Creating musical futures

In schools, however, numbers studying and participating in music, especially in the upper years of high school, are extremely low, according to internationally renowned music educator, Professor Gary McPherson.

“Are the challenges of learning music too tough?”

“Or are approaches to learning music in schools inconsistent with young people’s expectations and needs,” he asks.

Professor McPherson is the Ormond Chair of Music and Director of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music within the Faculty of the VCA and Music.

His research output is prolific and he has published extensively in areas relating to music education, music psychology and performance science.

One of Professor McPherson’s current research projects is entitled ‘Creating musical futures in Australian schools and communities: refining theory and planning for practice through empirical innovation’, a four-year $385,000 ARC Discovery project.

The research will look at what can be done to raise the status of music in schools and improve the equity of access, participation and engagement in school music for all Australian students, in line with a key concern raised in the Commonwealth Government’s 2005 National Review of Music Education (NRME). The NRME established an immediate priority for improving and sustaining the quality and status of music education, based on stark evidence about the shortcomings and “inequalities in school music”.

“Addressing this crisis, our research project aims to produce new knowledge concerning music education in Australian schools and communities,” Professor McPherson said.

“Some of the greatest mysteries in music education concern how students’ beliefs in their own abilities are shaped and change over time, and why so few are able to move from the initial sampling stage of experiencing music for fun, through to greater technical and expressive competence,” he said

“While thousands of studies have been conducted on compulsory academic areas of learning, the literature in elective subjects such as music is embarrassingly scant.

“Our proposed studies will impact significantly on conceptions of teaching and learning across all areas of education, and thereby augment educational debates.”

Dr McPherson’s research involves a series of interconnecting studies, which adopt multidisciplinary methods and include:

Comparing young people’s personal beliefs and everyday life experiences with music and their motivational profiles toward learning music, with other non-musical life experiences and aspects of their learning.

Investigating the developmental assets, both personal and social, that are acquired from learning music and that have positive consequences for music learners’ emotional wellbeing and social development.

Examining the family, peer group, teacher/tutor and other personal and social dynamics in order to understand more precisely the factors that facilitate or hinder music learning.

Profiling schools and other educational contexts (both formal and informal) in order to establish the main enabling conditions and factors that are sufficient for personal commitment to, engagement with, and flourishing in, music-related learning opportunities.

See: www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person25385.html