of long-term engagement with music for expertise to develop is considered and how beliefs about personal efficacy can influence commitment to active music-making. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the different cultural perceptions of ‘musicality’ and changing perceptions of it in Western culture.

Musicality is an inherited biological predisposition that is unique to the human species. This chapter argues that music learning (whether structured or informal) happens very early, and long before we used to believe, and that it takes place as a result of children's innate propensity for learning. Indeed, children's spontaneous music making, from the first mother-infant musical interactions to playground rhymes and jeers, is the springboard of music learning. However, the contexts in which early musical experiences occur are critical, and adult interventions require balancing challenge and skill to achieve musical focus and self-growth in young children, as David Elliott suggests teachers should do at all ages. This chapter examines children's musical understanding, memory, and spontaneity, early childhood music education and its relation to Elliott's praxial philosophy, musical experiences based on context, “flow” in early childhood music experiences, multiculturalism in early childhood music education, music making and music listening in early childhood, and musical creativity in children.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the ways in which cultural psychology has re-emerged recently, and been taken up in the study of human thought and activity. It surveys the application of the theory and practice of cultural psychology to music education. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

This chapter introduces neuropsychological and neurophysiological research as it relates to learning. It also introduces some learning theories that essentially can be viewed as theories of cognition, and clarifies the question of transfer of learning, which sometimes serves as a justification for music education in schools. This chapter reviews four different approaches to investigating learning: behaviorism, constructivism, sociohistorical theory, and connectionism. Learning is the process by which one develops and incrementally differentiates mental representations. Therefore, music learning focuses on the development of genuine musical representations that are characterized by different forms of encoding. Research on individuals with mental disorders has clearly demonstrated that musical abilities develop independently of other domains of cognition.

This chapter presents a study of teacher-supported collaborative songwriting events which provides a context for the investigation of learner agency and teacher scaffolding in children's musical learning. The study is based on the premise that learning is an interactive social process that is characterized by negotiation and mutuality, undertaken in a community of practice, and located in physical settings (often classrooms) that in turn shape the nature, intent, and purposes of interaction. Through a careful analysis of the actions of teachers scaffolding children's musical learning, the chapter explores the ways in which teacher actions may enable and/or constrain student learning and sense of agency in the music-making process, and the ways in which learners draw on the cultural signs and tools at their disposal to make meaning from these experiences. The presentation of scaffolding as a teaching strategy acknowledges contrasting views of the pedagogical intentions and learning outcomes of scaffolding.

What has rarely been considered is how advances in music technology might help to support practically the actual developmental understanding of music in children. This chapter reviews important aspects of musical development in terms of music perception, performance, preference, and creation, and links these to music technology. After a summary of music technology history in the last thirty years, it draws connections between the literature on musical development and music technology — particularly music software. It also offers a brief review of studies that have used technology to understand more clearly aspects of music learning. It concludes with thoughts about future directions in considering music technology and the understanding of musical development.

This chapter examines the acquisition by children of musical knowledge in selected environments, with attention to the role of music within their society, and the means of transmission that are traditionally practised by adults in the process of passing on musical repertoire and techniques, behaviours, and values. In exploring global practices of children's learning of music, and through music their learning of social mores, reference are made to the cultural underpinnings of children's own playful repertoire, as well as to their musical heritage of adult-influenced culture in which they are schooled. The discussion draws attention to cases of music learning engagements among children and youth in Ireland, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, within North American First Nations circumstances, and in a selection of societies spread across eastern and western Africa.

This chapter describes an initial pilot study aimed at assessing what the students were thinking while engaged in each of the five ways of performing music: performing rehearsed music, sight-reading, playing by ear, playing by memory, and improvising. Students' performances on each of the five measures were analysed in ways that ensured that the same performance standards in years 1, 2, and 3 were allocated identical scores. Taken as a whole, this early research into students' initial performance progress shows that progression was in many ways smooth, with most learners improving, however gradually, across the initial years of their learning.

Chapter 2 and 3 raised doubts about how long the majority of young students could be expected to commit to ongoing instrumental learning in the face of a range of demotive factors: serious shortcomings about the quality of practice sessions, lack of parental support and even significant antagonism around practice sites, boredom, an absence of personal musical engagement, limited learner autonomy over nearly all areas of learning, restrictive forms of music making and learning (i.e., the dominance of performance from notation and absence of other forms of performance like playing by ear and improvising), and, for many, very limited progress in terms of musical skill development in both instrumental/technical and notational/literacy areas. If there is one concept that might encapsulate the key deficit that was created by these shortcomings it might be meaningful musical fluency. In its repeated absence, many students' initial triggered situational motivation turned to frustration because experiences were not matching expectations for musical outcomes. This chapter examines the fall-out from the programmes and learners' disengagement with formal instrumental music learning, which in some cases began at the end of the very first term of the programme. The chapter provides a sense of the scale and range of disillusionment, frustration, and disengagement, and attempts to understand in more detail some of the factors that contributed to decisions to give up.

This chapter suggests three broad perspectives of community music: community music as the “music of a community,” community music as “communal music making,” and community music as an active intervention between a music leader or leaders and participants. This book covers the third definition. The chapter outlines four questions: What is community music? What are the histories of community music and what can we learn from them? Where are the illustrations of practice? and Can a theoretical framework be developed that would help describe and understand community music practices? The book is divided into two sections. Firstly, “Inheritances and Pathways” presents three main themes: a historic perspective through which to understand the emergence of an international field; a consideration of what makes community music a distinctive enterprise; and illustrations of practice from across the world. Secondly, “Interventions and Counterpaths” utilizes the practice of community music to reveal philosophical strategies that enables an approach to analysis, discussion and understanding. Finally, Chapter 12, “Another Opening” explores future implications and directions for community music teaching and learning, employment, and practice.

The concept of creative ecologies has been taken up variously including as a phenomenon linked to commercial interests and the emerging creative economy and, as a socially just and sustainable phenomenon that provides opportunity for the participation of all in creative work. This chapter explores contemporary understandings and applications of ecological thinking in order to interrogate current conceptions of creativity, and considers the implications for music and music learning.

This chapter sums up some of the research in skill acquisition, which stresses the environmental aspects of music learning, especially in learning to play an instrument. Research in the acquisition of complex everyday skills has favored expert performance as an object of study. The focus on extremely gifted children and musical prodigies is less interesting to educators, who are not commonly confronted with these rare children. Other educationally important aspects of skill acquisition and display that await further investigation are musical creativity and performance. The most important characteristic of research in skill acquisition and human performance is that this research opens up an optimistic view for educators because it does not focus on innate abilities.

Music learning theory (MLT), which was developed by Edwin Gordon, provides a theoretical framework for teaching music. At its core is the goal of developing audiation skills so that students can become musically independent. MLT is built upon research focusing on the similarities between the music and language learning processes; acquiring a sense of syntactical structure is central to both. This focus on syntax differentiates MLT from most other music learning approaches. The two primary components of MLT instruction are learning sequence activities (i.e., tonal and rhythm pattern instruction) and classroom activities. These combine to form a whole-part-whole approach to teaching music, with classroom activities serving as the wholes, and pattern instruction serving as the part. Individualizing instruction to meet the musical needs of each child is fundamental to MLT. This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of MLT, how it unfolds in practice, and its strengths and weaknesses.

This chapter reviews current knowledge about the brain mechanisms involved in music perception, music production, and music learning. It argues that a basic understanding of the enormously complex neurobiological processes that underlie the musician's training and performance will eventually stimulate new insights into the practice and theory of music education. So far, the results of laboratory experiments have been, by necessity, restricted to very limited aspects of music making. Consequently, the brain mechanisms that underlie the rich universe of accomplished musicianship are mostly still inaccessible to brain research. To understand neural substrates of music performance it is first necessary to understand some basic neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. The chapter introduces essential general information for musical readers.

This chapter summarizes writings in music education that are inspired by a complicated set of interconnected beliefs about learning, and are often labeled as constructivist or constructionist. It outlines some major elements from philosophy and social science that form the background of constructivist perspectives, and emphasizes the importance of social constructivism in education. It reviews the role of conceptual writing in music education about constructivist thinking and its role in music teaching and learning. It highlights an analysis of the many writings that privilege constructivist views as a force in how music teachers are prepared. It also enumerates themes that seem to emerge from empirical evidence about the application and effectiveness of the constructivist view in music teaching and learning.

This chapter specifies how theoretical conceptualizations of learning have become integrated into a student's thinking and representation. It provides a review of ideas and concepts associated with influential music learning theories. It analyzes four influential perspectives of learning, and considers how the learner is shaped by them: (1) the music learner as a skilled performer, (2) the music learner as a collaborator, (3) the music learner as an explorer, and (4) the music learner as an authentic musical being. It also explores Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production in his The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, and looks into the view that the music learner is a part of an intricate sociocultural web involving particular structures and practices that empower some and prevent others from taking a deliberate role in the field of cultural production that constitutes music.