Digital Commons Network^™

Toward An Informal Informed Classrooms: Professional Musicians' Informal Music Learning Experiences, Rachel M. Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Authors have studied informal music learning with different age groups. Lucy Green (2005) studied the topic with adolescents and identified it an intuitive and natural way children learn. Chad West and Radio Cremata (2016) studied informal music learning at the collegiate level, and Martina Vasil (2019) studied secondary music teachers who implemented informal music learning strategies in their teaching practices. Informal music learning in adults is relatively under-explored compared to adolescent and collegiate age groups. Utilizing lenses drawn from John Dewey’s curricular ideas to help students find meaning in learning and motivation as viewed through Self-Determination Theory, I sought to …

An Investigation Of The Violin Teaching Method Of Lin Yaoji From A Personal Perspective, Mo Zhou

Dissertations, 2020-current

As a Western musical instrument, the Violin has a history spanning more than three hundred years. Contemporary approaches to its performance and pedagogy have been developed and influenced by the Russian, the Franco-Belgian, and the German Violin Schools. It was not until the 1920s and '30s, that the violin entered the public realm of Chinese society.

From the 1980s until today, several generations of violinists have emerged as Violin Educators in China. Among them, Lin Yaoji was the most famous. This study will research and examine Lin Yaoji’s violin teaching method. Specifically, this document will consist of five chapters discussing …

Shape-Note Music Traditions Of The Shenandoah Valley, Tyler Brinkerhoff

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Though over the years documents about shape-note music from Joseph Funk and Sons and the Ruebush-Kieffer companies have been spread throughout many archives, they are now being brought back together online in one digital archive. Interpreting the information contained in these documents and the ledger book of subscribers for The Southern Musical Advocate and Singer’s Friend magazine through graphs and maps makes the information contained in them easier to access for researchers. The collaboration between a physical museum site, a website, and a Omeka site allow for multiple ways to learn about the history of shape-note music in the Shenandoah …

Making Band Class Rock!: Incorporating Modern Band Into A Traditional Band Class, Melissa Harper

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the use of informal music and Modern Band practices in the contexts of secondary music ensemble classrooms. Primary data collection was comprised of semi-structured interviews with teachers who used informal music learning practices and/or Modern Band programs at the secondary level. Results indicated that the inclusion of informal learning practices and/or Modern Band within the traditional music ensemble promotes the development of music individualism among students. Students and teachers together create environments that promote creativity, composition, and peer collaboration. Popular music and/or socially and culturally relevant genres are incorporated.

Early Career Music Teachers And Trauma: A Mixed Methods Study, Tiffany N. Sitton

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Existing research rarely directly addresses individual trauma experiences of early career music teachers, despite copious research on adjacent areas such as stress and burnout. Early career music teachers have seldom had the opportunity to share stories of their trauma in the literature. Following an explanatory-sequential mixed method (Creswell, 2015), the researcher surveyed 250 music educators about their self-reported trauma experiences and then interviewed six of those participants to gain explanation of the survey data and to further illuminate their stories. Participants evaluated their own experiences using the definition of individual trauma from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration …

What Is A Folk Song? An Exploration Through Collection, Gregory S. Conway

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Over decades of work, scholars have created varying definitions of folk songs. While many have developed clear definitions (Karpeles, 1973; Lornell, 1993; Seeger, 1948; Texas Folklore Society, n.d.), others have concluded that no true definition exists (Brumfield, 1998; Nettl 2011). This lack of clarity in what a folk song is invites an exploration into how we define this genre. The purpose of this multiple case study was two-fold. First, I collected songs sung by families within a rural school community and examined them by using interview data to identify the characteristics of folk music in this context. Second, I shared …