Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Changing The World One Song At A Time”: Interrogating Constructions Of Community In Common Thread Community Chorus Of Toronto, Deanna Yerichuk

Leading Music Education International Conference

Community choirs enact notions of community often based on the assumption that community singing bridges and celebrates cultural diversity through shared musical experiences. What makes Common Thread Community Chorus of Toronto unique among community choirs in Toronto is an explicitly political focus to its musical community-building efforts. This paper explores how the construction of community within Common Thread is predicated on the notion of cultural inclusion through musical, social, and political dimensions. Drawing from research conducted with the choir in 2010 that explored the social and musical experiences of choir members, I argue that the relationships between choral members’ socio-musical …

Maxwell's Music House And Wilfrid Laurier University's Faculty Of Music: A Study In Contrasting Commonality, Lee Willingham

Leading Music Education International Conference

Paul Maxwell is very careful to praise his formal music education in classical theory, piano, and musicology. As a business major, he minored in music at Wilfrid Laurier University and studied music all through his elementary and secondary school years. His dream for a community music centre that featured live performances and instruction was forged in his fourth year of undergraduate study. At the age of 26, Paul Maxwell is into his third year of operation. This paper explores the relationship that is being forged between a community music-for-profit enterprise and a very traditional university faculty of music. At first, …

So You Think You Can Glee? Implementation Of Popular Styles In The Secondary School Arts Programs, Jennifer Hutchison

Leading Music Education International Conference

This paper addresses the issues of popular culture, media- in particular television programmes such as Glee and So You Think You Can Dance Canada- and the effects on music and dance programs in the secondary school system. A comparison of the two performing art forms demonstrates many similarities and some significant differences in their current position within an educational context and the challenges that potentially face the two streams. A small-scale qualitative study was conducted using interview methodology seeking data from a dance teacher (secondary school and private studio) investigating this teacher’s opinions on the issues identified above and the …

"Rhythmic Music" In Danish Music Education, Peder Kaj Pedersen

Leading Music Education International Conference

In Danish state schools from elementary to upper secondary school music is part of curricula at all levels. It is widely accepted that both individuals and culture benefit from art subjects, creative activities etc. This type of motivation was sufficient support for maintaining music as a subject at all levels of the educational system from around 1960 to around 2000. This tradition dates back to the 1920s, when the first Social Democratic government in Danish history (1924-26), with Nina Bang as minister of education (probably the first female minister worldwide), in the field of music made an alliance with innovative …

The Implications Of South African Children’S Multimodal Musical Games For Music Education, Susan Harrop-Allin

Leading Music Education International Conference

My paper is based on ethnographic research into South African urban township children’s musical games. Young learners’ unsupervised, self-choreographed and designed musical games are rich music-dance practices which, I suggest, constitute important kinds of local musical knowledge. As such, I propose that these games are potential resources for music teaching and learning that may be ‘recruited’ in different ways. I am interested both in how these musical games are hybrid, mixed multimodal forms specifically located in South African township culture, and their implications for pedagogy. In this paper, I present some of the games that are particularly interesting in their …

Music For Life: Promoting Social Engagement And Well-Being In Older People Through Community Supported Participation In Musical Activities, Andrea Creech

Leading Music Education International Conference

Within our current social context where extraordinary demographic transitions are underway, where the numbers of old people suffering from depression is increasing and where there is an accepted need for initiatives that support older people’s well-being and productivity (Age concern, 2008) little attention has been paid to the potential for music-making to effect a significant contribution to the quality of life of older people. This research explored the role of music in older people’s lives and how active participation in making music, particularly in community settings can enhance their social, emotional and cognitive well-being. The specific aims were to investigate …

In Harmony (England), Richard Hallam

Leading Music Education International Conference

This short presentation will briefly cover 4 areas:

• The context
• The programme
• The evaluation
• The future

Creating Arts Curriculum For The 21st Century, John Phillips

Leading Music Education International Conference

This workshop will position the newly revised Ontario Arts curriculum document alongside contemporary issues and research in music education. The rationale for change, political impact and systematic implementation will underscore the contextual reference to this educational policy document. The session will be of immediate interest to delegates who are teaching within the Ontario context as well as those interested in music curriculum reform.

Music Lessons As A Source For Well-Being And Lifelong Involvement With Music, Marit Mõistlik, Eha Rüütel

Leading Music Education International Conference

This paper presentation is based on outcomes of two studies which were carried out in 2008 and 2010. The objectives of the first study were to analyse the experiences and memories gained in general music lessons at school in relation to the current musical activity of the person and his or her attitude towards music; how music lessons have influenced the musical behaviour of a person after graduating from general school and what is the role of the music teacher in that process. I would like to present some results from that study where the following themes were discussed ((1) …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Elementary Music Education In Ontario, Elizabeth Anderson

Leading Music Education International Conference

It could be argued that one of the most significant constraints within which music leaders in school work is that of curriculum. In the past 18 years, the Ontario Ministry of Education has released three Arts curricula for the elementary grades. In 1995, the New Democrat Party under the leadership of Bob Rae produced The Common Curriculum: Policies and Outcomes, Grades 1-9, followed closely by a new document in 1998 under the Harris “Common Sense Revolution” government. The expectations for music in this curriculum were considered by music education advocacy groups in Ontario to be too difficult to be taught …

Music Education And Reading Education: How To Connect Them?, Andrée Lessard, Jonathan Bolduc

Leading Music Education International Conference

While many students have difficulty to read at the onset of the elementary level, music seems to be an effective way to improve their reading abilities. In fact, numerous approaches have been implemented to facilitate the development of reading abilities. Despite their pertinence and validity, complementary approaches have been put forward to limit the recurring difficulties students encounter at the beginning of the elementary level. Among these, several authors place a particular emphasis on the musical world. This could be explained by the growing number of studies discovering the numerous links between musical learning and others non-musical learning domains. Among …

New Grounds, New Challenges? Exploring Stakeholder Research In Service Design, Fabian Segelström

Nordes Conference Series

This is a submission for the doctoral consortium at NorDes 2011. The research described herein focuses on how existing design tools and techniques need to be appropriated when used in a new context – in this case service design. It is argued that the nature of services poses new challenges for designers. A theoretical introduction to these challenges is given, presenting a view of service design as the intersection between the user-centred design tradition and thoughts on service from marketing and management. The specific challenges in conducting stakeholder research for service design are introduced. The research objectives of the PhD …

Cultural Variables And Their Impact On Furniture Design Process In Globalization Era, Ahmed Mohammed Abdelrazik

Nordes Conference Series

It's known that human is a product of his environment. His thoughts, desires and needs formed according to his cultural trends which related to his society. These cultural trends differ from one country to another and depending on

Le Corbusier’S ‘Équipement’ As Pattern For Design Language, Liliana Soares, Ermanno Aparo, Fátima Pombo, Dante Donegani

Nordes Conference Series

This article highlights the autonomy of design language to appropriate concepts such as ‘équipement’ (essential elements for space equipment) by Le Corbusier (1920, L’Esprit Nouveau), interpreted as pattern (subsystems) by Alexander (1963, A Pattern Language). This discussion is involved in a current PhD Research Project in Design, proposing new configurational possibilities for building surfaces in the 21st century. Interpreting the ‘équipement’ rationale, the ‘patterns’ system is presented as design’s response to decline the industrialized city proposal in favour of the liquid modernity (Bauman). As interpretation model we present an analogy between the project 'The Philips Pavilion' (1958) by Le Corbusier, …

Relationships Other Than Use, Janet Kelly

Nordes Conference Series

The people who use a designed artefact are not the only ones who will experience or be affected by it, yet design discourse and practice are dominated by the concept of the user. This article introduces the notion of relationships other than use as an important consideration for design, in addition to relationships between users and artefacts. It identifies some related issues in design discourse with regard to the concept of use and discusses how the concept has emerged in design practice and discourse, with particular regard to participatory design. Different kinds of design relevant relationships other than use are …

Building The Design Laboratory In A Public Cultural Organisation, Sissel Olander

Nordes Conference Series

This article presents the research objectives of a design research Ph.D project in the Municipality of Copenhagen. The aim of the project is to explore and develop an open platform of participatory inquiry and dialogue, within the organizational setting of three local cultural administration units (LCAU), consisting of public libraries and cultural centers at three different local sites in Copenhagen. The focus of the research project is to build a design laboratory, that will suit the organizational setting of the LCAUs, in such a way that the lab, and the methods that will be adapted and explored in the lab, …

Design Practice As A Discursive And Interrogating Performance, Li Jönsson

Nordes Conference Series

This PhD is focused on how design can play a role in engaging people in potential serious issues, or producing forms of knowledge that are still unstable, or controversial. The research objective is two-fold. At first, to engage my practical skills as a designer to further develop the notion of discursive design, this will be done through a series of hands-on explorations that in different ways aim to mediate and visualise the issue of concern. My role as a designer is meant to reveal new experiences, tell new stories by assuming design is about linking the imagination to material forms. …

Time Travel: A Method For Playful Future-Oriented User Research, Theo Rooden, Paul Eg, Rianne Valkenburg

Nordes Conference Series

This article describes the development of a user research method called ‘Time Travel’. The aim of the method is to inform and inspire designers with imagined futures by consumers. The method should give answers to the following question: How do consumers imagine technological and social developments to have an impact on their personal lives (in a certain domain)? An engaging game concept was developed in a research through design process: generative activities alternated with evaluating mini-experiments. The metaphor of time traveling shaped the design vision by presenting elements such as the suitcase (anchoring the imaginations in the here and now), …

Visual Inquiry: A Tool For Presenting And Sharing Contextual Knowledge, Fredrik Sandberg

Nordes Conference Series

This article presents an inquiry method where the participants create a visual presentation of their experiential knowledge of working. As an example the article describes experiences from using the inquiry method together with small local food producers. The owners use the visual inquiry tool to present their small company's activities, the stakeholders involved, problems, strengths, changes and dreams for the future. Although the food producers never had described their knowledge as one picture before, they had no problem mapping out and visually presenting complex information about their production. The method uses sticky notes as mapping tools, which enables the participants …

Slow Food Slow Homes: Expanding The Role Of Architecture In The North American Housing Industry, John Brown

Nordes Conference Series

The North American city is dominated by suburban sprawl, that vast formless, center-less, fragmented urban structure that the Sierra Club calls the ‘Dark Side of the American Dream.’ These places are like fast food. On the surface they appear easy, cheap, and cheerful. However, this marketing veneer masks a world of thoughtless design, careless construction, and waste that is bad for both us and the environment. In the same way that fast food disrupts the historically rich cultural context of cooking; these fast homes replace the experientially deep potential of urban dwelling with a shallow standardized product.

Design For Co-Creation With Interactive Montage, Birgitta Cappelen, Anders-Petter Andersson

Nordes Conference Series

Montage in cinema means to mount images and sounds from different sources, that are interpreted together and whose oppositions drive the story further. In this article we develop the montage concept further for co-creation in interactive, tactile, spatial cross-media. As case we use the design of the interactive, tangible, cross-media installation ORFI. ORFI is developed to facilitate collaboration and co-creation between children with severe disabilities and their care persons. In this article we focus on how we have designed for interactive montage. We present two main types of interactive montage, close and shifted in three dimensions (spatial, temporal and actorial). …

Regarding Design As A Constituting Practice Matters, Bo Westerlund

Nordes Conference Series

This article explores the use of the two concepts representing and constituting in relation to design practice. Representing and representation are often used to describe the relation a model or prototype has to the end result. In this exploratory article we intend to investigate what impact a change from represent to constitute could have. One inspiration is the writing of John Stewart on the post-semiotic approach to communication. The examples used in the article are from practice rooted both in traditional industrial design as well as co-design. This article argues the importance to see design work as a constituting practice …

Navigating In The World Of Services: Visualizing A System Of Systems, Johanna Nieminen, Tuuli Mattelmäki

Nordes Conference Series

Service design is a growing practice. Designers need new tools and frameworks for making sense the intangible and tangible qualities of services. Customer journeys and service blueprints are among those tools. However, they typically address a specific service or a service package and lack of illustrating services as complex and relational systems. The challenge is to understand what kind of combinations services do and can create. This exploratory article attempts to shed light on this challenge by first explaining the current frameworks, then introducing a case in which these combinations were studied and finally presenting a system experience map that …

Initial Findings On Design And Product Category Expertise In Aesthetic Evaluation, Oscar Person, Dirk Snelders

Nordes Conference Series

What appeals to designers does not always appeal to consumers. Still, surprisingly few studies have set out to investigate why designers sometimes favour other designs than consumers. Through an exploratory study on small-sized cars, we found that an effect of design expertise on evaluations of aesthetic appeal was quite different given an individual’s product category expertise. In short, when people knew little about the product category, design expertise demonstrated a positive influence on aesthetic appeal (design experts rating small-sized cars as more beautiful than laymen). However, when people knew a lot about the category, design expertise showed a negative influence …

Practice Theory And Human-Centered Design: A Sustainable Bathing Example, Lenneke Kuijer, Annelise De Jong

Nordes Conference Series

Within sustainable design, design researchers and practitioners are developing novel design approaches equipped to influence domestic resource consumption in a variety of ways. However, as it turns out, the outcomes of these approaches in terms of their actual effects on sustainability are not quite as high as the desired effects. This is often taken to be a direct consequence of rebound effects or unpredicted user behaviour. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, this article explores the implications of the combination of two research strands, practice theory and human-centred design that may assist designers by going beyond behaviour towards gaining …

The Music Sleeve: Fabric As An Electronic Interface Medium, Ramyah Gowrishankar, Katharina Bredies, Rosan Chow

Nordes Conference Series

In the area of fabric interaction, (also known as wearables or smart textiles), innovation often comes from technological advances. Interface designers, on the other hand, take the role of exploring fabric as a medium for interaction. In this article, we will describe and analyse the design of the 'Music Sleeve' – a fabric controller for a music player on a mobile phone. The development of the Music Sleeve was an experiment in open-ended design approaches. As a case study, it represents an interface solution that emphasizes the functional fabric qualities in the interaction, complementary to other, either more expressive or …

Designing For Utilization: Putting Design Principles Into Practice, Paula Kassenaar, Katharina Bredies, Elise Van Den Hoven

Nordes Conference Series

Designers do not only create usable products for a predefined purpose, but also to explore new materials and technologies. In doing so, they should not restrict themselves to existing conventions, but develop new ones out of the medium at hand. These new interface forms should encourage users to appropriate an object for their own purposes – i.e. utilize it. In this article, we will describe the development of a fabric interface prototype that should exploit the material properties and encourage utilization of the artefact. First we present how our theoretical perspective was translated into a concrete design. Starting from rather …

Moth Wing Screen, Rab Mcclure

Nordes Conference Series

Inspired by contemporary Nordic design—characterized by fluidity of form, material innovation, tactile warmth, natural reference, and ties to a strong craft tradition—the Moth Wing Screen is a modular partition and design research project. The following essay describes the work’s goals and origins, beginning with first person reflections by the author on the sensory and tactile lessons of water skiing, a formative childhood preoccupation. Paired with excerpts from essays on seeing, drawing, and sensing by Juhani Pallasmaa, these reflections frame the discussion and provide a means of viewing the work through a lens of tactile warmth and softness. A description of …

Supportive Tools For Collaborative Prototyping, Willem Horst

Nordes Conference Series

The development of interactive products requires the integration of different disciplines, such as interaction design, design engineering, marketing and R&D. This article explores how these disciplines can be involved in the prototyping process by introducing a set of tools. In the literature, various tools and toolkits are described that support interaction designers in the design and modification of prototypes in the early stages of a project. Although these make prototyping easier for interaction designers, it remains challenging to involve other disciplines in a collaborative prototyping process.

Some Notes On Programme-Experiment Dialectics, Johan Redström

Nordes Conference Series

Searching for ways of conducting practice-based design research, we have explored an approach based on the formulation of design programmes as a foundation and framework for carrying out design experiments. Over the years, we have presented a number of such programmes along with experiments that explore and express their potential. There are, however, some methodological issues in this way of working that are rarely addressed. One such set of issues pertains to what we might refer to as a programme–experiment dialectics, that is, how the research process unfolds over time as programme and experiments influence, challenge and transform each other. …