Music Pedagogy Commons^™

The Voice As A Coordinated Bodily System: Embodied Learning, Anatomy, And Vocal Pedagogy, Ge Hope Tian

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This reflective article examines the limitations of control-based approaches in traditional vocal training and proposes a shift toward understanding the voice as an integrated, coordinated bodily system. Drawing on personal experience, the author highlights how common instructional language - focused on outcomes such as resonance, support, and projection - often leads singers to apply excessive effort, resulting in tension, inefficiency, and vocal strain. By distinguishing between localized control and whole-body coordination, the reflection illustrates how sustainable vocal function emerges not through muscular manipulation but through balanced, dynamic organization of breath, posture, and sound. The author traces a transformative learning process …

The Secret Science Of Songs. Created By All Children Everywhere, Paul G. Morehouse Phd

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This field article introduces The Secret Science of Songs, a research-informed, practice-based framework that reconceptualizes songs as powerful, transdisciplinary tools in early childhood education. Drawing on over 40 years of classroom-based action research alongside established findings in cognitive science and music perception, the framework argues that young children’s engagement with songs is rooted not primarily in performance skill, but in their innate capacity to perceive and process auditory patterns in music and language. These pattern-based experiences constitute a rich aesthetic and cognitive domain through which children construct meaning, long before mastery of melody or verbal precision emerges.

The article …

Amor, Art, And Advocacy: Un Conversación With Chicanx Mother, Grammy Award Artivist, Macarthur Fellow, And Scripps Professor Martha Gonzalez, Belén S. Yudess

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This Spotlight features a conversation with Professor Martha Gonzalez, a Chicana artivista (artist/activist) musician, feminist music theorist, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies (CLS) at Scripps/Claremont College. The conversation draws from Prof. Gonzalez’s background as a Chicana, and the  Chicanxs, Mexicanxs, Latinxs, and Indigenous communities in Mexico and Los Angeles that have shaped her work. She shares her practice in teaching and engaging with collective songwriting, her critique of western paradigms, and explorations of boundary crossing that music facilitates as part of championing the hope and flourishing that comes from within communities and …

Hear & Now: Culturally Responsive Music Education Through Digital Audio Workstations & Musique Concrète, Benjamin T. Connolly

Pitzer Senior Theses

Hear & Now: Culturally Responsive Music Education Through Digital Audio Workstations & Musique Concrète is a two-part ethnomusicological study of how the capacities and affordability of modern electronic instruments could be utilized within school curricula as an affordable alternative to traditional music classes. I explore the musique concrète movement from mid-20th century France, aiming my examination towards the movement’s emphasis on the materiality of sound production and utilization of modern technology during the composition process. From there, the paper transitions into a study on the affordances of contemporary music technologies through a series of interviews with electronic composers, tracing the …

Piano Instruction: Reframing The Master-Apprentice Model Through The Integration Of Dialogic Processes, Rebecca Holman Williams

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Private piano instruction is a niche field within the broader spectrum of pedagogy with idiosyncrasies that separate it from the traditional classroom. The learning in a private lesson encompasses cognitive, affective, and motor skills, often all at the same time, in a relatively intimate setting. Historically, this teaching and learning environment has followed the master-apprentice model of instruction. However, with newer research in learning sciences supporting social constructivist frameworks for student learning, a blended pedagogical approach is suggested. Dialogic pedagogy and cognitive apprenticeship are used in tandem with traditional precision training methodologies to foster student learning outcomes of metacognition, agency, …

Tradition, Pedagogy, And Internet Open-Access Music Libraries, Erin Tallman

Pomona Senior Theses

In this paper I take up the topic of open-access digital music libraries, specifically the ways performance and pedagogical traditions interact with and are impacted by open-access or public domain sheet music libraries on the internet. I first consider how traditions of performance and pedagogy have become misaligned in the case of viola repertoire and its historical context. I then turn to questions of copyright on the internet and copyleft practices as they relate to internet open-access libraries such as IMSLP, finding that they often are simply a new medium through which to uphold existing patterns, despite their apparent potential …

The Future In Their Imaginations: Music And Robotics School Holidays Program For School-Aged Children, Adam Manning, Amelia Bessenyei, Helen English

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This report reflects on an exploratory STEAM workshop at the University of Newcastle, School of Creative Industries, Conservatorium of Music, Australia. Twenty-six middle school-aged students attended the two-day workshop. On the final day, students presented an immersive concert for parents and friends, showcasing creativity, innovation and teamwork. Interestingly, Lego robots were employed as a physical tool through which music-making students interacted with each other and built attributes of creative engagement. These attributes were measured via the Six C’s established by Bers comprising: (1) Collaboration; (2) Community Building; (3) Communication; (4) Content Creation; (5) Creativity; and (6) Choices of Conduct. This …

Adapting The Ipa Systems Of Korean Diction To Classical Vocal Method: A Critical Study, Clara N. Lee

CGU Theses & Dissertations

While the IPA is helpful in learning Korean diction, it is not sufficient when applied to classical singing techniques, especially for non-native Korean speakers. To be able to clearly distinguish the ambiguity of sounds of the language, using proper and accurate phonetic symbols are necessary. The author compares speaking and singing in the Korean language by analyzing the contrast of its phonetics and articulating positions and then phonologically describes the IPA symbols. Both singing and speaking are forms of phonation and communication, and the same IPA symbols are often used for both singing and speaking. However, the phonation circumstances and …

"Performance Practice In The Music Of Steve Reich," By Russell Hartenberger, Pwyll Ap Siôn

Performance Practice Review

Pwyll ap Siôn discusses Russell Hartenberger's 2016 work.

Hartenberger, Russell. Performance Practice in the Music of Steve Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-1-107-15150-5.

"Clavichord For Beginners" By Joan Benson, Bernard Brauchli

Performance Practice Review

Bernard Brauchli reviews and discusses Joan Benson's 2014 work.

Benson, Joan. Clavichord for Beginners. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014.

ISBN: 978-0253011589

Investigating Young Children's Music-Making Behavior: A Developmental Theory, Paul G. Morehouse

CGU Theses & Dissertations

We have many developmental theories contributing to our understanding of children as they meander steadfastly toward maturation. Yet, none have reported on how young children interpret the qualitative meaning and importance of their own music-making experiences. Music created by average, not prodigious, young children is perceived by adults as “play” music rather than “real” music. But do young children take the same view as adults? When Piaget speaks of the young child’s qualitatively unique view and experience of the world (Ginsberg & Opper, 1988), can we assume that his statement encompasses young children’s predispositions related to music-making?

Music is understood …

Multiple Intelligence Theory And Its Application In Modern Vocal Pedagogy, Robb Dennis

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In 1983, Howard Gardner shook the foundations of intelligence testing and the field of education by suggesting that there are seven distinct intelligences. These intelligences had testable and distinct attributes that were supported by his research at the Boston Veterans Administration. This research cited the existence of savants and prodigies, isolation by brain damage, and psychometric findings as support for Multiple Intelligence Theory. Widely accepted by the education community at large, the application of MI principles has been further elaborated in the writings of Thomas Armstrong and David Lazear. Can the principles of Multiple Intelligence Theory be applied in the …