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@23 l UBRARY
/ . Michigan State
} L | University

This is to certify that the
thesis entitled

A TOUCH OF LERI: THE BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND
PERCEPTIONS OF AN ELEMENTARY STUDENT IN CYPRUS
ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES IN DIFFERENT MUSIC-MAKING AND
LEARNING PRACTICES

presented by

MARIA GEORGE PAPAZAHARIOU

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

 

 

 

MASTERS degree in MUSIC EDUCATION
- Ck D
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8/4/2008
Date

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5/08 K:lProj/Acc&Pres/CIRC/DateDue indd

A TOUCH OF LERI: THE BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS OF AN
ELEMENTARY STUDENT IN CYPRUS ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES IN
DIFFERENT MUSIC-MAKING AND LEARNING PRACTICES
By

Maria George Papazahariou

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan Sate University
in partial fulﬁlment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF MUSIC
Music Education

2008

ABSTRACT
A TOUCH OF LERI: THE BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS OF AN
ELEMENTARY STUDENT IN CYPRUS ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES IN
DIFFERENT MUSIC-MAKING AND LEARNING PRACTICES
By

Maria George Papazahariou

This case study explores the music-making and learning practices of an
elementary student from Cyprus in different settings, inside and outside school. The
musical knowledge of the 6th grade boy was gained from a diversity of music settings that
covered a broad educational spectrum from highly structured and sequential to informal
and enculturative. The purpose of study was to investigate student’s attitudes, beliefs and
feelings concerning different learning settings; the student’s perceptions of the value of
music experiences in these settings; and the intersections of music learning inside and
outside school. The settings were school music classes, private piano lessons, community
choir rehearsals, traditional folk dance ensemble, drum exploration, and composition-
arrangement at home.

Three themes emerged from the data. The ﬁrst theme centered around the
inﬂuences from others that motivated Leri’s attendance and continuation in music
classes. The second theme centered around the elements inherent to the settings
themselves that facilitated learning and that made Leri want to engage. The last theme
focused on thoughts about his future music making and the factors that affected his plans.
The participant’s enjoyment and valuing of the music settings was connected to his need

for active and meaningful participation through which he could express his musical ideas.

DEDICATION
To my adorable twin sons, Evangelos and Panayiotis, who are my love and conﬁdence.
To an extraordinary man, Christos, who is my life direction and inspiration. Thank you

for constantly supporting and encouraging my footsteps.

August 4, 2008

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to all who supported me in this
research. First, I would like to thank my thesis committee, Cynthia Taggart, Mitchell
Robinson and David Rayl, at Michigan State University for their expertise, generous
feedback, and support. You have opened for me new perspectives on music education,
and I was always eager to absorb and learn from your ideas, experiences and
professionalism.

Special thanks to my advisor, Cynthia Taggart, for her endless generosity in time
and patience throughout the entire process. Dr. Taggart, you were always there to keep
me on a straight path, even when I took my own winding road. I was so fortunate to have
your friendship and wise counsel that kept me moving forward. Know that you have
deeply affected my perceptions of music teaching, and I feel great pride for what I
accomplished during my Masters Degree.

Thank you to Dr. Robinson. You have always inspired me in ways you might
never fully know. Your emails and our conversations were always a source of reﬂective
thinking. Dr. Rayl, thank you for your insights and warm smile, which always gave me
courage and support.

Finally, I thank my student Leri for allowing me the privilege of sharing his
remarkable experiences in music making, without which this thesis would not have been
possible. Most important, I thank my adorable twin sons, Evangelos and Panayiotis, who

had the patience to be away from me while I was working on my Degree.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .......................................................................................... ii
DEDICATION ...................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................... iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................ V
CHAPTER 1 -INTRODUCTION1
Need for the study ............................................................................. 5
CHAPTER 2 — LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 9
Music in human lives ........................................................................ 9
Formal and informal learning settings ................................................... 11
The Interaction between Formal and Informal Music Learning Settings ........... 26
CHAPTER 3 — METHODOLOGY ................................................................ 33
Design and Researcher’s Lens ............................................................ 35
Participant and settings ..................................................................... 38
Human Subjects Approval .................................................................. 39
Procedure and Data Collection ............................................................ 40
Limitations of the Study .................................................................... 42
Analysis ...................................................................................... 44
CHAPTER 4 - LERIS MUSICAL JOURNEYS ................................................ 46
Piano Lessons ................................................................................ 46
Community Choir .......................................................................... 52
Community Traditional Dance Group ................................................... 57
Drum Exploration .......................................................................... 62
School Music Class ......................................................................... 67
Compositions - Arrangements — Improvisation ......................................... 71
Summary ..................................................................................... 76
CHAPTER 5 — THEMES AND CODE ........................................................... 78
People Matter ................................................................................ 79
The inﬂuence of family .................................................................... 79
The inﬂuence of teachers .................................................................. 81
The inﬂuence of friends ................................................................... 84
Summary ..................................................................................... 85

The Ingredients of Meaningful Music Involvement ................................... 86

A Voice in Learning Process .............................................................. 86
Fundamental Love of Music and Music-making ...................................... 94
Means of self expression .................................................................. 98
Being the leader of a group ............................................................... 99
Reasons for Persisting ..................................................................... 102
Value of venues ............................................................................ 102
A Career as a Musician ................................................................... 105
Summary ................................................................................... 107

CHAPTER 6 — SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND SUGGESTION

FOR FUTUR RESEARCH ............................................................... 110
Conclusions and Implications for practice ............................................. 112
Implications for further studies ......................................................... 119
APPENDICES ...................................................................................... 121
Appendix A - Leri’s autobiography guidelines ....................................... 121
Appendix B - Piano/ Dance/Choir teacher interview: guideline .................... 124
Appendix C - Leri’s interview, guideline ............................................. 127
REFERENCES ..................................................................................... 131

vi

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

Music is practiced around the world as an integral part of different cultures and
carries with it the potential insights into understanding the human spirit to express, to
create, to renew, to share, to grow and to reach beyond ourselves to something greater.
Small (1998) writes that “human beings have been musicking for as long as there have
been humans” (p.21). His deﬁnition of music sheds light on the nature of music as human
activity. “Music, in fact, isn’t a thing or even things at all. It isn’t symphonies, or
concertos, or operas, or lieder or pop songs; it isn’t even melodies and rhythms. It’s an
action, its something people do.” It is the complexity of “what’s really going on” when
we make music (p. 17).

What is meant by the term “musically educated person” depends on the
philosophical goals that have been established through history and in the contemporary
curriculum, as well as the meaning and value of music in the culture under consideration.
The way we, as music educators, construct formal music instruction in schools in relation
to music curriculum (what we teach, how we teach it, when we teach it, which materials
and methodologies we apply, how we involve students’ in music learning experiences) as
well as the informal instruction individuals get outside school shapes the development of
the students and their music appreciation, their enjoyment of music, and their persistence
in musical activities throughout their lives.

Having been a music teacher for ﬁfteen years, I have worked with many different
students, each of whom had a different attitude about music learning as a result of his or
her previous learning experiences and environments, both in and outside of school. I have

had students whose only music education was lessons at school, others who have had

some experience with music activities outside schools, and some who were taking private
lessons on an instrument or engaging in music outside of school in other rich and varied
ways. I also have had students who were negative about learning or making music in my
classes, and I struggled to engage them in any musical activity.

At the beginning of last school year, I had an experience with one of my new
students that inspired the music teacher inside of me and made me curious about how this
student had developed his excellent musicianship. I was experimenting with a new song
in my music room, trying to ﬁnd the chord progression underlying the melody, when Leri
(pseudonym), a 6‘h grade student, entered the room. I was not teaching at the time; it was
during the morning break. He was standing at the back of the music room listening to me
without any visual access to the keyboard on which I was playing. I was repeating a
speciﬁc phrase, changing the chords, when he suggested that I use the supertonic in that
spot. I was surprised by his boldness in proposing a chord to me, his teacher, as he did
not know me very well, but mostly I was astonished with his correct advice on the chord.
From that moment on, I was curious about his highly developed musical abilities.
Through a brief chat with him, I found out that Leri has a multidimensional musical
existence; he was experiencing music in several different ways and learning settings. He
was combining the formal ways of learning music as a student in my class in a primary
school and as a piano student in a private studio, with informal activities that include
learning drums together with a friend, copying music from CDs, and making
arrangements of his classical piano pieces. He was an active member in the school
orchestra and possessed the ﬂexibility to perform any instrumental part on the keyboard

(which is his main instrument), Orff instruments, keyboard percussion, or recorder. He

was also a member of a community choir and was a traditional dancer in a community
group, through which he experiened the variety of rhythms and tonalities of Greek
traditional music, and the body movements necessary to express the music.

Individuals take many different pathways to becoming musicians. Their journeys
might include conservatories, studios, private lessons, community ensemble participation,
self-teaching, or music making with peers and friends. Their music learning settings can
be wildly different from one another in terms of many of their characteristics, including
the place where music is learned, the kind of music studied, the methods used, and the
psychological and sociological conditions of the setting.

Cox (2002) has recently argued the need to expand the deﬁnition of ‘music
education’ so that it reﬂects “a broad area encompassing both formal and informal
settings in order to bring researchers to postmodern history” (p. 697). Cox suggests that
we should include in our deﬁnition of music education any “act of learning or teaching
some aspect of music including the learning or teaching of music by ordinary people in
unstructured settings” (p. 697)

According to Elliott (1995), to be musically educated, or in other words to have
the necessary musical knowledge for music making, a person needs to develop four kinds
of knowing: formal knowledge, informal knowledge, impressionistic knowledge, and
supervisory knowledge. “Whenever a person (child through adult) is making music well,
he or she is exhibiting a multidimensional form of knowledge called musicianship” (p.
53). Musicianship, for Elliott, leads to musical understanding, which Gordon (2003)
terms audiation. According to Gordon, audiation is to music what thought is to language.

To audiate means to understand, comprehend and be able to give syntactical meaning to

music. “Sadly, it is fashionable in most Western cultures to pay tribute to the musically
elite minority who were tagged early on as “talented” and then tracked and provided with
the training that others cannot have” (Campbell 1998, p.170).

In many non-Western cultures, all community members participate actively in
music-making (Blacking, 1973; Koops, 2006). Campbell (1998), in her book, Songs in
their Heads, elaborates how children engage in play through music. “Their music can be
seen and heard in their playful behaviors some of it a realization of the songs in their
heads. It is almost as if children exude music” (p. 4). Campbell believes that all children,
to a greater or lesser degree, are musical in a natural way, and that they have more music
inside them than we tend to credit them with. She sees music learning as falling into
three categories: (1) Enculturative, which is natural and without formal instruction; (2)
Partly guided by informal and non-consecutive directives; and (3) Highly structured and
sequential in process (pp. 178-179). The ﬁrst learning type occurs more often outside
school than within, the second occurs both in and out of school settings, and the third
more likely occurs within school rather than on the outside.

As Blacking deﬁnes it, music is “humanly organized sound” (1973, p.10), and it
exists in children’s lives because of their biological abilities to discern it, feel it, and
express it. Children have the mental and physical equipment to perceptually organize the
sounds that they hear and to logically and inventively organize the sounds they produce
as a result of their previous musical experiences.

In her book, Lessons from the World, Campbell (1991) compares from a historical
perspective music learning in the West to the transmission, teaching, and learning in

music traditions of several world cultures. She concludes that fundamental qualities of

musicians across time and distance vary little, and that the nurturing of aural skills and
creative musical expression are at the heart of music instruction- “then”, “there”, and
“now.” “From the days of ancient Greece and Rome, through the evolution and adoption
of staff notation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in the common practice
periods of the Baroque and Classical eras, and in the European—style conservatories of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ear —training has maintained its place as a principal
goal in music instruction for both professional and amateur musicians in the West, just as
the creative elements of improvisation, interpretation, or personal expression have been

the ultimate performance goals” (p.209).

Need for the study

Researchers have begun investigating different settings in which children learn
music, and how experiences in these different settings inform their musicianship.
Blacking (1973) and Koops (2006), have studied active music making within all members
of a community. They observed how each of the community members was involved in
music making without any formal instruction; as a result, community members become
musicians naturally as a part of their every day life and the different ways in which they
interact with each other. Music is an integral part of their lives. Finnegan (1989),
Campbell (1995), Green (2002), Waldron (2006), Louth (2006), and Jaffurs (2006) have
conducted studies comparing the ways humans learn music in structured (formal) ways,
that include teachers, speciﬁc goals, and sequential activities, and in informal ways, that
are mostly in groups with friends, by experimenting with their instruments, by observing

and discussing with each other, by imitating, and by listening and copying music from

their favorite CDs. Finnegan (1989), in her ethnographic study, compared the differences
between participation in formal and informal practices. She studied the different ways
and settings of learning music and explored how musicians valued each experience.
Finnegan viewed a formal approach as a publicly validated sequential practice, whereas
an informal approach was one that was learned by engaging in the practice in a
naturalistic way, without instruction. Participants expressed that the formal training they
received in school was quite separate from the music experienced on their own. Yet,
further study is needed to identify the interaction between formal and informal music
learning settings and how this applies to how we teach music. Research ﬁndings of this
type might continue to inform music teachers about how to structure their classrooms as
well as result in a broader understanding of how children learn and experience music and
develop their musicality. There are few studies that focus in depth on individual students
and how they learn and interact with music in their lives. More studies are needed that
explore how individual students gain musical experience and how these experiences
affect those students’ musical development. That is why I was interested immediately in
Leri and his musical background and development. Music, for Leri, is a main component
of his life and is multidimensional. He describes music as the most valuable thing that he
does. Leri, for me, provides an opportunity to explore how one develops musicianship
and how one values and experiences the different ways of learning music.

The purpose of this research is to explore music making and learning practices of
an elementary student from Cyprus in different settings, inside and outside school. In
particular, this study will seek to investigate student attitudes, beliefs and feelings

concerning different learning settings; the student’s perceptions of the value of music

experiences in these settings; and the intersections of music learning inside and outside
school.
The speciﬁc questions of this study are as follows:

1. To describe and explain the characteristics and “ingredients” of music making and
learning settings inside and outside school as experienced and described by an
elementary student from Cyprus.

2. To describe and explain this student’s musical involvement in different music
making and learning settings and explore the reasons and personal inﬂuences
(social, psychological, or others) for this involvement.

3. To describe and explain how the individual values the different music making and
learning settings and for what reasons.

4. To describe how each experience informs his musical development and the
intersection between his music making in the different learning settings.

5. To describe his intentions concerning future participation in each music learning
setting and the reasons underpinning these intentions.

This study will seek to give information about the overall musical growth of the
participant in order to highlight the “ingredients” and processes of his musical
development. These ﬁndings could be important to music educators, because they could
elucidate new approaches to music teaching and learning that are more student-centered
and are more effective and successful. If we, as music educators, want to motivate
children to engage in music so that music will be a lifelong endeavour, we need to be as
reﬂective as possible about how to make music learning meaningful and engaging.

Although children will not starve without music is important in the lives of humans.

Otherwise, it would not be prevalent in every culture. Perhaps the purpose of musically

educating children is to make their lives worth living (Campbell, 1998, p. 183).

CHAPTER 2 — LITERATURE REVIEW
Music in human lives

Campbell (1991) describes music as a human phenomenon. She states that music
is a way of thinking and expressing ideas and feelings, and that it has appeared as an
important symbol of people and culture through the ages.

Jorgensen (2003), in investigating the meaning of the word music, concludes that
it is used variously as a noun, verb (“to music”), and adjective (“musical”), in both the
singular and plural, and is associated with other notions upon which it is contingent, such
as ability, perception, understanding, skill, symbol, and Sign. Music means different
things in different cultures and among different musicians and teachers. It can be viewed
and analyzed as an aesthetic object, a symbol, a practical activity, an experience, as agent
of political, social, religious, moral or educational changer.

For Elliott (1995), musicing applies to all forms of music making, performing,
improvising, composing, arranging and conducting. “Musical works are not only a matter
of sounds they are also a matter of actions” (Elliott, J.D., 1995, p. 49). Christopher Small
in his book Musicking proposes a deﬁnition for the verb “to music”: “To music is to take
part, in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by
rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called
composing), or by dancing” (p. 9). Small values the function of music as of central
importance to our very humanness, and as important as taking part in the act of speech.
So, musicking is for each and every human being and is a right that all people have from

birth. Small, in his theory on musicking, goes beyond the act of music making.

“The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of
relationships. And it is in those relationships that the meaning of the act lies. They
are not to be found only between those organized sounds which are
conventionally thought of as being the stuff of musical meaning but also between
the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity, in the performance; and they
model, or stand as metaphor for, ideal relationships as the participants in the
performance imagine them to be: relationships between person and person,
between individual and society, between humanity and the nature world and even
perhaps the supernatural world.” ( p.13).

The ethnographer Blacking (1973), in his book How Musical is Man, describes
the music making shared in Venda of the Northern Transvaal. He found that the
production of the patterns of sound that the Venda call music depends, ﬁrst, on the
continuity of the social groups who perform it and, second, on the way the members of
those groups relate to each other. “In order to ﬁnd out what music is and how musical
man is, we need to ask who listens and who plays and sings in any given society and
why” (p. 32). “What turns one man off may turn another man on, not because of any
absolute quality in the music itself but because of what the music has come to mean to
him as a member of a particular culture or social group” (p. 32-33).

Every child deserves a chance to participate in music. “Children think aloud
through music. They socialize, vent emotions, and entertain themselves through music”
(Campbell, P. S., 1998, p. 4). “Music is unique to humans and, like other arts, is the basic
as language to human development and existence. Through music children gain insight

into themselves, into others, and into life itself. Most importantly, through music

10

children are better able to develop and sustain their imaginations and unabashed
creativity. Because a day does not pass without children hearing or participating in music
one way or another, it is to their advantage to understand music” (Gordon, E. E., 2003,

preface).

Formal and informal learning settings

In this section I will discuss research ﬁndings that have examined different music
learning settings. How do researchers deﬁne formal and informal learning setting? What
characteristics do they identify in each setting? How do different learning settings
intersect? Do research ﬁndings reveal the value of each setting for the transmission or
teaching of music?

Campbell (2000) found that school is only one of the places in which children
acquire music (p. 57). She found that music learning takes place in many informal
settings as well. Music can be learned in any place where there is music, in children’s
participation in all varieties of musical experiences, through interactions with teachers,
families, and friends, in social and religious communities, and through radio, TV,
recordings, videotapes, and ﬁlms, CD-ROMS, and other late-breaking technological
avenues (p. 57).

Jorgensen (2003) explains that agents of musical education selectively transmit
traditional beliefs and practices and frame new ones; their reach extends far beyond
school-age musical institution to include the musical activities of the various societal
institutions, such as the family, religion, state, music profession, and commerce (p. 101-

102). She concludes that: “Musical transmission, or the means whereby each generation

11

passes on musical beliefs and practices to succeeding generations, is also a dynamic
process that promotes musical change. Formally and informally, whether by such means
of instruction or osmosis, practice or participation, example or observation, reﬂection or
sensibility, musical transmission forges new understandings and practices as it also
preserves past wisdom and ways of participating in music” (p.117).

Green (2002) addressed the relationships between informal and formal practices.
In studying fourteen rock musicians, Green questioned (1) the extent that formal and
informal spheres of music education and learning exist in isolation and ignorance of each
other, (2) the ways these spheres involve approaches that are irreconcilable, or
complement each other, and (3) the options that they could developed in tandem, without
riding roughshod over the nature of either, in ways that would beneﬁt a larger proportion
of children and young people (p. 177). She found that there are a multitude of ways in
which to acquire music skills and knowledge. Formal music education has not always
enhanced either the music learning or the enjoyment of those who experienced it and has
often turned potential musicians away. On the other hand, popular musicians, by playing
their own music choices with ﬁiends and having fun, are motivated and also unavoidably
develop their musicality with different learning techniques. Most interesting is that the
values that accompany such practices emphasize the development of passion for music, a
broad knowledge, understanding and appreciation of variety of musics and commitment
to gaining enjoyment and satisfaction from playing music (p. 216).

Szego (2002) suggested that transmission and music learning do not always fall
into neat categories, such as formal and informal education. She believes that these

categories are solely connected to the place or institution, and she recommends using

12

Strauss’ (1984) terms intentional and incidental learning. The ﬁrst occurs when the
learner tries to make contextual connection in contrary to the second in which the learner
does not try.

Hargeaves (1996) proposes a conceptual model of music education that is based
on two dimensions, each of which falls on a continuum. He labels them ‘specialist-
generalist’ and ‘control-autonomy.’ On one side of the ﬁrst continuum, we can ﬁnd
cultures in which there is a long tradition of specialist education, within which talented
pupils are given tuition, largely on traditional orchestral instruments, and reach high
levels of achievement within the ‘classical’ tradition. On the other side of that same
continuum, with generalist music education, we have the premise that music can be
performed, appreciated, and enjoyed by all pupils at all levels. The second continuum,
which intersects with the ﬁrst, is labelled ‘control-autonomy.’ “This refers to the extent to
' which particular educational practices emphasize creative improvisation on the part of the
pupils, perhaps (but not necessarily) with relatively little emphasis on traditional
instrumental technique, as compared with the reproduction of music previously
conceived, and probably written down, by another composer” (p. 149). In this model of
the two continuums, we can locate traditional conservatory-based training within the
‘specialist-control’ quadrant and Orff’s approach to teaching within the ‘specialist-
autonomy’ quadrant. Within the ‘control-generalist’ quadrant we can locate classroom
curriculum music, and within the quadrant of ‘autonomy-generalist’ John Cage or
Cornelius Cardew, because of their non-reliance on conventional instrumental techniques.

Jackson (1990) identiﬁes many of the formal characteristics of schooling. He

points out that, although children are in school for a long time, the school settings in

13

which they perform are highly uniform, and that students are required to be there, rather
than being there of their own volition. “School is a place where tests are failed and
passed, where amusing things happen, where new insights are stumbled upon, and Skills
acquired. But it is also a place in which people sit, and listen, and wait, and raise their
hands, and pass out paper, and stand in line, and sharpen pencils” (p. 94). Most school
learning settings are highly stable, with speciﬁc objectives, written and unwritten rules,
and written and hidden curriculum; school can be a bureaucratic institution that lacks
ﬂexibility and sometimes opportunities for creativity (Jackson, 1990).

These characteristics can be true in school music classes as well. Describing a
music lesson in a school setting, Campbell (1998), writes about the two strategies that a
music teacher used when boys initiated rhythmic extensions and improvisations after her
planned rhythmic activity for the lesson: “During these rhythmic occurrences, Mrs.
Bedford took one of two strategies: she stopped, stared, and waited for the children to
cease their rhythms, once stemly asking “Are you ﬁnished?,” or she moved toward them
while continuing the lesson, which typically (although not always) brought the musical
extension, or improvisation to a close. Of course, she had a plan to follow and goals to be
met, yet I wondered whether she might do well to spin an occasional lesson from
children’s creative (rather than solely imitative) responses.” (p. 51). Campbell (1998)
believes that schooling and the school curriculum are highly structured types of student
learning. “It is as it sounds a carefully laid out instructional plan that proceeds
sequentially from step to the next to ensure learning. The order of presentation is

thoughtfully designed according to the age and experience of children, but the logical

l4

progression of information toward the goal is evident” (p.179). School music classes are a
part of a didactic tradition and oﬁen are nonconstructivist in nature.

Green (2002) deﬁnes formal learning practice as ‘conscious’ and believes that
they occurs when learners are aware that they are learning or attempting to learn. With
formal learning, there are explicit sets of goals combined with procedures for reaching
them, such as a structured practice routine, and that learners engaged in formal learning
are able to consider, name or otherwise conceptualize and isolate their learning practices.
Conversely, informal learning is ‘unconscious;’ it occurs without the awareness that is
occurring. Informal learning lacks goal-directed design. Green believes, though, that
informal learning can take place within and as a result of formal education. In her study
of popular musicians who participated in informal learning practices, she explored the
characteristics of informal learning and the way these popular musicians gained and
developed their musicianship. She listed some as follows:

(a) They were using the listening and copying learning practice. Popular
musicians applied approaches to learning through listening in order to
copy musical aspects of the songs. In this ‘journey’ and exploration of
copying recordings and playing covers, they developed their
performance and fundamental compositional skills. Reading and
writing notation was used in limited and non-traditional ways to
remind them of the songs that they had already learned (p. 60).

(b) Informal learning practices included peer-directed learning and group
learning. They were teaching one another, and the interaction that

occurred among them facilitated their learning process (p. 76).

15

(C)

(d)

(e)

(f)

In rehearsals, working together creatively and exchanging directions
and ideas through playing, talking, watching and listening were vital
ways of acquiring skills and knowledge (p. 79).

Technique development occurred along a continuum, from what
Green described as primary technique (which was relatively
unconscious), to a more conscious, conventional technique of
controlling the instrument (p. 84).

The duration of practice varied tremendously according to the mood of
the musicians, conﬂicts with other commitments, or motivation
resulting from external factors, such as joining a new band or
composing a new song. The musicians practiced as long as they
enjoyed it, which could range from ﬁve to six hours a day to not
practicing at all (p. 86).

Some of the musicians had acquired technical knowledge of music
(what Green deﬁnes as ‘music theory’) through teachers, especially in
relation to classical music. However, even though they had that
knowledge, they did not necessarily apply it to their music practices.

Instead they carried on by feel, ear, and trial and error (p.93).

These popular musicians, who had engaged in formal music learning in schools,

found formal music experience to be less informative or enlightening to their music
development than their informal music activities. All fourteen musicians considered
traditional school music education too elementary and not exciting; they felt alienated during

their class music lessons (p. 148).

16

“Although the resources and the presence of other young people in schools made

possible for many of them to set up and even perform in their ﬁrst bands, the school

had in general not recognized, rewarded or helped them to pursue the popular music

skills and knowledge that they were developing outside the boundaries of formal

education; nor had their teachers apparently been aware of, or interested in, their high

levels of enthusiasm and commitment to music” (p. 148).

Jaffurs (2006) in her study of a garage band admitted that, even though she

had taught a boy for four year in a school setting, she had no ideaithat he was involved in a
rock band outside of school. She had never thought of him as someone who was interested in
music, and after conducting her ethnographic study to investigate the environment of that
student band, she was impressed with how much he enjoyed his making music outside of
school. He considered the music making in the rock band as ‘their’ music, which contrasted
with the music of the teacher in school. When she went to observe the ﬁrst band rehearsal,
she felt like a stranger entering the ‘students’ music world’. By the end of the study, she
became a part of her students’ band, and she learned from their ways of acquiring music
knowledge and developing their musicality. Comparing the musicality of the members of the
garage band and their motivation and commitment to learning how to become rock musicians
with what she saw in her classroom on a daily basis, Jaffurs concluded that formal music
learning as it typically occurs in a school setting could be informed by informal music
learning practices. Some of her ﬁndings relate to those of Green’s study: 1) The garage band
started with a group of friends who initially had the idea to form a band. They freely deﬁned
and developed their musical roles and rehearsed as motivation, schedules, and desire

permitted. 2) In the rehearsals members exchanged ideas through dialogue and goal sharing.

17

They took risks without the fear of rejection or failure. 3) They were cooperating at an
altruistic level, appreciating each others’ abilities and understanding their weaknesses. 4)
Their musicality was continually improving as they were creating new works by copying
music. Jaffurs concluded that music educators should reﬂect on the lessons of informal
learning practices and ﬁnd implications for classroom teaching in order to broaden our
perspective of the informal/formal dichotomy.

The dichotomy of formal and informal learning settings was examined by
Finnegan (1989) in an ethnographic study. Finnegan compared the differences between
participation in formal and informal practices. By studying musicians who experienced
both formal and informal settings, she revealed that those two kinds of learning settings
were seen by individuals as separate, with informal settings considered to be more
valuable. Another interesting ﬁnding of her research is that informal music making was
identiﬁed as important because it took place in the community rather than in school. As a
result, the participants stated that the music belonged to them; it was ‘their’ music, as
opposed to the school music that was considered to be separate and not their own. The
same was true in Jaffurs’ study.

Waldron (2006) also studied learning in community setting by examining the
music transmission of two Irish musicians. One of the research participants received no
formal instruction and could not read standard notation. Learning music for her was a
holistic, “osmotic” event that occurred by listening to and observing the ﬁngers of older
musicians. She had begun to get involved in the transmission process in early childhood,
when her parents would take her to traditional Irish music sessions. She was fascinated

with observing older musicians play. From that experience, she acquired a rich pattern

18

vocabulary that she could used later to copy tunes or compose her own. The difference
between the role of “teacher” in the Western, formal sense of the word and the musical
mentors described in Waldron’s study is fundamental. Mentors were not teachers. They
guided learners, shared tunes, and provided encouragement during sessions in which both
mentors and learners Shared a group performance. Both participants found that music
notation, which is often included as an important part of formal schooling, limited aural
training and consequently performance quality.

Campbell (1995) conducted an ethnographic study of garage bands and the band
culture. In her study, she revealed that the development of rock musicians was primarily
a result of interaction with members of the band as well as a result of independent study.
She found that one of the members was viewed by others as the musical leader (the
teaching ﬁgure of the group), and he was responsible for transmitting his knowledge and
giving musical guidance to the other members while the group was rehearsing and
performing. The band’s compositions were developed from group discussions about piece
structure, lyrics, and harmonic parts. The process was always contextual.

Elliott (1995) writes that formal knowledge includes verbal facts, concepts,
descriptions, and theories; in short, it relates to all textbook-type information about
music. For Elliott, formal knowledge is equivalent to terms such as propositional
knowledge, declarative knowledge, or knowing-that (p. 60). He emphasizes that formal
knowledge is inert and unmusical by itself, but that it can inﬂuence, guide, and reﬁne a
learner’s musical thinking-in-action. According to his praxial philosophy of music
education, formal knowledge ought to be ﬁltered into teaching-learning situation

parenthetically and contextually.

l9

“Verbal concepts about musical works and music making ought to emerge from
and through active music making. This conceptualization of formal knowledge enables
students to understand its value immediately and artistically. This, in turn, enables
students to convert formal musical knowledge into musical knowing-in action. AS
procedural knowledge develops in educational settings that approximate genuine musical
practices, actions come to embody formal knowledge, including knowledge of musical
notation” (p. 61). In explaining informal musical knowledge, Elliott refers to the kind of
knowledge gained through experience, which involves the ability to reﬂect critically in
action, knowing how to make musical judgments, and understanding the musical
situation or what he calls concept. “Informal musical knowledge is situated knowledge: it
is knowledge that arises and develops chieﬂy from musical problem ﬁnding and musical
problem solving in a genuine musical, or close approximation of a real musical practice”
(p. 64).

The informal, communal processes of jazz performers were studied by Louth
(2006). From Louth’s analysis, four narratives several themes emerged that diverged
from standard formal music instruction in signiﬁcant ways. His ﬁndings relate to
Waldron’s (2006) ethnographic study of the Irish traditional musicians described above.
In Louth’s study, community learning was important and affected the learning processes
of the jazz musicians in vital ways. The group practicing and the social interactions
between musicians, who were friends as well musical colleagues, inﬂuenced and shaped
their musicianship. The ‘real life’ contexts in which practicing, performing, listening and
learning were combined in various ways, were essential to the development of the jazz

musicians. One of the research participants felt strongly about this issue, and asserted that

20

jazz produced in academia would always be, in a sense, the “by-product of an artiﬁcial
environment” in which students are taught to “sound like jazz musicians,” but not to
become jazz musicians themselves. Small (1990) criticizes formal music education in
Western societies as being so concerned about teaching the performance skills and the
theoretical background, as well as the great musical works of classical composers, that it
misses the social part of what music is. He writes, “A musical meaning is to be found not
just in those musical objects (musical works). Musical meaning is centered on
relationships, relationships between person and person, between person and society,
between humanity and the natural world” (p. 2).

Another important ﬁnding of Louth’s study is that all four jazz performers,
without exception, stressed the importance of developing aural acuity, and described
learning to read music as a process of matching symbols with sounds with which they
were already familiar. One of the performers was illiterate in terms of notation and chord
symbol knowledge, but was a professional working musician. Learning music depending
completely upon written notation is a unique practice of Western art music, asserts
musicologist and social critic Small (1998). He believes that notation enables yet is
simultaneously limiting, something that informally trained musicians admit. The same
notion is discussed by Elliott (1995), who believes that knowledge of notation and how to
decode it is not a signiﬁcant part of many global music practices. He believes that music
literacy is only one part of formal learning practice and is not the same as musicianship.
Campbell (1991) also found, in her research surrounding cross-cultural music teaching

and learning, that notation is available only to some traditional genres, and that the ear is

21

considered the principal means by which students catch the stylistic nuances of the music
(p. 157).

Furthermore, Louth (2006) describes how participants did not learn their
transcriptions from a book, but they stress the importance of the “lifting” process,
through which music was transferred directly from ear to instrument. They expressed that
it was crucial for a musician to be able to “hear” (aurally identify, or otherwise intuitively
understand) a melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic concept prior to incorporating the idea into
an improvisatory context. Gordon (1991), after having formal music training on his bass,
confessed that he learned to become a bass player who felt music only when he joined
studied jazz and learned to think (audiate) music. “My lessons with Sid (his jazz teacher)
were more like excursions than lessons, and my education in music began to take shape.
Each of us, with bass in hand and without notation, would play together and back and
forth. It became clear that I was to think (more about that word and its relationship to
audiation later) about what I was going to play before I played it” (p.7).

Music transmission through socialization in a community was the focus of
Blacking’s (1973) ethnographic study of people, especially children, in Venda, South
Africa. In the Venda community, music making was shared among all members of the
community, and without this there would be little music. “The production of the patterns
of sound which the Venda call music, depends, ﬁrst, on the continuity of the social
groups who perform it and , second, on the way the members of those groups relate to
each other” (p.32).

Blacking made the study of music in culture and the nature of musical thought

and behavior his lifelong quest. Blacking’s description of a children’s musical culture is

22

perhaps the most complete and technical analysis to date, and it formed the basis of his
theoretical writings of musicality and musical development. He studied children’s songs
and their musical, textual, and functional components in the context of Venda culture. As
he observed even the youngest children and their mothers, it became clear to him that
musical ability emerged through the process of socialization with their mothers, other
adults, and children. He stated that he could not ﬁnd one non-musical person in the entire
community of the Venda people. An entire community was shown to be musical and to
have learned their musicianship through direct aural transmission. Blacking’s personal
experience as a classically trained musician gave him a unique perspective on formal
versus informal education. In How Musical is Man (1973), he elaborated on how the
function of music in a society promotes musical ability and effects how music created
and practiced by all of the members. Blacking’s (1973) lasting concern was that, in
Western European context, musicality was wrongly deﬁned and assessed as property
within the realm of few children and adults. Making the comparison between Western
music education and the natural 'holistic' way music is transmitted in the community of
Venda, Blacking questioned, “Must the majority (of children) be made 'unmusical‘ so
that a few may become more 'musical'?” (p.8). He claims that, in the western culture,
music education is structured only for a few 'talented’ people.
Bowman (2004) listed three “educational ends of schooling” (p. 38) portraying a
general view of aims to be achieved in formal education.
1. Education is concerned with the development of skills, understandings, and
dispositions that do not follow easily or naturally from the socialization process

alone.

23

2.

Education is concerned with developing and transmitting skills, understandings,
and dispositions that are deemed important by society.

Educational aim involves preparing students for life giving them skills that will
serve them well. Signiﬁcant among these in capitalistic democracies are such
attributes as empowerment, independence, self-reliance, critical skills, and the
inclination to use them.

It is clear that these objectives stand opposed to the more ﬂexible, unstructured,

‘holistic’ and ‘natural’ way of learning music through the socialization and everyday life

activities in a community, like the Venda community (Blacking, 1973), or the processes

used by popular musicians (Green, 2002), rock musicians (Campbell, 1995), and garage

band musicians (Jaffurs, 2006). Formal education that takes place at schools typically has

speciﬁc and strict paths to follow according to each venue.

Cope and Smith (1997), when examining and comparing the characteristics of

Western formal school instruction and informal non—school music learning, maintain that

the following elements are typical components of a Western formal music education:

1.

2.

A written culture, the primary emphasis being on reading written music

The musically gifted student

A mostly classical repertoire

The gradation of exercises and technique

Comprehension of music theory

A tacit assumption that becoming a concert player is the goal (Cope & Smith,

1997,p.285)

24

The ability to read notated music and understand theoretical music knowledge are
valuable skills in the Western classical curriculum; however Cope and Smith contend that
both are often stressed over the development of the contextual aural learning.

Jaffurs (2006), in explaining the idea of formal and informal practices, writes that
one of the important characteristics that separate each practice is teaching styles. In the
formal practices, teaching style tends to be autocratic, whereas in informal practice
learning tends to be more democratic. Students in formal education venues may not have
had a signiﬁcant role in specifying what they will learn. Traditionally, public school
teaching has a variety of regulations and controls in the form of curriculum standards to
address or tests to guide instruction.

Green (2002) identiﬁes those who have learned music through informal as well as
formal means as “bi-musical.” Jafﬁrrs (2006) describes the same phenomenon using the
analogy of two railways: the FME railway (formal music education) and the IME railway
(informal music education). The F MB is never crowded; it is elegant, sophisticated, and
expensive. The IME is always packed with people, apologetic for what it may lack by
comparison, but reasonably priced. “It is interesting that several owners of these railways
own stock in both, and while there are may be some conﬂict of interest, it is a recognized
practice and legally condoned. Often, the two lines move parallel to each other across hill
and dale. Occasionally the trains travel very close to each other and passengers wave to
each other as they pass. Of course, the lines criss-cross and the engineers communicate
with each other so they don’t collide” (p.1-2).

American school music programs have changed since their beginnings, when

teaching singing and music reading were the initial aims of school music education.

25

Music reading and the performance of notated music still appear to be important practical
goals, but other important factors, including the development of aural discrimination and
listening skills, opportunities for creative expression, and a knowledge of music in
historical and cultural contexts, appear to be goals that will lead to students’
comprehensive musicianship (Campbell, 1991). It is therefore important to provide
multiple teaching activities to students in order to develop their musicianship in a broader
way. Listening and singing are probably some of the most vital teaching components in
order to assimilate musical structure before moving to reading and writing and what we,
as music educators, call theory in music. Movement is a crucial issue for rhythm
development and musical expression as well as for the cognition of musical styles.
Furthermore it is always necessary to make the essential connections to the context that a

musical genre comes from and provide the cultural background that informs it.

The Interaction between Formal and Informal Music Learning Settings

Informal learning is different from formal leaning because of some of its
characteristics or ‘ingredients.’ However, it is also obvious that some of these
‘ingredients’ could be a part of both ‘recipes’ for learning music. In this section, I will
investigate studies that focus on the bridge between formal and informal learning, or
explore how formal learning could contain some of the ingredients of informal learning.

Dewey (1972) was the first to introduce a structure of formal education that
embraces informal education practices. He believed that education is a process of living
and that school is a form of community life. Because of this, he believed that knowledge

should be introduced in a way that is close to the relations that the child has with home

26

and neighbourhood life, that being from experience. Learning by doing in real life
settings as well as reﬂective and critical thinking with students’ group interaction form
the fundamental basis of his theory, which mirrored the ideas of social constructivism.

Allsup (2003) studied the process of composing in groups of nine students from
grades nine to twelve. Speciﬁcally, he was interested in students’ overall musical growth,
both individually and collaboratively. Students chose how to work on their compositions.
Results of the study showed that, in democratic teaching environments, both the teacher
and students are cooperatives; they share ideas, efforts and goals. Democracy in music
learning tends to be associated with informal music practices, but Allsup found that its
principles could be transferred to a more formal music learning setting.

In another study investigating the communication (verbal and non-verbal) taking
place during compositions created by friends and non-friends, MacDonald and Miell
(2000) highlighted the impact that social factors, such as friendship, have on the process
and outcomes of children’s collaborative compositional work. Working with friends is
another component of informal music learning and music making. However, it also can
be used in school contexts. Musical and verbal communication styles of the ﬁiendship
pairs were qualitatively different from those of the non-friends pairs. The friends were
building on, extending and elaborating on each other’s ideas, expressed in both the talk
and music, and were developing their compositions by this gradual process of offering
and reﬁning of suggestions. This led to a higher quality of compositions when compared
to those of the pairs of non-friends. In general, research has suggested that
social/communicative factors are central in determining the nature and quality of group

compositions. This study, as well as Allsup’s (2003), Show that group work, especially

27

with friends and using a democratic learning process, can be incorporated into school
settings. Although working with ﬁiends in small group settings is found mostly in
informal learning environments, it may be possible to adopt such strategies in music
classrooms through cooperative learning techniques. “When students are given space to
explore freely, to work democratically, they will create (from one of their musical
worlds) a context about which they are familiar, conversant, or curious” (Allsup, 2003,
p.35). In this way, teachers can give students the opportunities to work in and explore a
music world that they already understand, a world that is deﬁned by who they are.
Byme and Sheridan (2000) studied Scottish secondary schools in which rock
music has been included in the curriculum. They described the change in young students
as a result of including “their” music into the formal learning environment. They
observed involvement in music making and examined how the conditions of musical
democracy contributed to what Csikszentmihalyi (1992) calls “ﬂow.” The inclusion of
the new repertoire, as well as new kind of instruments, such as keyboards, electric
guitars, bass guitars and drum kit, changed the didactic model of learning to a new way of
learning that put a premium upon collaborative learning and upon clear skills of team
work, inter-personal skills and clear communication. The positive, powerful learning
environment that had been created challenged and motivated students to become involved
in music making. Byme and Sheridan (2000) discuss how students developed a sense of
ownership and control in their music making, and that they experienced “ﬂow,” which
occurs only when there is an appropriate match between skill and challenge. Flow is the
feeling of ‘joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life’ (p.11). Byme and

Sheridan (2000) concluded that, when carefully selected and well-designed music

28

activities are used in music classroom, all students have the opportunity to grow in
musical knowledge, skills and appreciation. Also, students feel joy and satisfaction when
music making occurs, and they experience the intrinsic value of music.

Green (2005) describes a current UK research project that aims to investigate the
feasibility and possible beneﬁts of bringing as least some of informal music learning
practices into the high school music classroom. The researchers intended to examine how
students in a music classroom can learn to make music using the informal music-learning
strategies of popular musicians. A group of thirteen and fourteen-year-olds were sent into
a room with several of their own CDs, a CD player, and a set of instruments and were
told to copy a chosen song in any way that they wished. The researcher examined the
development of the following strategies used by popular musicians:

> Learning music aurally
Stretching from experimentation with instruments to copying recordings
Imitation
Improvisation
Peer direction

Unconscious learning through peer observation

V V V V V V

Conversations between the group

In this setting, peer teaching became an integral component of classroom activities.
Green (2005) found the following:

(1) There are positive effects of giving autonomy to students to direct their own
learning.

(2) A “natural” approach to listening and copying is helpful.

29

(3) Personal choice of music is important.

(4) Cooperation and organization within students’ group helps them develop

personally and socially (p. 31).

Peer teaching techniques and student-oriented activities in music classroom were the

focus of Brand’s (2003) study. The study’s aim was to identify components of children’s

teaching as derived from observations of children teaching a song, and to compare

children’s teaching at different ages. Participants in this study were 18 pairs of children

aged 6, 9, or 12 years, who were asked to learn a previously unfamiliar song and to teach

this song to a friend. The two primary themes that emerged were musical organization

and learning strategies. Additional themes identiﬁed characteristics of children’s

teaching, such as showing emotion through positive or negative feedback, encouraging,

motivating, preserving, cooperating, relaxing, and competing, and teaching strategies,

such as demonstrating, explaining, presenting information, instructing, and elaborating.

Some important results from the study follow:

1.

Children’s spontaneous teaching of the songs focused on musical structures and

not on individual tone properties.

. Groups of tones were taught in their functional context.

A broad variety of strategies were used by children in their teaching.

The activity helped students to develop their musicality and fostered greater
success in their music making. Music learning was fun for them and they really
believed that ‘their’ music had great value.

Having a peer as a teacher allowed the students to take initiative, make decisions,

and solve problems, while remaining in control most of the time.

30

It is clear from the results of this study that students are far more able to control
their learning than we, as teachers, believe. Subsequently, teachers must learn to
organize activities in classroom to give students the opportunities to gain control of
their learning and interact with one another, because it helps their musical
development.

Wiggins (1999/2000) conducted a study in order to deﬁne characteristics of
shared understanding among children when creating original music in classroom
settings. Students composed or improvised with peers and/or the teacher, and the
researcher attempted to explore the nature of understanding within the group and its
role in empowering the musical thinking and learning of individuals within the group.
Following are some of the important ﬁndings:

(1) Shared understanding is reﬂected in the musical elements of students’
products, as students share, extend, vary, and answer one another’s or the
teacher’s musical ideas.

(2) Students’ musical ideas were expressed by singing or playing rather than by
verbally describing their ideas.

(3) Their ideas were the result of students’ experience and the inﬂuence of their
own music worlds from media, school or outside school musical activities.

(4) Shared understanding is the primary basis for musical problem solving and for
the development of musical understanding. The learning that takes place under
such circumstances is invaluable to the musical growth of the individual

student.

31

The above study uncovered strategies and techniques that were similar to those used by
popular musicians (Green, 2002) and rock musicians (Campbell, 1995) as well as garage
band musicians (Jaffurs, 2006).

Another way to link music education, which is more formally based, to
community music, which tends to be more informal in nature, is to motivate people get
involved in community music programs, many of which incorporate components of both
formal and informal music learning settings. Veblen (2004) editor of the International
Journal of Community Music suggests that “Community Music is just another word for a
wide range of “music education” programs that take place outside” the boundaries and
schedules of ordinary school music programs” (p. 1).

Elliott (1995) in Music Matters emphasized that musical works are the outcomes
of particular communities of people (e. g., Irish Fidlers and listeners; Indian Tabla
drummers and listeners; Baroque performers and listeners) who share certain musical
abilities, understandings, histories, and values in common, and who make musical works
in relation to their musical contexts and understandings. He believes that, regardless of
setting, she or he must teach or “facilitate” comprehensively by relating musical pieces,
procedures, and values to the particular musical community- the people and
social/cultural contexts-that “surround” these products and processes.

Veblen (2005) articulates fourteen “basic characteristics” of community music
activities in classroom setting (pp. 311-312). Perhaps the ﬁve that are most essential
follow: (1) Emphasis on a variety and diversity of musics that reﬂect and enrich the
cultural life of the community and of the participants, (2) Active participation in music

making of all kinds, (3) Multiple teacher-leamer relationships, (4) Recognition that

32

participants’ social and personal growth are as important as their musical growth, (5)
Respect for the cultural property of a given community and acknowledgement of both
individual and group ownership of musics. By respecting and incorporating these
characteristics, school music education could free itself from typical music activities and
its strict, formal way of teaching to a broader, adopt a more ﬂexible approach of teaching
that is more closely related to informal music practices.

In a discussing how to free music education from schooling, Myers (2005)
highlights the discomﬁting fact that large numbers of school-age students do not believe
that music education as typically practiced in schools is relevant to their needs and
interests. He believes that much of this is because traditional music programs fail to
incorporate enough popular or culturally diverse music or to make use of technological
innovations. Another reason for non-participation is that music programs fail to energize
the fundamental drives for musical expression and musical understanding that lead
children and adults to seek a host of musical opportunities in their community. Music
classes do not instil skills and understandings that empower students to get involved in
music making over a lifetime. For that reason students are neither enthusiastic nor value
the study of music. Myers (2005) suggests that this is the reason that many Students turn
away from learning to play music in formal settings, seeking for informal opportunities
instead. A way to connect school music to children’s lives may be to break down the
boundaries between music practices and to open up and explore ways to engage new
alternative mechanisms for teaching and learning.

Music has been part of human “communitas” for centuries (Veblen, 2004), and

community music is another word for a wide range of “music education” programs that

33

take place “outside” the boundaries and schedules of ordinary school music programs

(p. 1). The need to reﬂect the interests of students and their communities in music classes
is discussed by Mark (1996). He believes that informal learning settings are domains that
music teachers and researchers should investigate to determine their characteristics in
order to adopt them in formal learning settings. He ends by stating, “I hope we’ll begin to
see qualitative studies on subjects that are truly important to our profession. I encourage
qualitative researchers to take a broad view of music education, to learn its needs, and

develop studies that will help move the profession forwar ” (p.122).

34

CHAPTER 3 -— METHODOLOGY
Design and Researcher’s Lens

This study explores the music making and learning practices of one student from
Cyprus in different settings, inside and outside of school. It is the investigation of the
‘ingredients’ that characterise the various music learning venues and the participant’s
perceptions of issues concerning music value, enjoyment and importance. This paper will
reveal in depth the feelings, experiences and thoughts of the participant in an attempt to
identify his personal learning processes and how his involvement reﬂects his musical
development.

I have been teaching music for 15 years and have had taught many students, each
with his or her unique personal and musical characteristics. I always have tried to
understand the musical histories of my students to ﬁgure out how their musical
achievement, capability or interests in my music class were the result of their previous
musical experience or family environment. I have had students with little interest or
achievement in my class others that have had some, and others who enjoyed class to the
maximum and achieved at high levels. When I met Leri (the study’s primary participant),
I was fascinated with his musical development and his levels of interest and achievement
in my class; this made me want to explore his musical involvement and background and
how those relate to his work in my music classes. From the ﬁrst communication with
him, I realized that he was participating in a wide variety of music learning settings
(formal and informal) and learning music through multiple pathways. So, I decided to

conduct a case study in order to learn about Leris musical travels.

35

After reading the work of other researchers, such as Finnegan (1989), Campbell
(1995), Green (2002), Waldron (2006), Louth (2006), Blacking (1973), Koops (2006),
McPherson, (2006) and Jaffurs (2006), comparing formal and informal ways of learning
and making music, I became even more compelled to follow this line of questioning. As I
read, I was impressed by the ways in which children are engaged in musical creation by
virtue of being members of a community, rather than as a result of formal instruction. I
always have been curious to uncover children’s thoughts and opinions concerning
different learning settings and practices as well as the “ingredients” involved in each
setting. I was particularly interested in Green’s (2002), Finnegan’s (1989) and Jaffurs’
(2006) ﬁndings concerning the development of children’s musicality, and particularly in
how children value their experiences in different learning settings, and the intersections
between these settings.

Most of the research that I read that explored these questions was qualitative,
perhaps because of the nature of the research questions.

“Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive

naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative research

study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them” (Denzin, N. K., and

Lincoln, Y. S., 1994, p .2).

The act of describing things in their natural settings and interpreting phenomena in terms
of meanings is central to my study as well, and, as a result, my study will also be

qualitative in nature.

36

Creswell (1998) described what is needed when using a qualitative research
design. The researcher must do the following:
> Commit to extensive time in the ﬁeld
> Engage in the complex, time consuming process of data analysis-the
ambitious task of sorting through large amounts of data and reducing them
to a few themes or categories.
> Write long passages, because the evidence must substantiate claims and
the writer needs to Show multiple perspectives.
> Participate in a form of social and human science research that does not
have ﬁrm guidelines or speciﬁc procedures and is evolving and changing
constantly. (pp. 1 6-1 7).
With this and the nature of my research problem in mind, I believe that my research
questions need to be explored in detail by gathering material through observation in the
participants’ natural setting as well as through interviews and journaling.
My role in this study was multi-faceted. I was an “active learner” (Creswell, 1998,
p. 18). In order to understand my case to the fullest extent possible, I collected different
kinds of data. I conducted this study by doing the following:
> Observing as a non-participant in some settings and observing as a participant
in others, depending upon whether I was normally a part of that setting.
Because I am my participant’s music teacher in school, I was a participant-
observer during school observations. However, when I was observing him

outside of school, I was an observer and not a participant.

37

> Conducting unstructured, open-ended, interviews as well as semi-structured
and group interviews.

> Analyzing the participants’ autobiography that was written speciﬁcally for this
study.

> Video-taping and subsequently analyzing the participant’s musical

interactions in several settings.

Participant and settings

Yin (1989) states that case studies can be either single-case or multiple-case
design. My study was a single case study, because the participant is a unique student who
fully exempliﬁes the type of individual that I wanted to study. The primary participant in
this study was a 6th grade male student from a rural region in Cyprus. Leri, one of my
students in the elementary school, was engaged in music both in and outside of school.
He was an active member of the school orchestra, performing on the keyboard or several
other instruments (recorder, Orff instruments) when I asked him to do so. He had been
taking private piano lessons outside of school for four years, and he was learning the
drums by himself. He mes with a friend several times a month to make popular music
together. In addition, he composef his own pieces or makes arrangements of the classical
pieces he learned in his piano lessons. He was a member of a children’s community choir

and a member of a traditional folk dance group.

38

As a secondary participant and the researcher, I observed Leri in all of his music
settings; at a rural primary school in Cyprus, in his private piano lesson, at his home,
where he composee and arrangee, at a rehearsal with his friend as they played popular
music, at his dancing rehearsal, and at his choir rehearsal. As stated previously, I was
both a participant and observer during music class observation, as well as during school
orchestra rehearsal. In the other settings I only observed.

For the purpose of this research I also interviewed Leri’s teachers in the other
learning settings in which he is involved; the teacher and director of the community choir,
the teacher of the traditional dance group and his piano lessons teacher. I interviewed his
parents, and some of the members of the school choir and orchestra, of which I am the
teacher, who also voluntary agreed to talk to me about Leri. Most of them were close
friends and classmates, and some were attending the community choir with him as well.
Besides their willingness to participate, I chose these secondary participants according to

their ﬂuency to express their thoughts and ideas.

Human Subjects Approval
I obtained approval for doing the study from the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
at Michigan State University. Then, I contacted Leri and his parents regarding the
possibility of conducting research with his serving as the primary participant. I wanted to
make sure that Leri, because of his young age, was eager to get involved in a study that
and would allow me to observe him in his music lessons and interview him. It was also
important to have the support and help of his parents. Leri’s teachers and the Headmaster

of the elementary school in which the research would be taking place were informed of

39

the purpose and scale of the study, the duration of the study, who may be involved, and
ﬁnally, the consent clause stating that participation in the study is strictly voluntary. Once
written consent was obtained, I made a schedule, with the help of Leri and his music
teachers, in order to observe him in the different music learning settings in which he is
involved and to arrange to interview him, his parents, and his teachers. Because I am his
music teacher at elementary school, my role in that case was of “observer as participant”
(Creswell, 2003, p. 186). To all the teachers willing to be interviewed, I explained the
scope of the study, clariﬁed their rights as a participant, answered any questions they may
have had regarding the interview, and obtained written consent before conducting the

interviews.

Procedure and Data Collection
Although his list is not intended to be comprehensive, Creswell (1998) mentions
four means of data collection in qualitative research: observations, interviews,
documents, and audio-visual materials (p. 120). Yin (1989) recommends gathering
multiple forms of information: documents, archival records, interviews, direct
observations, participant observation, and physical artifacts.
The following were the data sources for the study:
1. Field notes from observations during sessions in each music learning setting.
2. An autobiography of Leri, which he wrote speciﬁcally for this study. I gave him a
guide of speciﬁc subjects to address in this autobiography. These are included in

Appendix A.

40

3. Transcripts of open-ended interviews with the participant, his parents, his piano
teacher, his dance teacher, and his choir teacher. Interview questions can be found
in Appendices B and C.

4. Transcripts of a group interview of the children who participate together with Leri
in the school choir and orchestra, to explore information about the learning setting
and about Leri that may not have been revealed by interviewing him. The group
interview was unstructured.

The ﬁrst data source involved observing in the different music learning settings. I
decided to observe in each learning setting twice in order to have a clearer picture of what
occured in each setting concerning the teaching-learning procedures and particularly
Leri’s participation and behaviour. My focus while observing was on Leri and his level of
involvement and reactions, verbal and nonverbal, during the music class as well as his
interaction with the teacher or the other persons who were taking part in the learning
setting. While observing, I was taking rich ﬁeld notes, which later served as a reminder of
sequences of events, teacher and student behaviours, instructional tendencies, and
descriptive characteristics within each setting.

The second data source was a personal biography of Leri, who wrote with the
guidance of some brief notes I gave him to elicit information concerning his music
background as a young child, his previous and present experience in each learning
setting, as well as his thoughts and feelings about his work in each setting. He also was
asked to make connections between what was learned in the learning settings, to express
his opinion on the content of each class, and to discuss how each one informed his

musicianship.

41

The third type of data source consisted of recorded interviews with Leri, his
parents, and his music teachers. During the interview, Leri was asked to talk about the
learning settings in which he was involved and what happened in each setting. I also
collected his parents’ and teachers’ opinions about Leri’s musical development as well as
his musical characteristics. I also asked them to reﬂect on their experiences of working
with him in their classes or having him as their child, in a structured yet ﬂexible interview
format. By a structured yet ﬂexible interview format I mean that, although I had
prepared questions and topics to be discussed during the interview, I followed the themes
that emerged while performing the interview and was ﬂexible and willing to take detours
in the planned interview protocol to absorb whatever the participant felt like talking about
that was relevant to my research. Following each interview, I transcribed the data using a
digital tape recorder for later analysis.

The fourth data source consisted of an unstructured group interview that occurred
with students who were members of the school choir and orchestra and worked together
with Leri. I also audio-taped this interview for subsequent transcription and analysis.

This interview helped me uncover information from the point of view of Leri’s friends
and classmates, who are the same age as Leri. I let the children spontaneously talk about

Leri and his musical involvement.

Limitations of the Study
Because this is a qualitative study, generalizations should not be made to other

children. However, some of the results may be transferable to students who are similar to

42

Leri or in settings that are similar to those in the study. The study has several limitations.
As I am the only data collector, my personal biases, both known and unknown, may
affect the kinds of data that are collected, how the data is coded, and how the data will be
interpreted. Also, I am not a stranger to Leri, due to the fact that I am his teacher, and this
might effect data collection especially in the observations during school music classes
where I had the role of “observer as participant.” When I interviewed Leri and asked his
opinion of music classes at school, he might have expressed himself in a slightly different
way if I were not his teacher. In a part of his interview, when I asked how he rated his
musical activities according to importance to his musical development, he said: “First
come the composition again, then the piano, dance, choir, drums, and music classes at
school. Sorry Ms, I did not want to offend you!” (laughing) However, because I am the
researcher and a participant at the same time, I am more capable of interpreting data.

Another limitation is that I could not complete two observations of Leri’s drum
involvement with his friends, because Leri and his ﬁiends did not have access to the
drum room for a second observation. The result is that the data for that music learning
setting is somewhat less deep and rich than for the data in the other settings.

This study does not attempt to comment upon, or to judge any methodological or
philosophical approaches to music teaching or organizing music classes. Because there
can be inherent differences in interpretation, I will make every attempt to minimize error

by using data triangulation during analysis.

43

Analysis

Data were analyzed following the steps recommended by Creswell (1998). First, I
developed a detailed description of the case and of each music making/learning setting.
Then I began to code the data, using key words and phrases that appeared to be important
as I read the data. Once the data were been coded, I organized the codes according to
relevant meanings that emerged from the data (categorical aggregation) in order to draw
meaning, and I began to look for emergent themes. Finally, from these categorical
aggregations, I identiﬁed themes and discussed their relevance.

Trustworthiness strategies included member checks, triangulation, and peer
review of the coding of the data. Transcripts were sent to interview participants via email,
who then had the opportunity to edit their responses so that the accuracy of their
responses was ensured. In the peer review process, interview transcripts that were coded
and analyzed for emergent themes were subsequently reviewed by peer researchers, who
attempted to ascertain the accuracy of the codes. Peer researchers used in this study were
professors in music education at Michigan State University and at European University
Cyprus, who have conducted or who are presently conducting qualitative research studies
and who have spent extensive time in the ﬁeld collecting, analyzing, and coding research
data. In addition, and in order to protect the anonymity of the informants participating in
this study, all were assigned a pseudonym.

Because this study was conducting in a country in which English is not the
primary language, issues of translation needed to be considered. The interviews were
conducted in Greek because Greek was the ﬁrst language of the participants in the study.

Conducting interview in the participants’ ﬁrst language was essential in order to get as

44

nuanced and as clear a picture of their beliefs and ideas as possible. Individuals can be
more reﬂective and accurate when speaking in their native language. The translations of
the interview transcripts and autobiography were done primarily by me, but they were
checked by professors in music education at European University Cyprus who have

earned their PhD degrees in the United States and speak ﬂuent English and Greek.

45

CHAPTER 4 — LERI’S MUSICAL JOURNEYS
In this chapter I will present a holistic picture of each of Leri’s music learning
settings. This will provide the context to facilitate a better understanding of the themes

and codes that emerged during the analysis of the data.

Piano Lessons

Piano is Leri’s main instrument; it is the instrument that he consciously chose to
learn and on which he has performed from a very young age. He explained in his
autobiography and interview how fascinated he was when he listened to a well-known
Greek pianist performing on piano, and, as a result of this experience, he was inspired
and wanted to learn how to play that instrument. “I remember when I watched a pianist
and composer, Korkolis, you know him right? I was excited! I like the piano because you
can play with both hands, melody and chords, and so the sound is rich. I think piano is
the only instrument with so many capabilities.” (Leri’s Interview) His experience with the
famous pianist is vividly described in his autobiography. “I remember that I was
interested in the way he was using both hands to differentiate the sound of the piano,
ﬁom very warm and sweet to really loud and crazily quick and I was shivering. I was
sure this was the instrument that I could express my feelings to the fullest. . .I can not
imagine my self playing a different instrument, it suits me!” (Leri’s Autobiography)

Leri started taking piano lessons from the age of ﬁve, before he could even read
or write, according to his mother. She was worried if his young age might present
problems for his learning, but she found a teacher, and Leri started lessons. She said, “At

the age of ﬁve he started asking us to take him for piano lessons. He had not even begun

46

elementary school, he could not write or read and I was wondering if he could begin
piano lessons. I asked the teacher’s opinions and she told me that she could take him and
give it a try, if Leri insisted so much.” (Parents’ Interview)

Leri attended piano lessons once a week, and each lesson lasted an hour. His
teacher had eighteen years of experience teaching, and she was well known in the
community for being a dedicated, kind teacher. The lessons were held in his teacher’s
home in a small (about six square meters) dark room with only one window that was
above the piano and higher than eye level. The walls of the room werere bare. Piano
lessons had a strict structure, even though Leri’s teacher understood his need for
ﬂexibility, and she tried to provide that in her lesson. In her interview, she said, “I am
ﬂexible, letting him perform whatever he enjoys most. Of course we have the exam
syllabus as well, and he has exams every school year, so we have to work on scales and
aural tests and sight reading.” Observations revealed that the teacher’s goals were
primarin focused on the exam syllabus and that she directed her teaching activities
toward the examination goals, making her teaching teacher- rather than student-
controlled.

“Teacher sits, very close to Leri in a chair next to him, so close that she has her

right hand on the music score, holding a pencil, showing most of the times the

staffs. She turns music pages, she basically has the control.” (Researcher Field

Notes, Piano Lesson Observation # 1)

Leri’s teacher was clear when explaining her educational goals; she said that she
tries to give Leri the technical skills so that he can improve and to prepare him for the

exams each year. The rest of her objectives centered around Leri’s personality and desire

47

to make musical decisions. The repertoire used in lessons was drawn mainly from the
repertoire options given in the examination syllabus, but, from that list, Leri was always
allowed to choose the pieces he wanted to perform. He played mainly classical pieces,
with a few that were more contemporary or in a jazz style; these were Leri’s favourites.
Leri clearly understood his teacher’s objectives and the piano lesson structure. He stated,
“Concerning the piano, I have to pass my exams with the best grade I can. . .And her goal
(piano teacher) is for me to pass all my exams and move to higher grades” (Leri’s
Interview).

A typical piano lesson for Leri began with scales and ‘routine pieces’ as the
teacher explained, for ﬁngers warm up. In fact, the scales/arpeggios duration took almost
the half of the lesson. While Leri performed, the metronome was always ticking on
macrobeats, even during the scales practice. The ﬁeld notes below describe a lesson from
one of my observations.

“Teacher asks Leri to perform right hand and add the written ornaments as well in

his performance. Leri starts with the two ﬁrst meters and she stops him, making

comments on the dynamics and the pp following the f part at the very beginning.

Leri starts over, and the teacher asks for him to count loudly with her. She is

counting loudly, with her right hand on the music showing Leri the notation with

her pencil, and she also reminds him of the dynamics that follow. She never stops
talking while Leri tries to perform. Teacher continues to count loudly and Leri is
attempting to count with her but soﬁly. She is tapping her feet on the ﬂoor to
macrobeats. She stops him in a measure in which she believed Leri had the

wrong ﬁngerings. She gives him an alternative but Leri says that he prefers the

48

ﬁngers he used. Teacher let him use his own ﬁngering.” (Researcher Field Notes,

Piano Lesson Observation # l)

The piano wass, for Leri, his main means of musical expression. He composed
and made arrangements for the piano, he performed on the piano at school orchestra and
community choir and, generally, he used piano as necessary tool for all his music
creations. As he copied music from CD’S using the keyboard, he ﬁgured out melodies
and the correct harmonies using piano, and he enjoyed playing the instrument, doing so
even during school or community choir breaks, or even between teaching activities in
school class or community choir or piano lesson. When I entered the huge room where
the community choir rehearses, I was impressed to ﬁnd that Leri, who was the only child
present in the room because he arrived early, was performing a beautiful melody on the
piano and was concentrating at a high level, even though he could have chosen to sit and
wait for the rest to appear of the choir to appear at his leisure. The months I was studied
Leri revealed to me how devoted and enthusiastic he was about his work on the piano. He
often proposed to his teachers that he give a piano performance during classes, and he
even sometimes began to play without their permission. The rest of the children followed
him and sang along with his playing. “Can we perform them later, so I can play the
piano?” he asks. (Research Field Notes, Community Choir Observation #2) “. . .Leri
begins to perform the introduction without even waiting for the teachers’ permission. The
rest of the children shout ‘yea’. . .” (Researcher Field Notes, Community Choir
Observation #2)

However, his enthusiasm in the classroom was in sharp contrast with his

behaviour in his piano lessons. In piano lessons, Leri seemed ﬁ'ustrated at times and did

49

not appear to be enjoying the lesson. The ‘strict,’ formal way in which the lesson were
taught, focusing on technique, scales, use of a metronome, and counting, made him
gently rebel. As a result, he sometimes lost his extroverted character and became mostly
nonverbal. The only times that he talked, which appeared to require courage, were when
he asked his teacher to stop the metronome or to give him a chance to play something he
enjoyed, apart from the ‘hands separately’ performing he usually did in lessons.
Following are two examples from observations. The ﬁrst is a conversation between Leri
and his piano teacher, and the second is Leri’s reaction a few minutes before the end of a
piano lesson.

Example 1

Leri: “Can I put hands together now from the beginning and ignore the

ornaments?”

Teacher: “You always like to speed up when you perform, but it is wiser to

perform slowly and count.”

Leri: “Can I play it together once?”

Teacher: “OK, but I will still have the metronome.”

Leri: “I don’t mind, I just want to perform it together.” (Researcher Field Notes,
Piano Observation #1)

Example 2

This happened ﬁve minutes before the end of my ﬁrst observation in piano lesson:

“Leri glances at the wall clock and he starts performing a melodic piece. Teacher

turns to me and says, ‘He always plays his one music creations when he has the

chance to do that. ‘Is that one of your compositions?’ I asked. Leri continues

50

performing nodding ‘yes’ with his head.” (Researcher Field Notes, Piano

Observation # 1)

In his interview, Leri expressed his negative feelings concerning the way his
teacher controlled the class and makes decisions about his performances, even though he
also understood that she should be correcting him and giving him feedback. He said:

“You know Ms, when I perform a piece, maybe I press a wrong note or an

accidental; anyway, she stops me all the time! And I hate that. I wish she did not

stop me all the time, but just let me ﬁnish the whole thing and then made
comments! When I start a piece I want to go until the end. And she always wants
me to count the beats aloud and this disturbs me from feeling the music.” (Leri’s

Interview)

This constant focus on technique at the expense of his being able to express himself
musically was the one ‘ingredient’ he stated that he wanted to change concerning his
piano lessons.

Leri identiﬁed one important experience as a result of his piano lessons that he
really enjoyed. He performed a musical work in four hands with his teacher’s son in the
annual concert at the end of the school year. The piece was based on an arrangement that
Leri did of a contemporary Greek song. The arrangement took its ﬁnal form through
team work from the two boys, who practiced and made decisions about how the four-
hand arrangement should unfold. Leri was so excited and fascinated that he was eagerly
looking ahead to future annual concerts so that he can experience this creative musical

‘adventure’ with his partner. He said in his interview, “Sometimes her son comes to my

51

lesson and we work together on pieces we want to perform in concerts. These are ‘our’
pieces, modern. But that is only before the annual concert” (Leri Interview).

This particular learning setting was highly structured and sequential. It was like
those described by Campbell (1998) when she discussed formal music settings. Lessons
began with scales and technique pieces, and the focus was mostly on exam pieces. The
learning procedure was limited to repetition, and performance was restricted to notation.
Leri was expected to work with the metronome, count loudly, and play slowly. Teaching
was in sequential order, and Leri was not advised to work ahead, since this might
negatively affect his performance. His piano teacher understood that this type of lesson
structure probably did not meet Leri’s need to express himself musically, but she believed

that this was the best way to develop Leri’s piano performance skills.

Community Choir

The community choir was established to give children the opportunity to take part
in a ‘healthy’ hobby and so that the community had a performing group available to give
concerts as a part of community celebrations or in other situations as needed. At the time
I was gathering data, the choir was preparing to perform two songs for a national
celebration in which they were going to sing as part of the ﬁnal performance of the
celebration.

Last school year Leri started singing in the community choir. In his
autobiography, he explained, “I almost forgot how to use my voice and sing. With her
(school music teacher) this is not a chance. There is not a single music lesson without

singing. That is why I decided to participate in the community choir” (Leri’s Interview).

52

In his interview he also explained his feelings about the choir. “There it is very fun!
Many friends of mine attend this choir, they encouraged me to attend and I like it very
much” (Leri’s Interview).

He was excited about his involvement in the choir; he appeared to be totally
relaxed and conﬁdent during the rehearsals and, because of the ﬂexible and informal way
in which the rehearsals are held, he felt like he was given opportunities to apply his
musical knowledge and feel like a ‘real’ musician. He said, “Choir is fun! And I like
singing!” (Leri’s Interview)

The rehearsals took place in the huge main building of the community center,
where all of their concerts also took place. The choir teacher was a young woman who
earned her Bachelors degree three years ago, and this was her ﬁrst attempt as a director
and conductor of this choir. She took this position few months before the beginning of
this study. She explained in her interview, “I took that position few months ago. The lady
who was responsible before left and there was time when nobody was teaching here, so
when I came things were falling apart. I tried to get organized and make a new start, and
now it is just settled” (Choir Teacher Interview).

Rehearsals took place every Tuesday late in the afternoon for an hour, and Leri
attended rehearsals, even though he had a busy schedule. Choir was the only music-
learning setting in which he haf good friends, and he likef the opportunity to chat and
joke with them. During choir rehearsals, he also found a friendly audience for his
spontaneous piano performances.

Below the teacher explained her choir objectives.

53

“My objective is to provide the opportunity for children who love music and
singing to come together and sing favourite songs in the setting of a friendly
group, away from theory and technical voice skills. Of course when I meet
difﬁculties in songs I always demonstrate the correct way... Emmm.. My voice
modelling is the only way I teach singing. Some children who participate have no
idea about notation; they learn by ear.” (Choir Teacher Interview)

Later in her interview she described the informal character of the setting. “It is
not exactly a music class, of course children make music there, they sing and enjoy
music, but I wouldn’t say it’s a class. Class is a more formal thing” (Choir Teacher
Interview).

The learning setting was relaxed with no clearly stated rules or behavioural
guidelines. When I entered the room for my ﬁrst observation I was surprised.

“Children are entering the room in a noisy way, talking and laughing loudly.
Teacher enters the room with a smile, saying she is sorry for being late. She tries
to gather children in the part of the huge room in which the piano is placed and
the rehearsals take place. Children are walking all around some are running after
one another. The teacher is begging for silence...” (Researcher Field Notes, Choir
Observation # 2)

The above picture, though, does not reﬂect the important work that occurs once
the rehearsal began. Once the rehearsal started, the group of children were well— behaved,
and the rehearsal atmosphere was pleasant and promoted learning. Music making
appeared to be something that the children all desired to do. The choir teacher explained

to me:

54

“I always go in to the rehearsal with my suggestions, but when I demonstrate my
ideas for them, I let them decide what they like and how the song should be
performed. It is not the teacher giving information and telling and the children
what do. . .It is group work from all of us. I like to be a part of them, not their
teacher. They have teachers everywhere; children are fed up with teaching that
follows the formal way; they like this informal structure. I let them have breaks in
between, I mean during the rehearsal, and make jokes and communicate with each
other, get close and become friends.” (Choir Teacher Interview)
In the above excerpt, it is clear that the informality of the learning setting was
consciously established and preferred by the teacher, because she believed that it allowed
the children to express themselves and that they were competent and could play an
important role in their own learning. She also felt that the social component of the
ensemble was importance to the overall experience of the children.

During the rehearsal, the teacher used her guitar to demonstrate new songs and
gave supportive feedback to children about their performance. Leri played a vital role in
the rehearsal by accompanying songs on the keyboard or by giving new ideas about the
performance. He was the teacher’s partner in the teaching procedure and the ‘soul’ of the
group, with his creative musical interjections and his energetic and light personality. His
teacher said, “I think he is enjoying the session very much; he is so free, relaxed...
sometimes more than is appropriate.” She also admitted that, “Oh. . .I am so glad to have
him in my choir. He helps me with my job! It feels safe having him in my group” (Choir

Teacher Interview)

55

In the choir, Leri haf the freedom to express his musicality. His choir teacher
seemed to understand Leri and his musicianship. She recognized him as a partner in her
teaching and as someone upon whom she could rely and with whom she could discuss the
musical decisions that needed to be made in choir rehearsals. This was described by
Leri’s ﬁiends in the group interview as well. Two girls that attended the choir and were
also his classmates explain:

“You know Ms, I attend the community choir with Leri and he is really in his ups

during the rehearsal. He constantly changes the songs that our teacher is teaching

us into different rhythms or melodies. Known songs become jazz songs, or hip
hop songs, or pop songs. . .(some students say ouuuu..) It is great fun to have him
in the rehearsal!” (Student Focus Group Interview)

Another student stated, “I attend this choir myself, and Lerl is always there before
the rehearsal begins; he is sitting in front of the piano playing his arrangements and
teaching us how to sing the songs differently. I know Leri in class, but during the choir he
is showing a different self, happier, full of energy!” (Student Focus Group Interview).

In this learning setting, the learning procedure was not highly structured or strictly
organized. According to Carnpbell’s (1998) guidelines, this setting reﬂects many
informal and student-driven learning characteristics. There was a teacher, who haf a
ﬂexible plan and some important objectives in her mind, but the students and their
opinions and thoughts were more important to her than following her plan. As a result,
she altered her activities according to the desires and needs of the students. In this way,
there was meaningful interaction between the teacher and the students, and the

educational product was derived from both equally. That the Community Choir had no

56

formally established syllabus or teacher-articulated educational goals supporeds the
informal nature of this setting. In this setting, Leri haf an active role; he was the teacher’s

partner and he could apply his musical ideas and share his thoughts freely.

Community Traditional Dance Group

The community dance group was an engaging learning environment for children.
The teacher was a man who was approximately forty years old and had no university
education, but has attended dance seminars in Cyprus and abroad. He had been teaching
for more than ten years and was a dancer himself from his early childhood. He was strict
and clear on his objectives and demanded accuracy in performance, but he communicated
well with his students of all levels; he created an atmosphere of respect but not fear, and
this allowed children to be expressive. I heard him make jokes, and often saw him smile
and move very close to the group of students to dance and make comments, but I also
heard him give negative feedback with anger in his voice. In this setting, children were
taught mainly Greek traditional dance, although there were occasions for which they
learned dances from other cultures. Students had the opportunity to move in a variety of
meters and listen to music with different timbres, structures, harmonic organizations, and
instrumentation. They performed in concerts, and the group had its own group of
instrumental musicians for that reason. The teacher went beyond the kinaesthetic
component of the dance, and also focused on dance cognition and dance context in order

to make the children’s performances as strong as possible. Leri explained, “He (the

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teacher) is making comments about whether we dance correctly or not, I mean the steps
and of course if we feel the dance and perform it with feeling” (Leri’s Interview).

In my observations, most of the teacher’s advice to children concerned body
posture and hands and head. He was also concerned that the weight of each movement
(he uses terms as delicate and elegant movement) was appropriate for each dance. “The
teacher reminds children that they should be elegant in their steps” (Researcher Field
Notes, Dance Observation #2).

He supported his dancers while they danced with positive comments. “Teacher
tells children to form a circle again and he turns on the music of the dance. He gives
advice on their body posture and the way their steps should be delicate and light not
strong or with power, giving positive feedback to the dancers that comprehend the idea.”
(Researcher Field Notes, Dance Observation # I) The teacher explained:

“I usually demonstrate several kinds of dances and children learn the dances.

During the rehearsal I try to focus on the details of each dance, the body posture,

hands, head, the style of the dance and the expression in the performance

according to the style.” (Dance Teacher Interview)

Leri had participated in this community traditional dance group from a very
young age. In fact, even before Leri was born, his parents used to attend the group. His
ﬁrst experiences with dancing were watching his parents dancing together, which was
something that he still remembers, really admired, and wanted to do. He said during his
interview, “I always wanted to learn to dance like my father and mother; they are so

beautiful when they dance.” (Leri’s Interview)

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Dance rehearsals took place every Saturday in a comfortable room situated close
to the community center. Leri attended both the class for the younger children and also
one for the adults. Each session lasted for an hour. His dance teacher explained to me that
Leri had the maturity to perform a dance even better than many of the dancers in his adult
group, which is why he allowed Leri the opportunity to be involved in the adult group
and develop his skills to a higher level. For Leri, dance and body movement were
integrally intertwined. He said, “When I dance I feel the music in my body” (Leri’s
Interview). Leri was able to articulate the ways in which dance and movement helped
his musicianship. In his interview he stated, “. . .when I dance I express music with my
body and when I have the chance to move to a rhythm my mind stores the experience and
the meters” (Leri’s Interview).

The teacher modelled well and he danced with his students regularly. He began
with giving the children the experience of the basic movements of the dance ﬁrst and the
meter, and then he continued with the variations of steps.

“The teacher tells everyone to clap the meter. It is a 7/ 8 meter. Leri is successful

in clapping the meter and is bouncing his head as well to the meter. Teacher then

counts the macrobeats as he demonstrates the steps. Children watch, Leri is not
giving much attention; he looks around and he is tapping his legs to macrobeats.

The teacher tells students to step as he shows in the middle of the circle starting

with right foot.” (Researcher Field Notes, Dance Observation #1)

In his interview, the dance teachers explained, “First I demonstrate steps, the
simplest at the beginning and more complicated one later on, without music. I stand in

front of them and they get the steps. I usually count or speak the rhythm of the dance in

59

words or syllables so they can get the meter. Then I put the music and we dance with
music.” (Dance Teacher Interview)

He also adopted some child-centered educational techniques, such as having
children problem solve and work and interact in smaller groups. “The teacher proposes
that they should form groups and learn those steps with the music. Each group is also
encouraged to come up with a variation of steps that could feet in the choreography of the
dance.” (Researcher Field Notes, Dance Observation #1) He engaged with the children
and expended a lot of energy in his teaching by moving around, dancing, and giving
feedback.

However, the teacher also had high expectations for correctness and expected
focus and good behaviour from his students. The following is an example of ﬁeld notes
from a dance observation:

“The third dance is on. The teacher gives instruction on how quickly they should

get to their places while the introduction of that dance is heard. Some children are

not quite ready when the dance begins, are not in the correct place, and there is a

confusion in the room. After a phrase of total mess, children are back to correct

places and dance. The teacher looks upset he stands up and walks around, making

comments on particular children who do not dance with expression. He makes a

comment on Leri’s hands as well.” (Researcher Field Notes, Dance Observation

#2)

Leri, in his autobiography wrote that dance was fun for him and that he likes it
because he hfs the chance to be with friends and he could perform on concerts and take

trips with the dance group. “Dance is more like fun for me. I meet friends in the dance

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rehearsals, we give concerts and take trips” (Leri’s Autobiography). He found it
interesting to be able to dance in the ‘adult’ group, and he articulated the teaching
procedure in his interview. “Due to the fact that I started dancing at a very young age, I
can perform with the dancing group of the adults. That is very interesting. (smiles). Our
teacher, a man.... we are relatives in a way... demonstrates each dance and we dance.
Without the music ﬁrst and then with music. Sometimes the rehearsal is just for the boys
and other times for girls so as to correct details in each part and then put us together”
(Leri’s Interview). Leri, however, understood the importance of this setting and he related
movement and dance to the cognition of meter and rhythm. He said, “The dance is very
important, because when I move to a rhythm with my body, this rhythm becomes mine
from that moment and when I ﬁnd that same rhythm in the piano performance, I don’t
have to think at all, it comes naturally. And we are taught many different dances from all
over the world, so...” (Leri’s Interview). The above extract shows how Leri really valued
and understood his involvement in dance and how beneﬁcial this was for his
musicianship.

Leri’s dance classes fell between structured and guided, using Campbell’s (1988)
guidelines. It was structured because the teacher provided knowledge most of the time
and was the leader of the teaching process. However, he gave students the chance to
work in groups and interact and even to add their own invented choreography. There
were activities that were child-centered, like the group work and when students taught
each other, but also others that were teacher-centered, such as when the teacher
demonstrated and students followed. The teacher-centered nature of the classroom was

also evident whent the teacher expressed anger toward the students. Leri valued his

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participation in the dance group because he got to experience meter through body
movement. He believed that this was essential for his rhythmic development. Also, he

liked the opportunity to socialize with ﬁiends, give public performances, and take trips.

Drum Exploration

Leri’s drum exploration consists of an hour practice in an available room that had
a drum set. Most of the times he went there with a friend of his, Niko (a pseudonym),
who had the access to that room in a private music school because of connections he had
with the drum teacher. The school was owned by the uncle of a friend of Leri’s, and the
drum room was available for an hour every Tuesday aftemoon because the drum teacher
did not have class at that time. The room was not especially designed for drum
instruction. It was rather small with windows on one side; the sound echoed and created
cacophony. However, Leri and his friends felt lucky to have the option of using that
room, which also contained a keyboard, and the drum set. For Leri, drums tied directly in
to his love for expressing music through movement and to his ability to be creative
rhythmically. He said, “Drums are a separate music world for me. It gives me power I
don’t know how to explain. It ﬁlls me up with energy.” (Leri’s Interview) Unfortunately,
because of room-scheduling conﬂicts, I was only able to observe Leri’s music-making on
drums once.

There were times, however, when this group got bigger, as was true my
observation, during which there were three children. On this speciﬁc observation, the
three children worked on a piece, and they shared roles in order to perform it; Leri was

performing the on drums. However, this single observation may not be characteristic of

62

what typically happened when Leri played the drums in this setting. Leri’s comment
made me believe that most of the time he experimented with sounds and explored rather
than trying to copy and perform speciﬁc repertoire. He wrote in his biography, “When I
found out that I can have access to drums because of one of my friends, I took the
opportunity to go and try. It is amazing! It is so easy for me. I just feel the beat and play. I
like quick beats” (Leri’s Autobiography).

Leri identiﬁed his drum exploration as the second most exciting activity in which
he engaged musically, with the most exciting activity being creating his own
compositions and arrangements. This have been be because playing drums ‘sounded’ like
a trendy activity among teenagers, but it could also have related to Leri’s early childhood
experiences, when his father played drums. Leri received encouragement from his peers
for playing drum set. One of Leri’s friends in the group interview expressed excitement
that Leri could perform on the drums. He said, “He invited some of us for a birthday
party at his home, and he performed strange things on the drums. Did you know Ms. that
he can play the drums as well? Nobody taught him. He is cool! The beat comes from his
body, and he is so relaxed when playing, like he does not have to think about what he is
doing! His hands are moving by themselves! I don’t know how to explain that.” (Student
Focus Group Interview)

Leri’s father was a good enough drummer that he used to play for his friends.
Leri’s mother, in her interview, told me that they used to have set of drums at home in the
basement for Leri’s father. She explained, “I only danced from when I was very young; I
have the beat inside me, but no idea about performing on any instrument. My husband

knows how to play the drums. He used to play in small groups when he was younger and

63

we had them in the basemen.” (Parents’ Interview). Leri’s choir teacher remembers
Leri’s father as an excellent drummer. In her interview she said, “Leri is the kind of child
who had music in his genes from when he was born. I know his father, and he was
talented in music too. I remember him playing the drums on occasions with friends and

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he was really good! Like a professional drummer (Choir Teacher Interview).

It did not appear that Leri’s attempt to learn drums was driven by a need for group
making music; he had to go there with friends because of the access to the room. His
leaming to play drums seemed to be driven by the desire to come up with different
rhythm patterns and fancy improvisations in different meters.

During my observation in this setting, Leri and his ﬁiends (a boy and a girl)
planned to work on some songs they all liked but that Leri chose from a CD. One of the
songs was among those that his choir teacher taught them. The other two children were
also members of the community choir. Leri played the drums, Niko played his guitar, and
Anna (pseudonym) helped with vocal parts. I asked them at the beginning of their
rehearsal about their objectives, and Leri answered, “We thought it will be fun to work on
two or three songs we like. I brought the CD with me as well. (He shows the CD). One
of them is a song I learned in the choir, and it is so nice. Maybe we cOuld surprise our
choir teacher and perform it for her after we rehearse it a couple of times.” And then he
added, “It’s just fun Ms, it is not a serious work. This music making is a break for us”
(Leri’s Interview).

While observing their experimentations on how to get started learning the melody

of the song and then how to divide roles and practice it, Leri was the leader of the

process, and his opinions were ‘obeyed’ by the other two friends. He also seemed

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prepared for that, because he brought with him the text of the song in a handout, the CD,
and he went ﬁrst before the others and was practicing alone until they came. Also, he
invited Anna to come, because he thought that she could help with singing. The following
extract from my ﬁeld notes shows how they started their work.

“Niko puts on the CD with the song, a Greek one from a famous Greek group.

They sing it together with the CD and Leri is standing acting like a singer moving

his body to the beat. After their ﬁrst try, Leri sits in front of the drums and he is

singing the refrain, accompanying it with the drums. Niko proposed that they
should take it from the beginning. As soon as they ﬁgure out the tonality they
should perform it. It is in a major key. Leri proceeds to the piano, which is in the
room and is experimenting with the melody with his right hand. He changes his
beginning to a lower key because his ﬁrst attempt was going very high and he
could not sing in that range. He decides that D major is a good key to begin with.”

(Researcher Field Notes, Drum Observation)

Leri was the one to decide the chord harmonization of the song in order to give
them to the guitarist of the group (Niko) and he continued to make suggestions without
really leaving the choice for disagreement from his friends, as the following interactions
between them demonstrate.

Anna: “1 think it’s a good idea to perform it with piano and guitar ﬁrst after you

move to drums and leave Niko with the guitar”

Leri: “That is not necessary. I will sing with you and perform the drums just the

main rhythm... simple things at the beginning”

Anna: “Anyway, let’s do it”

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And later on:

“Leri is playing an introduction with the drums and they begin singing. He just
taps the macrobeats and sings together with Anna. They gountil the middle and
Leri stops them. He proposes that they should take it from the beginning and let
Anna just sing because he wanted to play something more sophisticated on the
drums. Anna messes up after a few lines and Leri proposes that they should put on

the CD again for Anna to absorb the song better. The CD is on, they all listen and
Leri is performing at the same time, with the CD on the drums.” (Researcher

Field Notes, Drum Observation)

Near the end of their session, they worked better as a group and shared ideas
concerning the song dynamics. This was the only part of the session during which I
observed them sharing ideas.

Anna: “1 think we should decide on some dynamics before we go on”

Leri: “That’s a good idea. Take a pencil and take notes on the handout I gave

you.”

Leri is reading the words and they all decide the dynamics depending on the

meaning of the text.” (Researcher Field Notes, Drum Observation)

Leri articulated a well-organized procedure, one that he controlled and
established, that involved working alone and using problem solving strategies similar to
those described by other researchers (Campbell, 1995: Green, 2002; Jaffurs, 2006;
Wiggins, 1999, 2000). During my observation, I identiﬁed applied approaches to learning

through listening in order to copy musical aspects of the songs, peer-directed learning and

group learning, and exchanging directions and ideas through playing, talking, watching

66

and listening as the core strategies that Leri and his friends used during this learning
setting.

Drum exploration was the only settings for which I did not have two observations
in order to verify and clarify my assumptions. As a result, I am less conﬁdent of my
observations in this venue. The content of this hour of practice seemed to depend on
Leri’s free time and his mood. When I observed, the children seemed like they might
have made an effort to get organized and show me a positive picture of their activities.
Still, what I observed were extremely reﬂective interactions between the children. The
three of them, with leadership from Leri, went through a learning process by
experimenting and using mostly listening skills. What I observed in this setting support
the ﬁndings of Green’s (2002) study of popular musician’s learning techniques as well as
the techniques used by the children in Jaffur’s (2006) study and Campbell’s (1995) study
of garage bands. It was clear that this setting was a natural enculturative setting
(Campbell 1998) in which peer-directed teaching occured through listening, talking,
playing and watching each other to obtain the sought-after musical result. Leri enjoyed
this setting because it allows him to “play” musically. He felt like he could express

himself musically when he played drums.

School Music Class
In Cyprus, students have music classes every year twice a week as a curricular
subject from the ﬁrst grade through sixth. These classes are similar to general music
classes in the United States, so they include some singing, moving and dancing, reading

and writing music, recorder and music appreciation. In this particular school, a small

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room that was previously the teachers’ study room was used for music classes. Children
came to this room when they had music. There were desks and chairs in the room, as in
all other rooms, because the headmaster of the school believed that music is a ‘serious’
class like the rest in the curriculum and that the room set up should be the same as for the
academic subjects. As the teacher, I had arranged the desks in groups where students can
go when I assigned group activities or upon which to place the Orff instruments that we
used frequently. During the other activities, students formed a circle in the middle of the
classroom. The number of students in each class varied from 20 to 29, and Leri’s class
had 21 students.

My main goal as a general music teacher is to give every single child the
opportunity to learn to understand music. If I acculturate my students by providing them a
rich music environment and vocabulary, and if I involve them in unique music-making
experiences, I believe that they will value music and beneﬁt from it. I want to motivate
children and get them engaged in music so that making music will become a lifelong
endeavour. I am careful to be as reﬂective as possible about how to make music learning
meaningful and how to meet children needs according to their individual differences. My
music classes always include singing in a variety of meters and tonalities, rhythm and
tonal patterns, recorder practice, movement and dance, and also simple orchestrations
using Orff and percussion instruments.

Leri was a student in my music class during 2007-2008, and it took me several
class periods to understand the depth of his musical background so that I could try to
meet his needs as a young musician. After the incident I described in the beginning of this

thesis, I realized that Leri was not only extremely musically competent but that he also

68

had the courage to express his musical opinions. As his teacher, it was one of my goals
to motivate him in my class and to challenge him enough to keep his attention and ﬁll any
‘holes’ in his musical knowledge. Leri was a challenge for me and my teaching, because
at the beginning of the school year he just sat in the classroom without displaying any
interest. I did not know his aptitude or level of achievement, but he gave me the
impression that what I was teaching was not meeting his musical needs. After a while I
managed to engage him in the class activities and motivate him, and he changed his
whole conception of what a school music class could provide to him; he realized that
there were activities going on in the class that captured his attention. He said in his
musical autobiography,

“My school music teacher has an expressive voice; when she sings the class

freezes to listen to her. It is the ﬁrst time in the music class at school that I don’t

get bored. She always has something challenging for us, and the repertoire she is
using is so cool. I like the tonal and rhythm patterns she is giving us; these really
help. I ﬁnd so helpful the fact that she makes me break my boundaries, because,

for the last 6 years, I remember myself just playing the piano.” (Leri’s

Autobiography)

Also, as his teacher and through out my observations of Leri, it became obvious
that, even though he found some of the activities in my class interesting, he did not care
about music class in the same way as he cared about the other music settings that he
attended. His actions demonstrated that he thought that music at school was one of the
least important sources of his musical growth, even though he said that he enjoyed

different activities in the class. In his interview when he talked about school music class

69

he said, “At school, you know how it is! But I think there is a difference this year,
because we are taught together with you, is not like previous experiences I had with
teachers who just gave us information. I don’t know if you understand. . .We make music
together, you and the students. I feel like we are at college.” (Leri’s Interview) And later,
when I asked him to rank the importance of the music settings in which he is involved, he
stated the following. “First come the composition again, then the piano, dance, choir,
drums and music classes at school. Sorry Ms, I did not want to offend you!” (laughing)
(Leri’s Interview).

In the following example, Leri articulated activities that he enjoyed in class.
“These rhythm patterns you taught us with the syllables, I found very important to me.
You know my piano teacher taught me to count the rhythm, but with the syllables you
taught us, it is easier. At school I like it when I have to change roles from playing the
keyboard, or the Xylophone, or the recorder; it makes me ﬂexible” (Leri’s Interview).

The learning setting in school was similar to what I described in the discussion of
the dance rehearsal. It shifted from structured to guided activities, according to
Campbell’s categories (Campbell, 1998). Leri expressed that this year he feels challenged
in this learning setting and that he was expanding his musicianship because of the roles
he was able to take during class. He valued his experience performing on different kinds
of percussion instruments and his opportunity to be creative in this setting during
improvisation and exploration that the teacher provides. However, he did not ﬁnd music

classes in school to be centrally important to his musical development.

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Compositions - Arrangements - Improvisations
Leri, in his interview, talked about the fact that he composed and arranged pieces.
He said, “At home when I have free time I compose. . .Every day I have time for that.
Rarely a day ﬁnishes when I don’t work with my compositions in my room alone!
Especially at nights” (Leri’s Interview).
In his autobiography he explained, “Piano helps me a lot in composing my music.
I always sit at the piano to compose or arrange; it is easy for me. The right hand plays the
melody, and I can ﬁnd something for the left hand to accompany my composition.” He
explained in his interview that, at around age nine, he realized that he could listen to a
song from the radio and ﬁgure out how to play it on the keyboard; he could copy the
song. Around the same age he started his composition and arrangement attempts. He said,
“I sit in front of the piano and I can create a melody by myself. At the beginning they
were very similar to the melodies that I had already learned at school or at the piano
lessons. Later I could compose new things! That’s howl started and never stopped from
that time” (Leri’s Interview).
Later in his interview he tries to explained his musical process while trying to
compose or arrange a piece. Below is an extract from the interview:
What exactly do you do when you are I do many things! Sometimes, I play
alone with your piano? music that comes to my mind, and I try to
make that music a composition. I start
with a phrase that comes to my mind and
continue to complete it. Sometimes I

begin with a rhythm I like... a rhythm

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These are compositions. The

arrangements?

from a familiar song I was taught at
school or in the choir, or even a beat from
a dance and in that rhythm I try to
compose a melody. Some of these
compositions have words. I like fast
tempo and fast rhythms but I think I can
easier compose slow songs.

Well I can change any piece to any style I
like, a classical piece to a hip hop rhythm,
or jazz or pop! I once arranged Fur Elise;
it was interesting! I make arrangements
of most of my classical repertoire from the
piano lesson. They become more
interesting when I arrange them. And I
can ﬁgure out how to play a piece or a
song when I listen to it in a CD and I like
it. Sometimes my friends ask me to do
that and tell them the notation, in order to

perform a song they like.

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How do you do that? I listen to it many times, and I sing the
song. I have to learn sing the song before
I begin to ﬁgure out the melody in the
piano. Then I ﬁnd the melody with the
right hand. Then I try myself to put
chords with the melody. This is the ﬁrst
step. Then I try to make it richer, by
adding other notes that could ﬁt the
melody. This is my favourite part. And I
continue listening to the song from the CD
and try to play it with a touch of Leri.

Touch of Leri? Laughing... To put things that I can ﬁnd

and the original song does not have them.

OK! I understand... And I play these pieces again and again
every day and make changes since I am

happy with the result.

Leri talked about his compositions with pride and enthusiasm. He believed that
the most important moments of his musical involvement were when he was alone in front
of the keyboard crating music using the knowledge that he had gained from all his other
activities. When he composed, he collected ‘ingredients’ from the rest of his music
learning settings and he incorporated them into his own musical expressions. If his

musical involvement were represented by a pyramid, his compositions would be at the

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top of the pyramid. He said that composition made him understand music better. “What I
do by myself at home is the most important. I understand music better when I try to
compose myself. It helps me a lot to try a chord and change it with another, or to put
melody in different rhythms. Em. . .I try a melody, I change it, or, or I put a chord
progressions, I can change it if I don’t like it...” (Leri’s Interview).

As Leri’ teacher in music class, school choir, and orchestra, I found that I should
expect musical changes from Leri, even in a concert performance. Sometimes those
changes were a product of his working at home, solving problems and ﬁnding different
alternatives for a speciﬁc piece and sometimes they were chosen on the spot in the
performance setting. His choices usually were appropriate. If he wanted to change
something during rehearsal, he asked my opinion. “Is it OK how I ended that song? I was
thinking of doing that instead...” (Researcher Field Notes, School Choir Observation and
Orchestra Observation). His choir teacher also mentioned, as I explain in previous
discussion, that he never strictly followed the notation she gave him for the songs. He
always came up with new arrangements and added components to them.

In school music class, I usually devised group assignments for children to create
simple instrumentations or create an accompaniment to a melody using melodic or
rhythmic patterns. Leri sometimes choose to work alone to create his accompaniment,
and then sometimes changed it when it was time to present what he had been working on.
When he made changes, both versions of his accompaniment were musically appropriate,
and many times the second was even more complex than the ﬁrst. Once I had him just
improvise on the Xylophone for “Silent Night,” which we performed in a Christmas

concert. I was playing the piano, and a girl was singing a solo. When I was rehearsing

74

that day, he picked up the mallets and started adding ornaments to the melody. I decided
to let him do that for the concert as well. This was meaningful to Leri, as he mentioned
the experience in his interview. He said, “I like that it is creative. One time she told me
just to improvise on the xylophone while the rest of the school orchestra and choir was
performing a piece. This was one of the best music moments I have experienced” (Leri’s
Autobiography). Similarly, when he practiced a glockenspiel part with a group when
they were working alone on a group orchestration, he did different things that ﬁt the
melody beautifully when his group was asked to present their work.

Leri liked to share his compositions and arrangements with others through
performance. His friends had heard him perform his compositions and arrangements for
them during school breaks or at other occasions when they were gathered together, and
they described those creations nice and interesting.

Anthony: I heard his composition ‘Rain.’

Bera: I heard that too.

Felipe: He used to play that one all the time in the breaks between classes.

Ioli: It is very nice. (Student Focus Group Interview)

His piano teacher was excited when she heard Leri’s arrangement of the Greek
contemporary song just before last year’s annual piano concert. She explained to me in
her interview,

“I listened to it and thought: ‘Oh my God!’ This should be performed in a concert.

It was so rich with his changes, so creative! Leri had the idea of working with my

son for that piece, and this resulted in a four-hand creation. When they came

together, I had a memorable experience watching and listening to them. They

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were communicating in an excellent way musically and came up with a fantastic

creation.” (Piano Teacher Interview)
The same teacher told me in her interview that she believed that Leri’s musical creations
were so good that they should be recorded.

Leri’s composing and arranging were the musical activities that he valued and
enjoyed the most. They allowed him to express himself musically in the purest possible
form. He had complete control of the music environment when he was composing.

These were the most informal and naturalistic of Leri’s music-making activities.

Summary

Leri was involved in different music learning settings with a variety of teaching
approaches and objectives. During his participation in these settings Leri had the
opportunity to experience a diversity of ‘ingredients’ occurring in each setting because of
the different teaching styles, goal orientations and human interactions. Therefore, he had
varied levels of personal involvement in the learning process through which he could
satisfy his complex musical needs.

During piano lessons, which were highly structured and sequential, he was
focused on the improvement of instrumental technique and success in the piano exams.
The way the setting was structured minimised his opportunities for exploration or
personal musical expression, which he missed and wanted in the setting, but he valued
the skills gained from this setting as necessary for his composition and arrangement
work. This was the reason that, even though he was not fully satisﬁed with some of the

teaching approaches, he had never thought of quitting piano lessons; actually piano was

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the instrument that he believed that ﬁt him because of its timbre and performance
possibilities. The community choir and the dance had a different structure. They
reﬂected many informal and student-driven learning characteristics. Leri in those
particular settings had an active role in the teaching procedures, particularly in the choral
setting. He could share his musical ideas and thoughts, work with friends, and express his
self through movement and singing activities that he enjoyed. In those settings he had the
opportunity to give public performances and receive approval from an audience. His
drum exploration had an informal character. Through his drum exploration, Leri gained
knowledge and developed his musicianship through peer-oriented practice with self-
selected repertoire. In this setting Leri and his friends used approaches of listening and
copying music, as well as experimenting and problem-solving. School music classes’ also
incorporated student-centered activities and provided opportunities for peer work and
creativity. The multidimensional setting in school music class, with the variety of
activities (movement, singing, tonal and rhythmic patterns, composition, improvisation,
use of percussion instruments and the recorder) motivated Leri and satisﬁed him because
of the challenges he confronted. However, the time he spendt on his own composition-
arrangement-improvisation practice was what Leri identiﬁed as his favourite and the most
valuable of his music activities. In this setting he could interpret, use, and adjust the
experiences and musical knowledge that he had gained from the other learning settings
and apply them in his own creations. He recognised that this was essential for him
because, during this process, that he improved his understanding of music and its

elements.

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CHAPTER 5 - THEMES AND CODES
In analysing the data, three main theme areas emerged that shed light on Leri’s
involvement in his music learning settings, his perceptions about their value, and his
intentions and reasons concerning his future musical involvement. The ﬁrst theme centers
around the inﬂuences from others that motivated Leri’s attendance and continuation in
music classes. The second theme centered around the ‘ingredients’ inherent to the settings
themselves that facilitated learning and that made Leri want to engage. By exploring
these ‘ingredients,’ I will attempt to highlight the educational reasons for Leri’s
persistence in these learning settings. The last theme focuses on thoughts about his future
music making and the factors that affect his plans.
The following outline shows the way these themes are organized and are going to
be discussed.
People Matter

> The inﬂuence of family

> The inﬂuence of teachers

> The inﬂuence of friends

The Ingredients of Meaningful Musical Involvement

> A voice in the learning process

> Fundamental love of music and music-making

> Means of self expression

> Being the leader of a group

Reasons for Persisting

> Value of venues

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> A career as a musician

People Matter
Leri receives tremendous encouragement from his family, friends, and teachers,
and this provides motivation for his musical involvement. Each of these three sets of
people ﬁnd ways to let Leri know that what he does is important and unique and that he is
really good at it. In this section, I hope to explain the roles that speciﬁc groups of people

play in Leri’s music-making endeavours.

The inﬂuence of family

Leri’s family has provided strong support and a rich musical environment that has
reinforced his music learning and has motivated him to make music. Leri’s parents
believe in the value of music and feel strongly that their children should be given the
opportunity to learn music as a way to enrich their lives. Leri’s father stated, “I value
music very much. I always believe in the saying that any person who does not get
involved in music in his life is not civilised” (Parents’ Interview). Leri’s father is a man
who expressed himself through music, and he understands and enjoys music. He taught
himself to play the drums and is a dance partner to Leri’s mother.

Leri was born into and grew up with a rich musical environment. He remembers
spending time with his grandmother, who used to sing to him in a beautiful voice, from a
very early childhood age. He mentioned, “My grandmother has no idea about music; she
never took any lessons or learned to play any instrument. Yet she has an excellent voice

and she used to sing to me all the time” (Leri’s Autobiography). Also, his uncle plays

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the bouzouki (which is a stringed instrument with a pear—shaped body and a very long
neck), the guitar, and the lute. Family occasions often turned in to group musical
performances, during which Leri performed on the tambourine, and everybody was
involved. This family tradition continues now with Leri performing on piano to
accompany his family singing. In his autobiography Leri wrote, “During Christmas
holidays or other family gatherings we used to sing and dance. My uncle was playing the
guitar or the bouzouki, the rest were singing, and I was playing the tambourine. This is
what I could do at the age of 4 or 5 years old. Now at family gatherings, I play the
piano!” His mother, who describes Leri as a ‘musical child,’ is happy about the music
making at their house. She said, “How can I describe how wonderful it is to be home,
even doing house work and listen to Leri play the piano?” (Parents’ Interview) She
remembers Leri when he was very young showing interest in musical detail. He preferred
toy instruments to guns or cars, which were what the rest of his friends asked for from
their parents. As a child, he enjoyed listening to music on TV or recordings, and he was
bouncing and dancing before he was even walking. His mother stated, “I remember when
he listened to music he used to move and dance and when he watched something musical
on TV, he was intensively focused.” (Parents’ Interview) She also values music and
believes that music is ‘food for the soul’ and makes a person’s personality beautiﬁrl.
During the parents’ interview, when I asked Leri’s mother if she values music and
whether she preferred that her child had a different talent she answered, “No, I believe
music is food for soul and it calms one down; music makes someone beautiful inside.

And me myself, I am pretty emotional and I depend on my emotions. I need to listen to

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music to calm down. Sometimes I have problems and thoughts, and when] listen to

'9,

music I change inside. Music is a gift (Parents’ Interview)

Leri’s piano teacher mentioned that his mother is an important part of their
lessons because of her support and cooperation. She keeps herself informed about the
goals and activities in the lessons, as well as about the homework, and she supports her
child in every way she can. The extended family attends Leri’s concert, whether these are
piano concerts or choir or dance or school concerts. “We go to every concert he
performs. . . .I listen to his creations. . .We are all next to him supporting him and
encouraging him in his music making,” says his mother (Parents’ Interview).

Leri experienced music as a normal part of family life from a very early age. The
rich early childhood musical environment probably helped to support Leri’s his musical
development. As Gordon (2003) suggests, “the sooner children begin to enjoy a rich
music environment, the sooner their music aptitude will begin to move upward toward its

birth level, and the closer it will come to reaching and remaining at that level throughout

life.” (p. 14)

The influence of teachers
Leri’s teachers ﬁnd ways to show their enthusiasm by awarding him special roles
in their educational settings. One of Leri’s friends said, “I remember when our teacher
gave him a solo to sing for a concert and the audience was applauding for very long when
he ﬁnished his performance!” (Student Focus Group Interview)
Leri experienced early success in music, which made his teachers take note and

give him considerable attention. His dance teacher found that Leri, when he was quite

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young, could perform a difficult traditional Cyprus dance, “and I wanted to Show that to
the audience and promote him in a way. He performed the dance in an excellent way and
he also improvised some steps because this dance is open for improvisations according to
the performer skills. Everyone was talking about him after the end of the performance. I
thought, I should have Leri in the second group as well.” (Dance Teacher Interview) His
dance teacher stated that he will never forget Leri’s maturity and correct posture and
expression in that particular performance. Leri demonstrated his improvisation skills that
conformed to the context of the dance.

Leri’s choir teacher is willing to give up some control during the rehearsal and let
Leri take the lead a bit as an acknowledgement of his musical strength. This role is very
important to Leri, because it gives him the opportunity to make decisions on performance
style and interpretation and to try his ideas in the ensemble. The choir teacher discusses
in her interview this dynamic of authority and power. She appreciates Leri’s contribution
to the choir and admits that he acts as her collaborator. This will be discussed in detail in
more detail in as a part of the second theme.

Leri has experienced success from the beginning of his musical journey, and this
has given him a sense of achievement that has been partly driven by the consistent and
positive feedback from his teachers. Leri remembers that his ﬁrst grade music teacher
told him that he had a very nice voice and that he could be a successful musician when he
grew up. Praise of his musicianship, like this, has been a consistent theme in Leri’s life.
In his autobiography Leri wrote, “There is one music teacher when I was in the ﬁrst grade
who I can not forget. She told me I had a very nice voice and she told I could be a

successful musician when I grow up. She used to give me special attention in her class. I

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was one of her favourite students. She was my music teacher for two years.” (Leri’s
Autobiography) This teacher distinguished him from the rest of the children, giving him
special attention and also clues concerning his musical capacities. She obviously
encouraged him to continue music making.

This type of praise and acknowledgement has continued as Leri has grown older.
His piano teacher stated, “Leri was born to make music! I feel that it is rare, once every
many years to meet a student like Leri. . .He is musical in everything he does” (Piano
Teacher Interview). Similarly his dance teacher said, “I can tell you that if Leri because
of any reason does not become a musician, ‘music’ will loose a talent” (Dance Teacher
Interview). His dance teacher and his piano teacher express how talented he is and that
this was obvious from their very ﬁrst contacts with Leri. His piano teacher said, “I
realized from the very ﬁrst moment that he was a talented boy in music. It was so easy to
teach him; he had the rhythm inside from birth; he was accurate in his singing...” (Piano
Teacher Interview)

The support and conﬁdence of Leri’s teachers in his musicianship has encouraged
Leri to continue his musical study. Their approval and acknowledgement of his musical
participation and success, as well as their some of their decisions during? the learning
process, have motivated Leri. His teachers have given him the opportunity to reveal his
musical achievement and strengthen his self esteem. Leri has become certain that he has

special musical capacities.

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The inﬂuence of friends

His ﬁiends consider Leri to be a ‘star’ who is talented in music. One of them said
during the focus group interview, “He is going to make a career outside Cyprus, maybe
representing Cyprus in music competitions! Something very important!” (Student Focus
Group Interview). Another friend expressed his certainty that Leri will become a
musician. When] asked them to guess about what Leri will be doing in the future, he
answered, “I can not see anything different from music. . .He is going to be a musician
hundred per cent!” (Student Focus Group Interview).

Leri’s friends at school also give him positive feedback by listening to and
enjoying his performing during school breaks or during music class. They speak about
him with enthusiasm and feel lucky to have him in their choir and orchestra as well as in
their class. During the focus group interview I did with some of the members of the
school choir and orchestra, I received consistent positive and enthusiastic answers from
the students when I asked them to tell me what they thought about Leri and music. Some
of their answers were the following: “He has great rhythm,” “He dances beautifully,”
“He sings accurately,” His voice has a broad range,” “Did you know Ms that he
composes his one songs?” “As soon as he listens to a song, he can ﬁgure out how to play
it on the keyboar ” (Student Focus Group Interview). These spontaneous answers from
his classmates Show how consistently and strongly they admire his musical achievement.
This admiration may be one of the factors that fuels Leri’s drive to excel musically.

Leri likes to socialize and have friends around him when making music. He
explains how his friends have encouraged him to attend the choir. “Many friends of mine

attend this choir, they encouraged me to attend and I like it very much” (Leri’s

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Interview), In the choir setting, he enjoys socializing with friends in addition to music
making. However, choir and sometimes his drum exploration are the only learning
settings in which he has good friends with whom to share. He says, “Only in the choir]
talk with my friends, sending text messages with my mobile phone...” (Leri’s Interview).
However he enjoys having friends around him while he performs and sings especially his
one arrangement’s or compositions. He said, “I play the piano and make my one staff
with the songs, and I give performances to my friends and I sing as well and play the

piano” (Leri’s Interview).

Summary

Family, friends, and teachers have played a signiﬁcant role in Leri’s persistence
and have reinforced his desire for musical involvement. His family and relatives have
been supportive and caring concerning his early childhood attempts to get involved in
music making. They have never discouraged him; on the contrary they valued what he
did and Show him their appreciation and admiration. His teachers also provided him with
positive feedback for his achieving in the learning settings and gave him the opportunity
to undertake difﬁcult and important roles in which he showed his musical strength. Leri’s
friends are enthusiastic about his musical achievement, and they express their
appreciation for him. They like listening to his compositions and arrangements, and he
likes to share these with them. They provide a safe, ﬁiendly environment in which he can
try things out and get a friendly opinion; therefore his friends have supported him to a

great extent in his music making.

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The Ingredients of Meaningful Music Involvement
In this section of the paper, I hope to identify the components of the
teaching/leaming environments that meet Leri’s needs and satisfy him musically across
his music learning settings. I also will try to explore what he enjoys and values most and

identify the types of learning opportunities that allow him self expression.

A Voice in Learning Process

A common component concerning Leri’s participation in the different learning
settings is that he tends to establish an active role and want a voice in the
teaching/learning process. He is continuously alert and makes sure that his presence is
obvious in the learning setting. During my observations in choir, he made a point of
being in the room a few minutes before the beginning of the rehearsal so that he could
play the piano and create a musical atmosphere that immediately would engage the rest of
the students entering the room. He wants to ‘donate’ his own talents and strengths to the
setting. His choir teacher says that Leri has a strong musical opinion on everything that
takes place in the setting and that he always wants to play a vital role and be a part of
decisions. She said, “Well he is a boy who has very strong opinions about music. He
knows what he likes and what he prefers to sing. When I demonstrate songs, he is the one
to express his thoughts and he always wants to select songs he will perform in the piano,
or sing solo” (Choir Teacher Interview).

He wants to be included in helping to decide what repertoire will be performed or
how an activity will unfold in all of his learning settings. He likes the freedom to express

his thoughts. Talking about the choir and his leadership in rehearsals, he said, “Our

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teacher demonstrates the new songs to us by playing the guitar, and afterwards in other
rehearsals I sometimes play the piano and sing or just sing” (Leri’s Interview). And later
on in his interview he expanded on that by saying, “Ms, is very fun there. I have the
chance to play my arrangements on the piano, before the teacher comes, and all my
friends enjoy that. Sometimes my teacher asks me to perform things I can do with the
songs she gives us. She can’t play the piano and I am very useful member in the choir.
But I like singing as well.” Although he says that his teacher asks him to perform his
arrangements, ] observed that he asks to perform rather than is asked. The following
extract from a choir observation is an example.

“The teacher is begging for silence and children slowly are heading close to the

piano. Leri is still performing the songs and saying hello to all the children who

come close to the piano.

Teacher: That is a very interesting arrangement of that song Leri. How did you

come up with that?

Leri: You like it hah? But we could not perform it like that right?

Teacher: Maybe we could...

Leri raises both arms up, showing excitement pronouncing ‘yea...’ with the

movement of his body without any voice.” (Video Transcription, Choir

Observation # 2)

In that choir observation, he later repeated his intention to perform a speciﬁc song
on the keyboard so that the rest of the class can sing. He said, “Let’s sing that one again. I

can play the piano.” The rest of the children automatically applauded his idea and his

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suggestion is put into practice on the spot (Researcher Field Notes, Choir Observation #
2).

His choir teacher admits that Leri is her partner in the teaching procedure. She
said, “Yea... Isn’t that great! He is part of my decisions for the way we perform the songs
and the way we perform the introduction and the closure” (Choir Teacher Interview).

Being his music teacher, I have experienced similar challenges with Leri. He
wants to have control of his learning process and to be constantly challenged. Leri has
expressed his enthusiasm with me as his present school teacher in his interview and
autobiography because I was not like his previous school music teachers. He wrote in his
biography, “It is the ﬁrst time in the music class at school that I don’t get bored. She
always has something challenging for us, and the repertoire she is using is so cool”
(Leri’s Autobiography). I keep his interest by giving him the challenge he needs; I
speciﬁcally design activities that push his musical limits and make him active. He wrote:

“She (school music teacher) gives the class music challenges to confront and she

gave me the chance to play different instruments as well) and this is helpful

because I can see different ways to express my musicianship. Before her, I always
played the keyboard in music classes because I believe I am really good at that.

With her as my teacher I Ieamed how to play the Orff instruments, doing different

rhythms on the chords. I like that it is creative. One time she told me just to

improvise in the Xylophone while the rest of the school orchestra was performing

a piece. This was one of the best music moments I experienced. I ﬁnd so helpful

her making me break my boundaries, because for the last 6 years I remember my

self just playing the piano.” (Leri’s Autobiography)

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Connected to the fact that he wants to have control in directing the teaching
process is his feeling that he views his teacher both as teachers and partners in rather that
in charge of the learning process. “At school, you know how it is! But I think there is a
difference from previous years because you are teaching us in a different way. You are
not just giving us information...] don’t know if you understand. We make music
together, you and the students. I feel like we are colleagues” (Leri’s Interview). The
teacher as guide and partner supported Allsup’s (2003) ﬁndings about the beneﬁts of a
democratic classroom. Leri ﬁnds music class to be less boring and more engaging when
he is active and not a silent observer. This supports Dewey’s (1972) theory on child-
centered approaches.

Another example of these principles occurred during a school music class
observation when I asked the students to sing a song and Leri, with enthusiasm,
suggested that he play the keyboard instead of me. He also had the courage to tell me that
I should accompany him by playing the chime bars. However, he wanted to make sure
that he copied that song correctly from the last time I played it in class. Following is a
transcript of that conversation.

“Teacher asks students to get out the music for a song that they are going to sing.

Teacher performs the beginning and Leri raises hand with excitement! He says:

‘Sorry to stop you Ms. Can I play this song on the keyboard? You can

accompany the song in the chime bars if you like! Good idea, yes?’ Teacher asks,

“Do you know that song?” and Leri answers, “I heard you performing that and I

want to make sure that I copied it correctly!” (Researcher Video Notes, School

Music Class Observation)

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In the school choir and orchestra observation Leri also made proposals concerning
the end of a song, and he started a conversation in order to explain his thoughts and ﬁnd
ways to put them in practice. Following is an example from the ﬁeld notes.

“Students sing the song, until the end. After this rehearsal Leri raises his hand
and asks the teacher: ‘15 it OK how I closed the end of the song?’ Teacher
answers: ‘It’s ﬁne, why are you asking?’ Leri asks: ‘I was thinking of doing that
in the end...’ Leri is experimenting with some arpeggios going up in the right
hand side keys of the keyboard looking at teacher. When he ﬁnished he stares at
the teacher wondering if what he performed was OK. The teacher gives him
positive feedback but asks for just a four macrobeats phrase Leri tries the arpeggio
again, in 4 beats with success.” (Researcher Video Notes, School Music Class

Observation)

He was satisﬁed that I respected his opinion and even changed the ending of the song to
what he proposed.

The control that Leri has in choir and in music classes at school stand in sharp
contrast to what he experiences during piano lessons. He states that the way his teacher
controls his performance by correcting him all the time, by having him count all the time,
and by interrupting his personal expression while playing the piano, makes him nervous
and frustrated. While observing him, I found that there were times that he felt
uncomfortable, giving the teacher ironical grimaces and ticking his nails on the piano
while she was giving instruction. “Leri is ticking his nails at the edge of the keyboard
with a rhythmical ostinato, while his teacher is setting up the metronome. Leri glances at

the clock in the wall...” (Researcher Field Notes, Piano Observation #1). He explains in

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his interview that he wished that his teacher did not stop him all of the time to make
corrections and that he could play both hands of the piece together more often, as
discussed earlier in the description of the piano lesson setting.

There were other times in piano lessons, though, when Leri just took control of
the lesson without asking, probably because he did not want to argue with his teacher, but
he really needed to gain control of the learning setting. “Leri glances at the wall clock,
and he starts performing a piece with a nice melody. Teacher turns to me and says, “He
always does his own stuff when he has the chance to do so” (Research Field Notes, Piano
Observation #1). His teacher understands his need to do this, but her goals for the exams
and her desire for Leri to learn solid instrument technique get in the way of her
relinquishing control regularly. She said in her interview, “Our repertoire is mostly
classical from all musical periods, he likes jazz pieces very much and sometimes he asks
to perform Greek contemporary pieces and if we have the time I am ﬂexible to let him
perform whatever he enjoys most. Of course we have the exam syllable as well, and he
takes piano exams every single school year, so we have the scales, and the aural tests and
the sight reading. You know how piano exams are, you are a pianist right?” (Piano
Teacher Interview).

The above extract gives us information about the selection of repertoire as well.
Leri chooses the repertoire he is performing, to some extent, in his piano lessons. Leri is
satisﬁed when he is able to perform repertoire that results in his personal enjoyment and
supports his musical identity. Leri said, “I have the chance to work with many different
styles of repertoire that I like a lot. I enjoy the classical pieces I perform in the piano,

especially Beethoven. In the choir we sing mostly Greek songs, nowadays hits, and in the

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dance rehearsal I have the chance to dance to different musics from all over the world, the
traditional Greek dances everything! No comments on the repertoire, no!” (Leri’s
Interview).

Working together with the son of his piano teacher on music pieces they create
was something about which Leri was enthusiastic. He said, “In the piano lesson it is me
and my teacher. Sometimes her son comes to my lesson and we work together in pieces
we want to perform in concerts. It is our pieces, modern. I like it when he comes but that
is only before the annual concert” (Leri’s Interview). Leri’s calling the music “our
pieces” is important in this context. Because he has control over the repertoire, he seems
to take ownership and enjoy his work more than he enjoys what typically happens in
piano lessons. He likes to play music that he identiﬁes as ‘theirs’ (his music and his
partner music) and perform that music in ‘their’ way. His piano teacher talks about that
same incident in her interview. “They were communicating in an excellent way
musically and they came up with a fantastic creation which they performed at the concert.
The audience liked it very much. From that time this is a tradition in every concert”
(Piano Teacher Interview). She recognizes the importance of this work and, partly
because the audience was impressed, chose to make this opportunity available to Leri in
the future.

Leri’s need to be active and have a voice carried across all of his music learning
settings, and working in small group seemed to facilitate his ability to express himself
and take control of his learning. He looked excited about getting in the group and
working with his classmates. During group work in the school music observation and in

dance rehearsal, he was active and freely shared his ideas with the others in the group.

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He tried to ﬁnd interesting solutions to the problems posed by the teachers, and he
offered unique and challenging suggestions for the ﬁnal product that his group had to
present. The following extract from the school music class observation serves as an
example.

“Leri is making jokes with his group and talks with a loud voice. His group has a

glockenspiel, a tambourine and cymbals to use in creating the orchestration that

was assigned by the teacher. Leri takes the tambourine and then the cymbals,
exploring ways of performing on them while the rest of the students in his group
talk with one another. Leri says, ‘Come on lets think of something’ and then turns
to a friend and says, ‘Can you do what I did before with the tambourine?’ and
then he continues, ‘Who can play the cymbals?’ (Researcher Video Notes, School

Music Class Observation)

He is engaged in the activity and then, when his group presented their work to the rest of
the class, he tried to be as creative as possible and make good impression.

This was true in other settings as well. In the dance observation, when, the teacher
split the class into groups and told them to come up with alternative steps for the
choreography of the dance, Leri again was happy to get involved and work in his group
and offer his thoughts.

He is a good group member and is cooperative, even though sometimes his high
achievement does not align with the rest of the students in his group. In the dance group
work mentioned above, when the teacher asked the groups to explore variations of the

dance, Leri created such difﬁcult steps that the rest of the group could not perform them.

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Eventually his group chose another movement that was easier and was proposed by
someone else in the group.
“Leri proposes a step in which one foot cross over all the time until the end of the
phrase. It is complicated for the rest of the children in the group, so they are get
made at him and they complain. Leri is laughing and continues to move in his
inspired choreography. A different boy from the group shows something different
that is accessible to the rest of the students, so they applied it immediately.”
(Researcher Field Notes, Dance Observation # 1)
Leri enjoys his music learning more when he has a voice in the music learning
process. This voice can take the form of his making decisions about the style of a piece,
his deciding how something should be arranged musically, or his having a voice in the

choice of repertoire.

Fundamental Love of Music and Music-making

Leri spends much of his day in music making. He said, “I like to participate in as
many music activities as I can. I need my life to be full of music” (Leri’s Interview). He
has a deep, abiding love for making music to the extent that music is at the very center of
his life. He makes time in his schedule to compose on a daily basis. He does not mind
that choir practice does not let out until after dark during the winter or that he spends
nearly his entire Saturday taking two continuous dance classes. When his piano teacher
considers Leri’s devotion to music making, she is concerned that he might not be aware
that life can not be just music and that he pursue other areas as well. She said, “Music is

the ﬁrst and most important component of his life. Sometimes I feel I need to show him

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that life is not just music, and he should enjoy other things as well. I am telling you that
to show how addicted he is to music making” (Piano Teacher Interview). One of his
ﬁiends also said, “He is obsessed with music,” and another said, “I think music is a major
component in his brain” (Student Focus Group Interview). The boy who sits next to him
in the math class said, “It is hard to have Leri next to you especially in math class. While
our teacher demonstrates math, he is making rhythms behind the desk or imitating piano
performance or murmuring melodies. He never stops thinking music” (Student Focus
Group Interview).

Leri always looks excited at the start of musical activities. He is always seems
“alive” when music is going on. His classmates admit that he is a different Leri in music
classes than in other subjects. A boy said, “He is so alive in music class. On the contrary
when we have other subjects he is like absent minded” (Student Focus Group Interview).

His parents also attest to his devotion in terms of time spent in music making. His
mother said, “He is living with music always. He walks at home and suddenly he starts
dancing or singing. Music is his life” (Parents’ Interview). She says that he wakes up
really early in the morning and starts playing the piano, listens to music all the time, sings
all day long, and that almost all his out of school activities are related to music-making.
Leri says that his ﬁiends think that he is crazy to spend so many hours in music activities
and to keep such a busy schedule. He, on the other hand believes that he will always ﬁnd
time to make music and would be eager to attend other music learning settings as well if
they were available or interesting. He said, “Why not! If it is about music and they are

interesting activities, I could attend, yes” (Leri’s Interview).

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His desire for continuous, non-stop music making was obvious in the music
learning settings that I observed. He did not seem to want to take a break, and whenever
he found an opportunity for music making during a break, he took it. He plays piano
before the teacher enters room or before rehearsal begins, when other students are ﬁnding
their handouts, or even after a class or rehearsal has ended. “Everyone leaves the room
except for Leri who is still performing on his instrument. When he looks around and ﬁnds
out that he is almost the last one there, he runs away singing the song that we performed
at the end of the class” (Researcher Field Notes, School Music Class Observation).

The joy with which Leri’s engages in most of the different learning settings can
be seen in the following excerpts from the data.

> “At the end he creates a different ﬁnale for the song; the rest of the group seem
nervous about his decision, but he enjoys the whole situation.” (School Music
Class Observation)

> “Dance is more like fun for me. I meet friends in dance rehearsals; we give
concerts and take trips.” (Leri’s Interview)

> “Music is playing from the CD player and Lori is performing at the same time on
the drums. He is so free, with no worries at all, just performing and enjoying.”

(Researcher Field Notes, Drum observation)

> “It is a line dance; children in groups of four or ﬁve dance holding arms in a line
stepping to the right, left, frond or back. Leri looks very enthusiastic about

performing the dance.” (Researcher Field Notes, Dance observation # 1)

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> “The teacher names the second song for the rehearsal. It is a song in an unusual
meter, Leri’s eyes are shining with excitement.” (Researcher Field Notes, Choir
observation #1)

> “Leri looks very excited to play the piano and sing.” (Researcher Field Notes,
Choir observation #1)

> “Leri is raising both arms up, showing excitement pronouncing ‘yea...’ with the
movement of his leaps without any voice.” (Researcher Field Notes , Choir

observation #2)

When I asked Leri to put the musical learning settings he attends in order based
how much he enjoys them, he ranked his compositions and arrangements as ﬁrst the rest
followed. He said, “First come the compositions I do at home, then the drums, the choir,
music classes at school, piano, and dance” (Leri’s Interview). The least formal settings
are the settings that Leri tends to enjoy the most. However, this order changed
somewhat when I asked him to put the settings in order based on their importance for his
musical development. In that case he again prioritized his compositions and
arrangements. However, he considered his piano lessons to be much more important in
that light. He said, “First come the composition again, then the piano, dance, choir,
drums and music classes at school. Sorry Ms, I did not want to offend you!” (laughing)
(Leri’s Interview).

“1 am always enthusiastic about participating in music learning settings” (Leri’s
Interview). This statement encapsulates the joy Leri gets from making music. This joy
underlies the depth of his music participation and is one of the primary reasons that he

has made music such a central component of his life.

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Means of self expression

Leri is involved in music making because music making is enjoyable and
entertaining, but also it gives him the opportunity to express himself. In his
autobiography he wrote, “Music is similar to my existence!” (Leri’s Autobiography).

Leri’s teachers discuss his expressiveness in his music performance. His dance
teacher was impressed with his expression and maturity from a very early, and this was
on the reasons that he invited Leri to attend the ‘adult’ group and he gave him the chance
to perform an important solo part in a concert. His piano teacher recognizes the
musicianship in his musical performances as well. She was amazed at how he performed
‘Fur Elise’ when he was very young, not only correctly realizing the notation but also
playing in a stylistically appropriate way. She said, “He is an artist! He performs in a
mature way like an adult. I remember when he performed Fur Elise when he was eight
years old and it was the true essence of Beethoven that he performed” (Piano Teacher
Interview). His choir teacher describes his expression similarly when talking about Leri’s
attitude toward performances and concerts. She said, “He has very nice voice in a big
range, and what makes him different from other students is that he performs with
expression even though he is young. He has the maturity; I mean musiCal maturity, to
sing with feeling” (Choir Teacher Interview).

He explains his self -expression through music in the following excerpts:

> “Again when I compose, or arrange melodies and pieces, it is what I feel what I
want to express from the very deep of my self. Of course when I dance too, I
express my music with my body and when I move my mind keeps the rhythms

and melodies very easily. I can express myself when I am in the choir and during

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the break when I play the piano and make my one staff with the songs and I give
performances to my friends and I sing as well and play the piano...” (Leri’s
Interview)

> “Drums ﬁll me up with energy.” (Leri’s Interview)

Concerning his drum exploration as it relates to self-expression, he elaborates
more speciﬁcally in his autobiography. He wrote, “When I found out that I could have
access to drums because of one of my friends, I took the opportunity to go and try. It is
amazing! It is so easy for me. I just feel the beat and play. It takes a few moments to get
the rhythm and then you can do anything in that rhythm. I like very quick light beats.
When playing the drums, I forget all the negative day experiences and just focus on the
beat. Isn’t that marvellous?” (Leri’s Autobiography).

Leri connects at a deep emotional level with the music in which he is engaging.
He ﬁnds that music is a powerful medium through which to express his feeling and elicit

emotions. He has discovered this power, and he also acknowledges it.

Being the leader of a group
Leri likes to act as a leader in musical settings. This is similar to his need for a
voice in the learning process, but being a leader represents more of a desire to have
authority. It is a step further, in that he likes to lead the learning process sometimes,
rather than sharing in it. Because this characteristic of Leri’s learning style emerged as
powerful in the data, it deserved its own discussion. He expresses his leadership through
his ability to persuade others to follow his musical decisions and through his ability to

teach his friends. This is relates to ﬁndings of Campbell’s (1995) ethnographic study on

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garage bands in which one of the members was viewed by others as the musical leader
(the teaching ﬁgure of the group), and he was responsible for transmitting his knowledge
and giving musical guidance to the other members while the group was rehearsing and
performing. Leri’s leadership is clearly acknowledged by his peers and by the teachers.

During the drum observation, Leri’s leadership was revealed through multiple
means. The way he behaved and acted made it clear that he controlled the activities and
was the “driver.” He came to the drum session with a plan in mind, carrying a text
handout and a CD, and knowing the objectives he wanted to accomplish with his friends.
The other two children followed his steps and his suggestions. He corrected their
mistakes and gave them guidance to make the musical ‘product’ better according to his
musical tastes. Transcripts that contain interactions between Leri and his friends that
illustrate these principles can be found in the description of the drum exploration setting
in the previous chapter.

His involvement as a leader was also clear during the group work in the school
music class setting. When I gave some instruments to each group of students and asked
them to create a simple instrumentation using the instruments that they were given, Leri
was the ﬁrst who explored all of the instruments and chose what he wanted to perform.
Then he gave musical roles to the rest of the children and demonstrated ideas for their
performance. “They start practicing, Leri is giving instructions...” He said to a boy in his
group, “Can you do what I did before in the tambourine?” and later Leri said to the boy,
“What you play is not correct!” and when the boy gets upset for not managing to perform
it Leri said, “Look at me! I will show you by moving my head, look! OK? Try it now.”

(Researcher Video Notes, School Music Class Observation)

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Leri uses multiple techniques to teach his peers. He uses his body to conduct and
show the meter or he uses syllables. Following in an excerpt from the Student Focus
Group Interview.

Anthony: “He is showing me the rhythm of my ostinati by shaking his head or

with his eyes. . .Sometimes he is whispering the chords and the changes.

Cathy: “He also showed me once different way, easier one to learn my part in the

glockenspiel. He told me some silly syllables to remember when playing my

ostinati, I really don’t remember them now!” (Student Focus Group Interview)

His friends and classmates recognize and appreciate his leadership and the way he
helps them to accomplish various musical tasks. A boy who attends the school choir and
performs the xylophone said, “I feel safe when Leri plays the keyboard and I am next to
him playing the xylophone. He is helping me. He is showing the rhythm of my ostinato
by shaking his head or with his eyes. . .Sometimes he is whispering the chord changes as
well.” And a girl said, “He is helpful in giving us the feeling, the mood of each piece. Just
watch Leri’s expression while he performs and you can get the idea” (Student Focus
Group Interview). One of his friends explained, “He could be an excellent music teacher
as well! He has the necessary characteristics to become a good teacher, and a good way to
transmit music to others” (Student Focus Group Interview).

In dance class, the other children watch Leri’s feet to help them remember the
dance choreography. His dance teacher explained that Leri takes a leadership role in
helping the other students with their choreography. He said, “Leri is my assistant. He is
always the chief of the boys group...” (Dance Teacher Interview). He later also states that

the rest of the children depending on Leri when performing.

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Leri seems to enjoy leading the group and is respected and appreciated for that by
his ﬁiends. He has the ‘talent’ to transmit musical knowledge in a sophisticated way, as
his classmates discuss, without alienating his peers. His being a leader seems to be a

factor in his enjoyment of the music-making venue.

Reasons for Persisting
In this part of the paper I will discuss Leri’s perception of the value and
importance of his musical involvement in each learning setting, whether he hopes to
continue, and why. This may shed some light on his fundamental beliefs about music

learning.

Value of venues

Leri got involved in music learning at a very young age. He began piano lessons
because he was interested in the sound and timbre of the instrument; he became involved
in dancing because his parents were dancers and he watched them dance; later, he
discovered his ability to compose melodies and arrange music and passionately works on
that every day; he began drum exploration because he liked rhythm and movement, and
those two are combined in drum performance; he attended the community choir because
he liked singing and was interested in both singing and performing the piano and also
because, in the choir, he had the freedom to apply his own musical sensibilities; he
attended school music classes because music is a curricular subject in the Cyprus public
schools. However does he value his involvement? What does he think is important about

each setting?

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Leri is able to articulate what he believes he gains from each of his music-making
venues. In his autobiography he wrote, “Piano helps me a lot in composing my music. I
always sit in the piano to compose or arrange, it is easy for me” (Leri’s Autobiograpy).
Piano gives him an essential tool to use in composing and arranging music, which he has
identiﬁed as his most enjoyable and his more valuable musical activity. “Dance is more
like fun for me. I meet friends in the dance rehearsals, we give concerts and take trips.”
“. .. when I dance I also understand the meters better when I move or dance several
dances” (Leri’s Autobiography). Leri enjoys dance for its social nature and for the
opportunities that it gives him to perform. However, he also recognizes that it helps him
musically to move to music in different meters. “The same with the choir, I like singing.
I remember my grandmother singing to me... I have the opportunity to make concerts in
front of people and sing solo parts it gives me conﬁdence that I am a good musician“
(Leri’s Autobiography). Leri enjoys singing, and, as was also true with dance, he enjoys
the opportunity to perform that choir provides, particularly as a soloist. “My participation
in the choir gives me the opportunity to become known easily. “I don’t know if this (his
attendance in the choir) helps me with my musicianship, maybe it is more helpful to get
some more piano practice, by accompanying the choir, but I don’t caremuch. I like
singing” (Leri’s Interview). He talks about school music classes as well. “At school I like
it when I have to change roles from playing the keyboard, or the Xylophone, or the
recorder, it makes me ﬂexible” (Leri’s interview). He likes the challenges that he is
experiencing musically in his school music classes. “And when I compose I always sing
the music inside me and then perform in the piano. Drums are a separate music world for

me. It gives me power I don’t know how to explain. It ﬁlls me up with energy” (Leri’s

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Autobiography). Composition is a way for him to express himself musically, without any
intervention from others, and drums also are a means of musical expression.

However, overall, the main and most important musical venue for Leri’s is his
personal compositions and arrangements. In his interview, he explains with excitement
how valuable he considers his musical compositions to be because, through them, he
develops a deeper musical understanding. He said, “What I do myself at home is the most
important. I understand music better when I try to compose myself. It helps me a lot to try
a chord and change it with another, or to put a melody in different rhythms. (pause) I try a
melody, I change it or. . .or. .. I put a chord progression; I can change it if] don’t like it.
And all the important musicians have composed something! And I take things from what
I learned and put them in my compositions” (Leri’s Interview).

He also understands that his participation in a variety of music learning settings
gives him the chance to experience different kinds of music. He said, “I have the chance
to work with many different styles of repertoire and I like all of them. I enjoy the
classical pieces I perform in the piano, especially Beethoven. In the choir we sing mostly
Greek songs, nowadays hits, and in the dance rehearsal I have the chance to dance in
different music from all over the world, the traditional Greek dances everything” (Leri’s
Interview).

Leri has intrinsic motivation for his participation in the different learning settings.
He values the settings he is attending for very speciﬁc reasons, many of which he can
articulate. He has a mature approach toward learning that is more common in adults than
children. His valuing of the learning settings is part of what makes him a more reﬂective

and effective learner.

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A Career as a Musician

Leri is devoted to music making. He is hard worker and is conﬁdent that music is
going to be his career. In the very beginning of his autobiography he wrote, “My name is
Leri, I am eleven and I have many friends. They all know me as the boy who is really
good at music. I am in the 6th grade and my dream is to become a successful musician
when I grow up” (Leri’s Autobiography). In those three sentences, Leri addresses many
of the most important things in his life. His dream is to become a musician and that this is
something that his friends recognize because they know how good he is in music making.

Leri’s musical conﬁdence has been reinforced by feedback from others. He
believes that he is a good pianist, which has been reinforced by positive comments from
the examiners. He writes, “I believe I am a good pianist” (Leri’s Autobiography). He also
believes that his ﬁiends admire him for who he is as a musician and that all the activities
he is participating now concerning music is the basis for his future career as a musician.
He said, “But I believe they admire me. (smiles) My parents and relatives like my
involvement in music, they hope that all these music classes will help me become well-
known and very strong musician” (Leri’s Interview).

Leri’s dedication goes beyond traditional boundaries. Following is a description
of an incident that is an example of his devotion and persistence. His mother explained,

“The other experience was last year when he prepared himself for the grade 6

piano exam... The night before the exam while taking a shower, he cut his left

hand on the glass of the door, which broke accidentally. We went to the doctor

and he stitched him. He persisted that he should go the next day and take the

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exam. His teacher told him that he could do that exam later, but said to her that he

can manage! When he entered the examination room, the examiner proposed that

he could take the exam later in the following semester. Leri said he wanted to try
and he ﬁnished the exam, even though his hand was bound. Finally he passed his
exam with distinction.” (Parents’ Interview)

Leri is conﬁdent that he will become a musician when he grows up. At the end of
his interview, in response to my question his future, he said, “I believe I will be a
musician when I grow up. I want to study music, maybe combining all that I know about
music. For example participating in music productions, singing, dancing, and playing
instruments. Like a music actor” (Leri’s Interview).

His parents, friends and teachers also believe that Leri is going to make a career in
music. His father said, “I think Leri is going to become a great musician” (Parents’
Interview). And his mother said, “If he told me he wanted to be a mathematician I would
be disappointed I would discourage him, I hope he continues music making and become
an important musician” (Parents Interview). His piano teacher said, “Leri will become a
great musician, I am certain about that! He has the capabilities and the characteristics! He
is so talented!” (Piano Teacher Interview). Leri’s dance teacher said, “He is a musical
child, he is a miracle to me! I never met a child like him during my teaching career”
(Dance Teacher Interview). Clearly, Leri is receiving reinforcement for his desire to be a

professional musician and his beliefs that he will succeed in that career.

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Summary

Leri is experiencing the expanded deﬁnition of music education (Cox, 2002)
encompassing both formal and informal settings. School is not the only place he acquires
music knowledge. As Campbell (2000) discusses, music learning can take place in a
variety of settings. Music can be Ieamed in any place where there is music, in children’s
participation in all varieties of musical experiences, through interactions with teachers,
families, and friends, in social and religious communities, and through radio, TV,
recordings, videotapes, ﬁlms, and CD-ROMs. Finnegan (1989), Campbell (1995), Green
(2002), Waldron (2006), Louth (2006), and Jaffurs (2006) all conducted studies that are
similar to this one because they discussed the ways humans learn music in structured
(formal) ways, which include teachers, speciﬁc goals, and sequential activities, and in
informal ways, which are mostly in groups with friends, by experimenting with their
instruments, by observing and discussing with each other, by imitating, and by listening
and copying music from composers and performers that they admire.

Leri’s ranking of his enjoyment of each of the music settings in which he
participates partly expresses his need for active and meaningful participation and
participation through which he can express his musical ideas. This is Why he enjoys his
participation in settings that are more structured and sequential, like his piano lessons,
less than his participation in other venues. When he has the opportunity to work in groups
with friends, interact with them, express ideas, and gain authority and control of his
learning process, he is excited about and enjoys his music making. In contrast to the
didactic model of learning, a more child-centered, democratic model that puts a premium

upon collaborative learning and upon team work, inter-personal skills and self expression

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creates a more positive, powerful learning environment that challenges and motivates
Leri to become involved in music making. This relates to the ﬁnding of Byme and
Sheridan (2000) who discuss how students, in such teaching models, develop a sense of
ownership and control in their music making, and that they experience “ﬂow,” which
occurs only when there is an appropriate match between skill and challenge. This is also
related to Green’s (2002) ﬁndings that the values that accompany informal practices
emphasize the development of passion for music, a broad knowledge, understanding and
appreciation of variety of musics and commitment to gaining enjoyment and satisfaction
from playing music. This occurs even to a higher degree when Leri composes and
improvises music and when he explores the drums. In those settings he applies his
musical knowledge using many of the techniques associated with Green’s (2002) ﬁndings
concerning popular musicians, which are the learning of music aurally (with no
dependence in notation), experimentation with instrument, imitation of recordings,
improvisation, and peer direction. These techniques were also used by the musicians in
garage bands in Campbell’s (1995) and Jaffur’s (2006) studies.

The study revealed that Leri values his involvement in the different music
settings, and also identiﬁes the intersection between the settings and the kind of
knowledge and experience each provides to him. This contrasts with the dichotomy
between formal and informal learning settings that Finnegan (1989) found in her
ethnography. Leri’s perception is that his experiences in the different settings are not
separated; on the contrary, he ﬁnds a ‘chain’ between what he learns in the settings that

helps his musical growth.

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Music making for Leri has become a means of self expression. Music is the way
he expresses his feelings and thoughts; music relaxes him and provides him security and
stability. The approval of his friends and family as well as his teachers has helped him

along his musical ‘journey’. As a result, he is working towards a career in music.

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CHAPTER 6
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

This was a case study of Leri’s musical ‘journeys’ that described and explained
the “ingredients” of music making and the learning settings in which the participant was
involved inside and outside school. Leri was a 6th grade student in an elementary school
in Cyprus, and I was his music teacher during the 2007-2008 school year. When I met
Leri and discovered his multidimensional musical involvement in various music learning
settings besides school, I was curious and wanted to explore the reasons for his musical
involvement and his perceptions about his music learning. It was my goal to understand
and describe how Leri valued the different music learning settings and for what reasons
and to ﬁnd how these experiences informed his musical development. I used the terms of
Campbell’s research (1998) to place the particular settings on the continuum of formal
and informal education and describe the intersections between them.

Speciﬁcally the purpose of this research was to explore the music making and
learning practices of Leri (an elementary student from Cyprus) in different settings, inside
and outside school. I hoped to investigate Leri’s attitudes, beliefs and feelings concerning
different learning settings, his perceptions of the value of music experiences in these
settings, and the intersections of music learning inside and outside school.

The speciﬁc questions of this study were as follows:
a. To describe and explain the characteristics and “ingredients” of music
making and learning settings inside and outside school as experienced and

described by an elementary student from Cyprus.

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b. To describe and explain this student’s musical involvement in different
music making and learning settings and explore the reasons and personal
inﬂuences (social, psychological, or others) for this involvement.

c. To describe and explain how the student values the different music making
and learning settings and for what reasons.

(I. To describe how each experience informs his musical development and
the intersection between his music making in the different learning
settings.

e. To describe his intentions concerning future participation in each music
learning setting and the reasons underpinning these intentions.

The objective for conducting this study was to learn about the overall musical growth
of the participant in order to highlight the “ingredients” and processes of his musical
development.

The data was collected using observations in the settings as well as
through interviews with the participant, his teachers, his parents, and his classmates and
friends. A written autobiography from Leri was also used as a means of collecting data.
Three themes emerged from the data. The themes that emerged are ‘People Matter,’
‘Ingredients of Meaningful Musical Involvement,’ and ‘Reasons for Persisting.” For the
ﬁrst theme I found that Leri’s family, teachers, and friends supported and motivated him to
be involved in music. The rich early childhood environment that his family provided and
the rich musical experiences to which Leri was exposed seemed to play in important role in
his music development. His family, friends, and teachers all gave Leri positive feedback

about his musicianship, both through words and through actions. The second theme

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describing the “ingredients” of music learning settings that seem to compel Leri to learn
and enjoy his learning, including his having a strong voice in determining his own learning,
his fundamental love of music, his ability to use music as a means of self-expression, and
his love of serving in a leadership role. The last theme describes Leri’s perception of the
value of the settings and his beliefs about his musical future.

Leri’s multidimensional involvement in the different learning settings falls
across a wide spectrum of teaching/learning structures. Leri’s music education is not
strictly related to his participation in music school classes (Campbell, 2000). Rather, it is a
dynamic process that occurs in many settings either by means of instruction or osmosis,

practice or participation, example or observation (Jorgensen, 2003).

Conclusions and Implications for practice

During my teaching career, I have had students who did not seem to be engaged
in music classes. Rather, they were apathetic observers in class. I can not help but compare
these students with Leri and the joy that he expresses in his music learning settings. I hope
that by exploring the roots of Leri’s active musical involvement 1 might shed some light on
what we, as music educators could do to engage those students who do not seem ﬁnd our
music classes compelling. Even though the results of this study, because of its qualitative
nature, can not be generalized, music educators might see possibilities for improving
instruction or for being more sensitive to the needs of students. I hoped to capture the
essence of one student’s perceptions about music making and use it as a lens through which

to examine my own teaching and the music education profession as a whole.

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Leri could be described as bi—musical (Green 2002) due to the fact that he receives
experiences and music knowledge from both formal and informal learning settings. Yet,
unlike the musicians in Finnegan’s (1989) study, there is interaction between the informal
and formal music settings for Leri. He believes that his piano lessons give him the tools
with which to compose (formal informing informal). He also believes that his dance and
movement inform his piano playing (somewhat less formal informing formal).

The more ‘formal’ the structure of the music learning setting, the less active role
Leri plays in his learning and the less he was able to express himself musically in that
setting. Even though music learning settings do not fall into neat categories, such as
formal and informal (Szego, 2002), using Campbell’s (1998) categories I found that
Leri’s piano lessons were the most structured and sequential of his music learning
settings. Dance lessons and school music classes were structured but with some informal
activities, and the community choir was a more informal music learning setting. His drum
exploration and composing-arranging-improvising were completely ‘natural’ and
enculturative, at the far end of the informal spectrum (Campbell, 1998).

It is possible that a teaching model that veers away from the strict, traditional
structure of teacher-centered model could motivate children to make music and reinforce
them to get involved in music. Activities that tend more toward the informal end of the
spectrum could make students feel responsible for their learning procedures and direct
them to active participation in the learning setting. This supports the ﬁndings of Byme
and Sheridan (2000).

In the ‘relaxed,’ less formal venue of the community choir, one in which the

teacher’s goals were enjoyment and socialization rather than focused on music learning,

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Leri had some of the best opportunities to behave as a musician in a group setting. He
shared his musical ideas and had opportunities to try out his musical thoughts because the
teacher valued his opinions and gave him a voice in the musical decision-making process.
The democratic and engaging environment of the rehearsal expanded his musicality, so
he found that setting challenging and fulﬁlling- He was able to express himself as a
musician because his ideas were valued. However, the formal learning environment of
the piano lessons worked against his musical enjoyment and expression, although the
class was based on serious musical goals and sequential teaching procedures. Leri passed
his exams with distinction and has become a ﬂuent pianist, but his musical imagination
and creativity are more a result of the other musical settings in which he engaged.

Leri was an active participant who enjoyed a democratic learning environment.
He liked to be fully engaged in the process of making music in a naturalistic, situated
way. Learning by doing in real life settings as well as reﬂective and critical thinking with
students’ group interaction are the fundamental to Dewey’s (1972) writings and were
mirrored in Leri’s perceptions as to what constituted meaningful involvement. He
appreciated teachers who were willing to step aside ﬁ'om time to time and give him the
freedom to control his learning. In such learning situations, Leri felt that he cooperated
with the teacher and the rest of the children and that the educational product was more a
result of the participation and effort from the whole. This relates to Allsup’s (2003)
ﬁndings showed that, in democratic teaching enviromnents, both the teacher and students
are cooperatives; they share ideas, efforts and goals. The child-centered teaching model
that he enjoyed during the community choir rehearsal and during some of the dance and

school music classes created multiple teacher-student and student-student relationships

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that broadened his musical involvement and engaged him in more meaningful, beneﬁcial,
enjoyable learning,

Music teachers might want to consider including smaller group activities, during
which the teacher “gets out of the way” and lets the students make the musical decisions,
as a regular part of music instruction. During school music classes and dance rehearsals,
Leri enjoyed the group activities the most, because in the group activities, he could
interact and talk with his friends. As friends, they could make musical decisions as a
group and, therefore, express themselves musically. As Allsup (2003) suggests teachers
should give students the opportunities to work in groups in order to explore freely in a
context that is familiar to them, a world that is deﬁned by who they are.

Until the year of this study, Leri found school music classes boring throughout his
school career. The classes did not challenge him or allow him to express himself
musically. This supports Finnegan (1989), who found that all fourteen musicians she
studied considered traditional school music education too elementary and not exciting;
they felt alienated during their class music lessons. Music teachers should consider
whether they are challenging even the best students in every class so that these students
will actively engage in class and serve as models for the other students. Leri served as a
model and helped the other students learn. This occurred because the teacher was willing
to “let go of the reigns” a bit and hand them to Leri or to the students by having them
work in small groups. Either of these gave Leri an opportunity to think creatively and to
challenge himself musically.

Perhaps we should consider whether we are allowing our students to express

themselves musically through their having a voice in the choice of repertoire as well as

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through including composition and arranging as a part of the music curricula. As Green
(2002) found “popular musicians, by playing their own music choices with friends and
having fun, are motivated and also unavoidably develop their musicality with different
learning techniques” (p. 216) The techniques used by popular musicians in Green’s
(2002) study, related to Leri’s music involvement during his drum exploration and during
his composition and arrangements sessions. He used the copying and listening procedure,
he carried on by feel, ear, and trial and error, and he interacted with his peers (during his
drum exploration only) to ﬁnd solutions to musical problems that appeared during the
practice. The repertoire was something that he really liked, and through the repertoire he
was able to express himself musically. Leri expressed passion for his composing and
arranging, as well as for drum exploration, although to a lesser degree.

Another signiﬁcant ﬁnding that Leri’s musical involvement has revealed is the
great value of composition and arrangement practice. Music educators should perhaps
include more opportunities to create, arrange, and compose in their music classrooms.
Leri rated composing/arranging as the activity that was the most important and vital to his
musicianship. It was not only a way to gather knowledge from other music learning
settings and to adOpt and apply them in his creations but it also was highly-related to self-
effrcacy, which supports the ﬁndings of Covington (1984). Leri identiﬁed his
musicianship in the practice of compositions and arrangements, and his perceptions of his
own ability and achievement as a musician were centered in this musical practice. This
relates to the results of Randles (2006), who found that there were signiﬁcant positive
relationships between music self-efﬁcacy and composition experiences. For Leri, his

composition works had a powerful impact on his musical development. Leri explained

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during his interview that he understands music better as a result of composing, because he
tries different musical combinations and makes decisions concerning the melody,
harmony, rhythm, and other music elements he includes in his compositions. He uses
composition to synthesize the knowledge that he has gained in all of his other settings.
When composing/arranging, he is the only one who makes the decisions. As Kassner
(1994) asserts,
“When students compose, they must think like composers, they music decide
what to do in terms of dynamics, tonality, and texture. They must decide how they
want the audience to feel when they hear a certain section of their piece. When
students compose, they achieve a powerful, heady feeling. Nothing else can

compare to it” (p.98).

Music students might beneﬁt from a wider variety of music activities and types of
musical involvement. Leri had strong connections to the music learning settings in which
he was involved and he chose to participate in all of them because he either found them
important, useful, or enjoyable. He attributed his high rhythmic aptitude and achievement
to the dance and drum exploration, his musical ﬂexibility to school music classes, his
feelings of being successful as a soloist to the choir and the performances connected to
the choir; his compositional achievements to piano classes that give him the skills
necessary to be able to compose, and his musical maturity and development to his actual
experience with his grappling with musical ideas through composition.

Leri’s rich early childhood environment provided him experiences that supported

and reinforced his musical involvement as he grew older. His parents value music, and

117

they support his decision to pursue music. Leri had experienced music as a family activity
from a very young age; all members of the family were involved in music making as a
means of socialization and enjoyment. Music seemed to be transmitted from parents and
family members to Leri in a natural way like in some non-Westem societies (Blacking,
1973).

Perhaps we need to ﬁnd ways to enculturate children musically ﬁ'om a young age,
as Leri was enculturated by his family. Music educators need to consider going beyond
the walls of the school buildings to support and develop opportunities for family music
making so that children will have strong early childhood music environments at home on
a regular basis.

Leri shows strong evidence that he will persist in his musical involvement,
because he values and enjoys music but also because he understands how important his
involvement in different learning settings is for his musical development. He is motivated
because he can express himself through music making and ﬁnd meaning and enjoyment
in involvement with music. He ﬁnds the experiences from the diverse learning settings
ftmdamental to the development of his musicianship. This is related to Campbell (1991)
who states that music is a way of thinking and expressing ideas and feelings, and that it
has appeared as an important symbol of people and culture through the ages. Leri has
discovered this ‘power’ of music to elicit emotions and meanings and that is why he gets

satisfaction from his involvement in music making.

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Implications for further studies

My research ﬁndings cannot be generalized because this is a qualitative study and
gives information about the participant, who is a single individual. However the frndings
of this study could serve as the impetus for further research. There is little research on the
perceptions of students concerning music; the profession needs more research that
explores and explains in depth students’ thoughts and ideas. This study should be
replicated with other children who are successfully engaged in multiple music learning
settings. Similar studies should be conducted with students who are less engaged to ﬁnd
out whether they can articulate what needs to be changed so that their needs are being
met in our music classrooms. My inquiry with Leri has given me the opportunity to get
to know him in a holistic way. It revealed to me parts of his life (his family, teachers,
friends, habits, achievements) of which I was totally unaware. As a result of this study, I
was able to understand his reactions better while he was in the school music setting, and I
was able to meet his musical needs to a much greater extent.

If we as music educators want to be effective, we should meet our students’ needs
and ﬁnd ways to address them. It is therefore important to study and analyze the thoughts
of students and their perceptions concerning music learning practices. {We need to work
on building a positive relationship between teachers and students so that we can reform
our teaching practices to be more democratic and help our students ﬁnd their musical
voices.

I feel fortunate that I have had the opportunity to know Leri and have him in my
school music class for a year. He will attend high school next year. His persistence and

devotion surprised me and made me look at my students in a new way. The maturity with

119

which he approached music making has required that I learn to teach better so that I can
meet his musical needs and the needs of other students like him, if I am fortunate enough
to have others. Music is so important to him that he cannot see himself in the future
without making music at his career. He is an adorable boy among his classmates and
teachers, because although he is achieving so high in music making, he is always kind
and polite. Knowing Leri has enabled me to witness one of my own students ﬁnding the
unique ‘power’ of music to elicit emotions, serve as a vehicle for expression, and give
meaning to life. He has selected music as his personal way of living; it has become a life
endeavour for him. Knowing Leri has reminded me that what I do on a daily basis is
noble, if I do it well. I can help develop individuals’ abilities to express themselves
through music and make this creative ‘phenomenon’ that called music an important part
of their lives. “Because a day does not pass without children hearing or participating in
music one way or another, it is to their advantage to understand music. It is only then they
will learn to listen to, enjoy, and partake of music that they believe to be good, and it is
through such awareness that their lives become more meaningful” (Gordon, B, 2002,

preface)

120

Appendix A

Leri’s autobiography guidelines

121

Leri’s autobiography guidelines

As a part of this study, I am trying to get to know you better as a person and as a
musician. In order to make this possible, I am asking you to write your music
autobiography. This can be as long as or short at you like, although the more thoughtful

and detailed you are, the more it will help me learn about you.

Please write and reﬂect on as many of the following topics as you would like or as you

feel are important.

> The beginnings of your music involvement: Describe people who motivated or
inspired you and why and how they were motivating or inspiring. Describe
unique or unforgettable past experiences that were a part of your becoming a
musician.

> Important steps in your musical development, Discuss your teachers/ friends/
family and their involvement that affects you as a musician. How does it affect
you? How did you make your decisions to participate in different music making
and learning settings?

> Your musical proﬁle today: Describe the various settings in which you make
and learn music. What do you like best about each setting and why? Why do you
participate in each setting? Does each setting make you a better musician, and, if

so, how?

122

> What kind of music do you listen to and enjoy? Which singers or performers do
you admire and why?

> Describe the events that are mostly important and keep you enthusiastic about
music making and/or any events that inﬂuenced you negatively and made you less
enthusiastic about music participation

> Discuss you future intentions and dreams concerning your future as a musician

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Appendix B

Piano/ Dance/Choir teacher interview: guideline

124

Piano/ Dance/Choir teacher interview: guideline

As a part of this study, I am trying to get to know Leri better as a person and as a
musician. I am going to ask you some questions that will help me learn more about him
and your class. You do not have to answer any of these questions. Feel free to tell me at

any time that you prefer not to answer. Are you ready?

> Where, when and for how long have your worked with Leri?

> Could you please describe to me the persons that are involved in your class and
the kind of their involvement?

> Discuss the activities (musical or other) that take place in each class
session/lesson. Give me a brief picture of a teaching period, adding details you
think are important or unique to what you do during the class.

> Which are the objectives, musical or other that you have for your class? (skills
learned, attitudes, other)

> Discuss the music style and repertoire used.

> Name for me ways that you use to assess Leri and his musical achievement.

> Describe Leri’s musical proﬁle: Is be enjoying your class? Which activities does
he like most? Which are his strong characteristics as a young musician? Which
are his weak characteristics as a musician? Describe for me Leri’s behaviour

during a teaching period (any thoughts or feelings that he expresses, any negative

125

or positive reactions while learning, or anything else that you think is important
for this study)

Describe any events or experiences that you consider to be particularly important
in the development of your working with Leri.

Discuss things that Leri could improve in his participation in your class, and what

you value in his participation.

126

Appendix C

Leri’s interview, guideline

127

Leri’s interview, guideline

I am going to ask you some questions that will help me learn more about you. You do
not have to answer any of these questions. Feel free to tell me at any time that you prefer

not to answer. Are you ready?

Describe where you learn about and make music. (Prompt as needed to be certain

that he describes each of the settings of which I am already aware and to get the

desired level of detail.)

> Explain to me when you have each music lesson and for how long. (School music
class, community choir, private piano lesson, dance lesson, music arrangement
and composing by himself, drum exploration with a friend)

> Give me details about persons that are involved in each place you learn music.
What are their roles?

> Describe the activities (musical or other) that take place in each setting. What
exactly do you do when participating in each different music class, or by yourself
when you arrange and compose? Take each learning setting separately and talk
about it

> Discuss things that you learn in each music class and tell me which of these you
consider important for your musicianship or personality. Which skills or attitudes
learned in each setting do you enjoy most? Name some favorite activities for each

learning setting.

128

> Give me your thoughts about the music styles or repertoire used in each setting.
Do you like them? Why or why not?

> Describe the ways of assessment that take place in each setting. Which do you
prefer and why? Do you assess your self for the compositions and arrangements
that you write?

> In which of these music classes do you have the best opportunities to express
yourself musically.

> Discuss your suggestions for any improvement or change in these learning
settings you participate.

Describe and explain your musical involvement in these different music making and

learning settings. Give reasons for your involvement:

> Why did you decide to attend these music activities?

> What are your ﬁiends, parents or other persons’ opinions of your participation.

> Do you even consider dropping out of any of your music-making settings? If so,
why?

> For what other reasons or beneﬁts besides your musical development do you

participate in these music classes?

(To describe and explain how the individual value the different music making and
learning settings and for what reasons.)
> Which music learning setting is your favourite or the most important to you

and why?

129

> Which music learning setting helps you best to develop your musicality and
why?
> Describe your feelings about and experiences in each learning setting.
6. (To describe how each experience informs his musical development and the
intersection between his music making in the different learning settings.)
> Compare the ‘ingredients’ of each music learning setting (differences/
similarities)
> Put your musical activities in order ranging from the one you consider most
important to the least important to you.
> What things could be improved in each setting?
> What changes should be made in each learning setting.
7. Describe whether you plan to stay involved in the different music learning

settings. Give me reasons for your answer.

130

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