There are many young people playing brass band instruments in Australia, yet there is generally an expectation in secondary education, and almost always in higher education, that students will play orchestral brass instruments. This article explores how schools and tertiary music educations in Australia are equipping students to be 21st century…

This paper offers an invitation to higher music education communities to think differently about the significance of the connections between music and play. We highlight the many texts that articulate these connections and draw together a speculative ontological claim that all musicking is an enactment of play. In other words, we ask how…

In 1950, percussionist and pedagogue Paul Price established an accredited collegiate percussion ensemble course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the first of its kind in the country. In this article, I argue that Price's accreditation of the genre, coupled with his many other entrepreneurial initiatives, was made possible by the…

This essay explores performance-driven aspects of U.S. bands in the contexts of Pierre Hadot's Philosophy as a Way of Life, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Jacques Derrida's Aporias, and the author's experience teaching both elementary general music and beginning band. The author wonders what band education might look like when…

Musical expression is often not explicitly addressed in secondary instrumental rehearsals due to the perception of expression as an obscure concept and the instructional time constraints on music educators. Secondary music educators, however, are encouraged to discuss expressive performance goals with instrumental students from the beginning of…

Modern band programs have spread throughout the United States to create learner-centered and culturally affirming school music experiences for children. The four key concepts of modern band, (1) approximation and scaffolding, (2) decision-making, (3) iconic notation, and (4) culturally sustaining (music education), are congruent with many…

Gender in music has been explored over recent decades with growing recognition of the challenges that are faced by women in the field. There has been substantial work exploring the Western music canon but little that addresses the music of Australian women, and more specifically, repertoire written for the wind band genre. With thousands of…

This essay represents my attempt to develop an expanded voice-as-researcher. My intent is to create a space for an improvisatory and playful process of self-discovery through writing aimed at extracting deeply-held, even concealed, possibilities rarely invoked in my practices as researcher. To facilitate this process of self-discovery, I use a…

One of the most distinctive musical genres that originated in Cuba over the past century is "cha-cha-chá," which is attributed to Enrique Jorrín during the 1950s. The popularity of this music has grown considerably since its genesis, as evidenced by the vast array of repertoire, the multitude of bands performing it, and its prevalence in…

In this article, I visualize the relationship between tonewood exploitation and the import of musical instruments for Venezuela's El Sistema, with the participation of the Venezuelan State, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and manufacturing companies from China and the Global North. My basis…

Earlier research has stated that there is a risk that traditional gender roles are conserved in non-formal popular music education, which might challenge teachers when it comes to offering equal learning opportunities. This article presents results from an interview study regarding the situation of female electric guitarists in popular music…

This layered autoethnography comprises momentary scenes connected to musical pieces for cello that are engraved in my memory and on the calluses of my fingertips by significant physical, emotional, and motivational experiences that have accompanied me since my youth. My artful methodology invokes truthful memory through sound to compose a…

Approaches to teaching music notation and instrumental technique have been standardized and codified in the United States with great success in beginning instrumental programs. While these skills are important, we do a disservice to students if we do not equally develop comprehensive musicianship and creative thinking at a young age. Creating…

The overlapping of pragmatic philosophy and the Aristotelian concept of praxis is explored with application to music and music education. John Dewey's philosophy of "Art as Experience" is contrasted with tacit aesthetic assumptions about music that music teachers often hold as a result of the aesthetic meme inherited from their…

In this paper I begin to theorize what secondary school music education might look like "post-deconstruction." In particular, I explore the argument for a reconsideration of the importance of conceptualization in the process of music education. I argue that is it through coming into contact with powerful conceptual knowledge that…