Preservice music students explore African music in an Australian tertiary context

Spiritual connections made through music making: sharing faith and music in an Australian setting

The musical involvement of people over the centuries is fundamentally interwoven with spiritual experiences (Seifert 2011). This paper discusses the connection between music and spirituality in an inter-denominational group in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne. With ethical clearance, through semi-structured interviews with two church leaders and the music worship team, subsequently employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), I analysed and codified the data gathered. Two overarching themes are discussed: insights into music and spirituality; and connecting music to worship with self and others. The findings show that music in worship may provide a rich pathway for people to explore, experience, and express their spirituality, and to connect to the wider multicultural society. It also adds to the current debates on whether music has spiritual significance for some people apart from community expressions of spirituality through music. Limitations of the current study are knowledged and generalizations cannot be made regarding connections to music and spirituality. However, the findings do indicate that music in worship can enrich one’s spiritual experience and connection with God and others.

The show must go on’ : older entertainers making music in the community in Melbourne, Australia

Globally countries are faced with an aging population and Australia is no different. This creates challenges for the maintenance of well-being which can be enhanced by active engagement in society. There is extensive research that confirms that engagement in music by older people is positively related to individual and community wellbeing. Music engagement encompasses a range of social participation and has the potential to recognise the contribution of older people to their local communities. Music participation can contribute to a better quality of life, particularly in relation to health and happiness. There are many possible forms of music engagement. This study is part of an on-going Deakin University and Monash University research project, Well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in Victoria. This article focuses on three members of a mixed voluntary singing group formed by older residents of an outer suburban community in Melbourne, Australia. This group, The Skylarkers, were established in 1999 as a four-part choir. Over the years the nature of the choir has changed under subsequent music directors. Since 2009 the group has focused on music theatre repertoire and performance style. Membership of the group is fluid reflecting changing life circumstances of the members but the ensemble is resilient. This small amateur music theatre group is based in suburban Melbourne, rehearses weekly and performs regularly at retirement villages, nursing homes and facilities for senior citizens. This article presents a phenomenological qualitative single case study of members of the Skylarkers. In this study, interview data were gathered in 2011-2012 and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Two significant themes emerged that concern musical self-identity and gaining a sense of purpose and fulfilment. The Skylarkers are more than a choir; they are an amateur entertainment troupe that engages with each other and the wider community. This resilient group holds true to the motto ‘the show must go on’.

Music in worship: making spiritual connections through sound

Music has played a significant role in religion and spiritual settings over the centuries and continues to be included throughout church history, forming an important aspect of worship, contributing to spiritual growth and wellbeing. This article situates itself within a wider study on Spirituality and Wellbeing: Music in the community. Drawing on narrative reflection, the authors discusstheir experiences across Melbourne (Australia) and Potchefstroom (South Africa) and include some interview data from church musicians from the wider study in Melbourne in relation to how church music contributes to spirituality and impacts on wellbeing. As church musicians they argue that music in church settings can offer parishioners the opportunity to experienceand express spirituality in their life through sound. They recognize and acknowledge that music through singing, playing, improvising and listening is an aspect of spiritual connection that is not confined to the institution of the church or to a religion but is concerned with the connection wefeel and sense in mysterious and unknown places and spacesThe findings of this study are limited as it only focuses on the experience of the authors, hence, generalizations to other musicians or church settings cannot be made. The authors argue that music in church settings can enliven andtransform worship through music in which spiritual connections can be fostered between God and man that positively engender wellbeing.

Chamber music in painting photography film

This exhibition expands upon the history, approaches of experimental film and image making. Through speculative and abstract approaches the artists appropriate images to deal with trauma, confusion and nostalgia. The artists in this exhibition use personal imagery to demonstrate abstract ideals and idiosyncratic perspectives. Work in the show will be made up of photographic prints, collage, 16mm film and video work. Through physical manipulations of the image surface, retrenching of forgotten archives and poetic layerings of time and place, this exhibition aims to examine the de-linear and personal ways artists can experiment with the image.Through incorporating work of long standing artists Dirk De Bruyn and Luigi Fusinato in contrast with the work of young artists Anna Higgins and Beth Caird, the exhibition will examine the relationship between experimental film from a pre-digital context and how it influences, echoes and evolves in a post-digital environment.

Enhancing students' experience in music composition through music notation software

A project was undertaken in a Hong Kong primary school to investigate the role of music notation software in leaching music composition. The project was divided into three stages. During the first stage, appropriate hardware equipment and software applications were installed in the school music room, and four teaching plans were developed on the models and strategies derived from findings in the local and international literature. During the second stage, these teaching plans were implemented in Grade One, Grade Three, Grade Five and Grade Six classes of the school. During the third stage, the effectiveness of these teaching activities was evaluated by comparing the experiences from the second stage to the corresponding findings from similar projects undertaken in other Hong Kong primary schools, as well as to findings from the international literature. The results demonstrated that tile visual and audio stimulation created by computer"based technology can motivate students to successfully engage in music composition. Moreover, computer"based technology provides an opportunity for students to compose music in an atonal idiom. However, a large number of students were unable to demonstrate the concept of structural design in their musical products, and one of the findings from this investigation was that teachers need to be more purposeful in their teaching by directing students to employ the technique of repetition of interesting musical fragments or phrases in order to achieve a sense of unity in their pieces.

The role of the music therapist in promoting parent infant attachment

Abstract
This paper provides a brief overview of recent literature relating to infant musicality and its basis for effective parent-infant work in music therapy. Two strong trends are revealed: the international breadth of the developing work by music therapists within family-centred contexts of practice, especially work with infants and their parents in the early years; and the use oftheoretical principles of communicative musicality (Malloch &Trevarthen, 2008] combined with knowledge of early musical skills. This focus on musical perception and musical development (Briggs, 1991; Trehub, 2003] provides a rationale as to why musical interaction supported by a qualified music therapist can offer a potential pathway for improved attachment between the parent and infant when therapeutic support is indicated.

Reading race, aboriginality in Australian children`s literature

This text looks at the ways in which Australia's indigenous peoples have been, and continue to be, represented in books for children. These varying representations have helped to colour the attitudes, beliefs and assumptions of different generations of Australians.

Home, school, community and their role in the provision of music education

The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), is supporting under the Australian Government Quality Outcomes Programme, a National Review of School Music Education. The review, which is intended to submit its report in mid 2005, is interested in investigating the current quality of teaching and learning of music in both primary and secondary schools. It aims to provide examples of best practice of teaching and learning of music, along with a set of recommendations for the development of future approaches and directions to improve the quality of music education offerings in Australian schools. This paper puts forward some proposals for consideration that will be forwarded to the Review and aims to generate debate about future approaches to the delivery of music education in Australian primary schools.
It argues that the home, school and community all have an important part to play in the music education of children, but that at present these three entities are insufficiently connected on a number of fronts, not least being an understanding about the purpose of young people’s engagement with music. There is no doubt that interest in the arts amongst Australians generally is high. A recent Australia Council report revealed that 85 per cent of its respondents agreed the arts are and should be an important part of the education of every young Australian and that what was needed was better arts education and opportunities for all young people. However, the opportunities need not be confined to those offered by the school sector. Engagement with out-of-school music includes both music encountered in the home, which may be affected by family influence, and music provided by the diversity of community organizations, which serve a real and complimentary role to classroom learning and achieve learning outcomes that schools often do not have the resources to foster. A number of proposals for action are suggested for consideration by those involved in education as a means of progressing the discussion. It asserts that there is much valuable activity occurring within the three locales of school, home and community, but a firmer relationship could be forged across all three to ensure young people’s on-going, life-long enjoyable engagement with music.

“Through a glass darkly” : a report on trends in school music education provision in Australia

This paper reports on research commissioned by the Music Council of Australia (MCA) on the provision of school music education in Australian states and territories. Using guidelines developed by the principal researcher, a team of state and territory investigators collected data on eleven research questions formulated by MCA’s Research Committee. The principal investigator compiled, analysed and interpreted the state data and synthesised the findings into an overview of
the current situation nationally. One of the major findings was the limited amount of uniform data available from education authorities; indeed, the inadequacy or non-availability of data from some states is a matter of serious concern in terms of public accountability for the school music provision. Nevertheless, the project provided an overview of the current state of school music education in all states and territories. In relation to three of the key indicators (numbers of specialist music teachers, numbers of students taught music, and numbers of students studying music at Year 12), the study revealed that the provision of music has not changed significantly over the past two decades—the situation has either remained static or has improved or declined slightly. The principal recommendation from the project is the need for a more comprehensive survey to be undertaken and a Deakin University team, in collaboration with the MCA as industry partner, will be applying for an ARC Linkage Grant which will investigate effective teaching of music in schools and the preparation of teachers for implementing music programs.

Empowering Australian students in African music: experiential education in primary teacher training

Luckman (1996) defines experiential education as a "process through which a learner constructs knowledge, skill and value from direct experience" (p. 7). The core of such learning is practical engagement, contextualised by concepts and skills in guided experiences. This process, to be most effective, should be supported by reflection. This paper considers an experiential program in African music that is part of pre-service primary teacher education for generalist teacher trainees. As part of the Bachelor of Primary Education degree, offered by Deakin University (Australia) students can select an elective subject on African music in the final year of their four-year course. In this subject students learn African music experientially, by playing, singing and moving. These students completed a questionnaire and were interviewed at the conclusion of the unit in 2003. Data collected showed the effectiveness of using an unknown music to explore musical concepts and understandings in an Australian educational setting.

Celebrating the use of African music : change in motion

I undertook a research project regarding the use of African music at both primary and secondary school level with Victorian teachers in Melbourne in 2004. This study grew out of my first project, which examined the effectiveness of using African music with non-specialist primary teacher education students at Deakin University, Melbourne (see Joseph, 2002, 2003). In this paper the concept of 'change' in relation to teaching and learning is explored regarding practising teachers’ teaching and learning of African music in Australian schools. According to Campbell (2004), a guiding principle for shaping educational experiences designed to promote students’ musical and cultural understanding is for teachers to make music both meaningful and useful in their lives. She further contends that such an experience can 'come alive' for students if teachers promote active involvement for them as music listeners as well as makers of music. This paper discusses some of the findings in relation to why and how teachers are engaging with African music and what their students are learning from it. It may be argued that both students (Deakin University student project) and teachers (Victorian music project) perceived African music to be an effective way to transmit and engage with a 'new music and culture'.

Taking stock of school music education in Victoria: the lessons of history in the present context of the national review

The National Review of School Music Education represents a unique opportunity to identify and find solutions to some of the very long-standing problems in Australian school music education, particularly in the government school sector. This paper is based on the premise that there are lessons to be learned from the over 150 years of music education in Victorian government schools and that it is only by considering the current status, provision and quality of school music from an historical perspective and resolving emergent issues that effective and worthwhile music education can be provided for future generations of Australian students. Developments in school music education since the 1850s are discussed and analysed in terms of the present-day issues to be addressed by National Review and a number of mutually-dependent factors are identified as combining to produce almost cyclic patterns of ebb and flow in the status, provision and quality of music education in Victoria. The paper identifies several such factors requiring immediate attention including the inadequacy of generalist primary teacher education in music, what has effectively become the extra-curricular status of music in many government schools, and the more recent problems associated with 'the over-crowded curriculum' and the emergence of The Arts as the generic Key Learning Area in which Music now finds itself as just one of many arts disciplines. The paper concludes by making three key recommendations for consideration in the context of the current National Review of School Music Education.

The blind men and the elephant : music education in a changing world

Education provides unique opportunities for individuals to develop their full character as Australian citizens who can play a part in the shaping of the future. All educational settings have an important role to play in bridging differences and promoting mutual respect, tolerance and understanding between people of different races, cultures, and religions. The curriculum is one component of the wider educational milieu that should be 'an enabling mechanism that nurtures adjustment to change, and simultaneously provides a roadmap of expectation' (Bruniges, 2005, p.15). As the rate and diversity of both local and global change accelerates, education continues to be faced with a multiplicity of challenges. The ways in which we respond to this will influence both the society and the curriculum that we design, implement and evaluate. Currently music educators implementing the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) are faced with the challenge of developing multicultural practices that align with both curriculum initiatives and create authentic experiences for students. As in the well-known story of the blind men and the elephant, teachers are faced with resources that offer only a shallow introduction to what is a multifaceted field. The question we pose is: 'How do educators embrace a vast range of cultural and social dimensions in our school music programmes without being like a blind man, grasping only one perspective of an extensive and complex whole?'