Music Learning Tools for Android Devices

In this paper, a musical learning application for mobile devices is presented. The main objective is to design and develop an application capable of offering exercises to practice and improve a selection of music skills, to users interested in music learning and training. The selected music skills are rhythm, melodic dictation and singing. The application includes an audio signal analysis system implemented making use of the Goertzel algorithm which is employed in singing exercises to check if the user sings the right musical note. This application also includes a graphical interface to represent musical symbols. A set of tests were conducted to check the usefulness of the application as musical learning tool. A group of users with different music knowledge have tested the system and reported to have found it effective, easy and accessible.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

save to DISC: Documenting Innovation in Music Learning

The paper discusses an approach to determining the worth and value of innovation in music education and measuring it’s capacity for meaning and engagement. It also aims to identify new examples of innovation across a broad range of music learning contexts and establish a rigorous digital process for documenting, evaluating and distributing innovative cases and resources for present and future contexts. It discusses specifically a pilot project that seeks to document innovation in sound curriculum (DISC). save to DISC is an exploratory study in an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that proposes to establish flexible and effective procedures for the sourcing, evaluating, refereeing, editing, producing, validating, storing, publishing, and distributing of a wide range of media and content types. It involves documenting innovative and successful practice in music education, creating and evaluating programs in difficult/challenging school contexts and commissioning and encouraging the production of resource materials for 21 st century contexts

Toward an informal informed classrooms: Professional musicians\u27 informal music learning experiences

Authors have studied informal music learning with different age groups. Lucy Green (2005) studied the topic with adolescents and identified it an intuitive and natural way children learn. Chad West and Radio Cremata (2016) studied informal music learning at the collegiate level, and Martina Vasil (2019) studied secondary music teachers who implemented informal music learning strategies in their teaching practices. Informal music learning in adults is relatively under-explored compared to adolescent and collegiate age groups. Utilizing lenses drawn from John Dewey’s curricular ideas to help students find meaning in learning and motivation as viewed through Self-Determination Theory, I sought to investigate informal music learning practices of professional musicians. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the informal music learning experiences and current practices of professional musicians based in Virginia. Four research questions guided the interview questions and analysis: 1) What informal music learning experiences were formative to professional musicians who perform live music? 2) How did participants utilize informal music learning in their practices? 3) What are the challenges of informal music learning? 4) What are the benefits of informal music learning? I interviewed eight professional musicians about their informal music learning experiences in individual interviews as well as a focus group interview, and conducted a rehearsal observation. I used an iterative coding process to analyze interview transcriptions and the following themes emerged: Self-Teaching, Autonomy, and Collaboration

A Child-Directed Music Curriculum in the Montessori Classroom: Results of a Critical Participatory Action Research Study

Maria Montessori strongly advocated for music learning to be fully integrated into the classroom; however, many Montessori classrooms are dominated by materials aimed at developing children’s visual sense. The purpose of this critical participatory action research (CPAR) study was to address this perceived learning disparity by developing and implementing a curriculum that is consistent with the Montessori approach, child directed, and focused on sound examination and music learning. We designed six shelf works and offered them, over the course of 6 CPAR cycles, to 20 3- to 6-year-old children attending a Montessori school. Findings from qualitative and quantitative data indicate that the children received the works positively, chose to engage with them, became more confident in their musical tasks over time, showed signs of deep concentration and attention, and demonstrated consistent performance across similar tasks related to perception and cognition. We conclude that the presence of these 6 curricular works began to disrupt the perceived learning disparity we identified; however, more can be done to understand and change the classroom practices that support that disparity

Real-time audio interaction in serious games for music learning

In this LBD, we present several Apps for playing while learning music or for learning music while playing. The core of all the games is based on the good performance of the real-time audio interaction algorithms developed by the ATIC group at Universidad de Ma ́laga (SPAIN).Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Econom ıa y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under Project No. TIN2013-47276-C6-2-R and by the Junta de Andalucía under Project No. P11-TIC-7154

Student Perspectives on the Music-Learning Culture in a Competitive High School Music Program in the United States

“Interactions between the musical lives of adolescents’ and school music-learning culture may be enhanced by acknowledging students’ musical engagement outside of school, accepting their personal musical knowledge and tastes, and allowing them to help develop music-learning models based on their personal relationships with music” (Snead, 2010). Further understanding of the music-learning culture within high school programs may aid researchers in better determining the factors that persuade or alienate student populations from in-school musicking (Small, 1998). The purpose of this case study was to determine possible factors that may have contributed to student perceptions of the music-learning culture within a musically competitive high school setting and how these factors effected participation in music learning. Participants were drawn from a suburban high school in the Southeastern United States. After collecting questionnaires (N=352), students were divided into five musicking groups based on how they chose to participate in music – Primary, Secondary, Hybrid, Outside, and Non-Musicking. The questionnaire addressed participants’ musical lives inside and outside of the school setting. A second questionnaire was then distributed to the school music teachers using open-ended questions in order to provide further insight into the music-learning culture and to determine commonalities and discrepancies between student and teacher perceptions of the music-learning culture. Results of this study indicated that the competitive nature of the music-learning culture was responsible for exciting a portion of the student population while causing others to feel apathetic and/or excluded. This alienation seemed to either motivate students to find musical experiences outside of the school environment or caused some to give up on their musical aspirations altogether. Although some participants indicated that they felt disaffected with the music programs within their school, they did not fault the music directors, whose perceptions of the music-learning culture differed from those of students. The competitive nature of the music program and course offerings were found to be the largest factors in both persuading and dissuading music participation

Flash Study Analysis and The Music Learning Profiles Project

This paper introduces the Music Learning Profiles Project, and its methodological approach, flash study analysis. Flash study analysis is a method that draws heavily on extant qualitative approaches to education research, to develop broad understandings of music learning in diverse contexts. The Music Learning Profiles Project (MLPP) is an international collaboration to collect and curate a large number of flash studies exploring musicking and music learning in a variety of contexts that fall outside traditional school music education. In this paper the authors present context, rationale, and methods for the project, along with indicative preliminary findings. The project aims to provide an expanding online database of music experiences upon which colleagues in music education and ethnomusicology research can draw, and to which they are invited to contribute. The MLPP aims to benefit the music education community and wider society by helping to democratize research to include more diverse experiences of music learning

Equity and access in music education: Conceptualizing culture as barriers to and supports for music learning.

A conceptual model designed specifically for the investigation of issues surrounding race, ethnicity and culture in relation to music learning will best serve our profession as we attempt to understand how these issues may impact music learning among diverse populations. This paper proposes such a model, depicted as a concept map, featuring five primary categories: teacher, student, content, instruction, and context. Focusing research according to this model will serve to categorize current knowledge, clarify factors and constructs involving music learning, and formulate predictions of specific learning outcomes, thereby facilitating the development of hypotheses and theories that support a research agenda devoted to examining the barriers to and support for music learning as influenced by race, culture and ethnicity