Honours Thesis

RAISING THE MUSICAL SELF-EFFICACY OF CLASSROOM TEACHERS: BEST PRACTICE COLLABORATIVE STRATEGIES FOR VISITING ARTISTS

Karen Cortez

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Music (Music Education) (Honours), Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.

2020

Acknowledgments This paper and I owe our lives to so many people whose support and occasional eyerolls created such a deep sense of academic FOMO that I actually stuck with this project for two years just to see what Honours was like. I literally would have never done this without you.

To my supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Rowley: Thank you for giving up your time to ride out my moments of (generally unfounded) panic, answer every list of questions with lists of answers, and for being in my corner, especially when times got COVID-y. Your guidance gave me the opportunity to develop myself as a reflecting practitioner.

To all the wonderful music educators from the Sydney Conservatorium and beyond: You helped me grow from uncomfortable fence-sitter to happy parkour enthusiast in my identity as both teacher and artist. Your commitment to your students and your undying drive to better music education inspires us all.

To my dear friends in Quart-Ed: Thank you for being the “yes” people whose mission to bring out the music in everyone was the foundation of this project. To my new friends at Banana School: Every student and teacher Quart-Ed will meet after our collaboration thanks you for your contribution to our professional growth. Thank you for spending your time and sharing your ideas and skills with us.

To my proof-readers, David Tocknell, Caitlin Sandiford, and Lillian Li: The readers of this thesis and I thank you for taking the time to read my half-baked drafts. Thanks for taking one for the team. David, not only did you proofread my thesis, you helped me continually revise my self-belief and motivation with your unwavering encouragement and unbelievable patience. Thank you for finding the time and energy to bring me along to the finish line with you.

Finally, to my parents: A sentence will never quantify how much you have done for me. Thanks for teaching me how to keep swimming through rough water, be it the perils of editing or the ever-constant pull to procrasti-bake.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the collaborative possibilities of a modified single- visit format to support the musical self-efficacy of teachers. A “truncated” action research model (Cain, 2008) was used to demonstrate at a methodological level the importance of teacher involvement in this process. The ensemble Quart-Ed worked with four teachers from Banana School over the course of two collaborative meetings in preparation for delivering a program for their classes. Using interviews, fieldnotes, video recordings, and formal and informal reflection from all participants at every stage of the process, numerous strategies for positive teacher-artist collaboration were identified that increased musical self-efficacy or fostered a sense of ownership of the program. Some attempted strategies were less successful and modified versions are suggested for future cycles of action research. The results of this study suggest that the modified single-visit format has strong potential to positively impact teacher musical self-efficacy and is a possible solution for artists wishing to encourage the musical capabilities of the teacher with whom they interact.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... 2

Abstract ...... 3

Table of Contents ...... 4

List of Figures ...... 7

List of Tables ...... 8

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 9 Motivation for Study ...... 9 Aim of the Study ...... 10 Research questions ...... 11

Key Terms ...... 13

Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 16 Teachers and music education in NSW primary schools ...... 16 Music Education from Visiting Artists ...... 17 Relationships and Collaboration ...... 17 Teachers’ Self-efficacy ...... 18 Artists’ beliefs about education ...... 19 Current practices and findings on the single-visit collaboration ...... 20 The need for teacher-artist collaboration ...... 21 “Remusicalising” teachers with Small’s musicking ...... 21 Recent approaches to researching artist-teacher collaborations ...... 22

Chapter 3: Methodology ...... 24 Qualitative Paradigm ...... 24 Action Research ...... 24 Sampling Method ...... 25 Participants ...... 26 Partington and Small ...... 26

Data Collection ...... 27 Planning Phase: Interviews ...... 27 Acting Phase: Collaborative meetings and program delivery ...... 27 Evaluating Phase: Closing interviews and questionnaire ...... 29 Reflecting Phase ...... 29

Data Analysis ...... 30

Chapter 4: Findings ...... 32

Planning Phase: Interviews ...... 32 Musicality and musicking ...... 32 Expectations of interactions ...... 35 Preparation for next phase ...... 38

Acting Phase: First Meeting ...... 39 Icebreaker activity ...... 39 Freeform conversation ...... 41 Contribution imbalances ...... 41 Artists as assistants ...... 42 Teachers as student advocates ...... 42 Reflection ...... 43 Preparation for the next phase ...... 44

Acting Phase: Second Meeting ...... 45 Warm-up musicking ...... 45 Hedron: Mastery Experiences ...... 46 Oceans Activity: Miscommunication ...... 46 Power imbalances ...... 47 Listening-as-musicking ...... 48 Wrapping up ...... 49 Preparation for the next phase ...... 51

Acting Phase: Program Delivery ...... 51 Dragons and behaviour management ...... 51 Hedron and pre-teaching ...... 52 Breakout Rooms and team teaching ...... 53 Soundscapes and musical teachers ...... 54 Musicking-as-listening ...... 55 Wrapping up and informal discussions ...... 56

Evaluating Phase ...... 56 Evaluation of the program ...... 56 Evaluation of the collaborative process ...... 57 Meeting activities ...... 58 Icebreakers and breakout rooms ...... 59 Impact on teacher self- efficacy ...... 60 Impact on attitudes towards music teaching ...... 61

Chapter 5: Conclusions/Reflection Phase ...... 63 Limitations and Future Research ...... 66

Reference List ...... 67

Appendix A: Ethics and SERAP approval ...... 72

Appendix B: Self-efficacy Tool ...... 74

Appendix C: Interview Questions ...... 75

Appendix D: Partington’s Core Commitments ...... 77

Appendix E: Final Questionnaire ...... 78

Appendix F: Proposed and Actual Project Timelines ...... 79

Appendix G: Pre-meeting email ...... 80

Appendix H: Highlighted and summarised core commitments ...... 82

Appendix I: Draft run sheet post-first meeting ...... 83

Appendix J: T4 extended quote ...... 84

Appendix K: Final run sheet + teaching resources ...... 85

List of Figures

Figure 3.1 - Structure of the project...... 25 Figure 4.2 – Breakout room questions...... 40 Figure 4.2 – Reflection questions...... 43

List of Tables

Table 3.1: Core commitments from Partington’s model ...... 28 Table 4.1: Summarised observations of breakout room activity ...... 54 Table 5.1: Collaborative meetings and their contribution to the single-visit performance. 64 Table 5.2: Artists’ strategies that attempted to boost teachers’ musical self-efficacy ...... 65 Table 5.3: Artists’ strategies that attempted to boost ensure an equal power balance...... 65

Chapter 1: Introduction In Australian primary schools, music education comes in many different forms. In NSW, primary school teachers are responsible for teaching all six Key Learning Areas (KLAs), one of which is the Creative Arts comprising of Music, Visual Arts, Drama and Dance. In some schools, music education is taught by a specialist music teacher, and this is particularly common in the private school sector. Another avenue of music education is from visiting artists, such as myself and my quartet, Quart-Ed. As a Bachelor of Music (Music Education) student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, I have been working with three other Music Education students (now graduates) in a string quartet, Quart-Ed, formed in 2017. We blend our classroom teacher training with our string performance training to develop and perform interactive programs— and to date, this has been aimed at a primary school audience. While we consider our blend of training and skills to be unique, we are not the first to present educational music programs for schools: in Australia, the company Musica Viva has provided this service with professional artists since 1981 (Barkl, 2005). So far, Quart-Ed has primarily used a single-visit format for school visits. This style of presentation remains a popular format for visiting artists all over the Western world, because it is cost- and time-effective for schools (Christophersen, 2013; Kenny, 2010). Musica Viva’s short-term visits often include resources and Professional Learning (PL) opportunities, to extend the impact of their visits beyond the time of the visit itself (Barkl, 2005). This sounds ideal: students have an enriching experience from professionals in the field, and teachers are provided with ways to extend the learning experience and are presented with an opportunity for personal growth.

Motivation for Study Since artist visits are being used as a source of music education all over the Western world, their popularity is generating a body of research from many perspectives. Through this, it is well established that visiting artists can negatively impact the artistic self-efficacy of teachers (Christophersen & Kenny, 2018; Partington, 2018; Snook & Buck, 2014). Snook & Buck (2014) found that the presence of a professional artist lowered the chances of classroom teachers instigating artistic endeavours on their own once the artists visiting their school left. Additionally, it was found that PL from experts was not raising

10 teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching that subject, because the PL provider was not “someone like us” and therefore could not provide a vicarious success experience for the teachers (Snook & Buck, 2014, p. 22). Teachers can develop a sense of insecurity through the lack of communication between themselves and the artists, as they express uncertainty about whether they’ve prepared their students adequately, or admit that they haven’t completed the preparatory material (Christophersen, 2013). Teachers’ insecurity may further be exacerbated by being left out of the artists’ vision of the performance. Artists are found to have a “dyadic” view of the performance — between themselves and the students — and consequently teachers are left without a designated role, sometimes making them a source of frustration for artists (Christophersen, 2013). These issues of teachers’ musical self- efficacy relate to another problem: bringing in experts perpetuates notions of music being an exclusive activity that the school and its teachers cannot do well enough on their own. This sense of music belonging to someone else is not lost on students (Partington, 2018). This is particularly alarming because rather than being used to enrich the music curriculum, these programs are sometimes being used to fulfil them (Christophersen, 2013). In Australia, with the majority of teachers entering the field with low self-efficacy in teaching music (Russell-Bowie, 2009) and very few teaching music regularly (de Vries, 2017), an artist visit could pose a significant threat to developing musical confidence in the teaching population of the average primary school and increase the risk of music being taught solely on an events basis. Crooke and McFerran (2015) found that passionate music educators or educators that supported music in their schools had had musical experiences in school when they were students. If students grow up feeling like they are not part of a music-making community, it is possible that we are further diminishing the pool of future teachers that feel confident teaching music, compounding the challenges of teaching music in our primary schools.

Aim of the Study Existing research suggests that positive collaboration between artists and teachers is required to create a balance of power that supports teacher confidence and involvement in music (Christophersen & Kenny, 2018; Partington, 2018). Numerous studies exist on the collaborative processes of longer-term, residency-style artist visits (Burnard & Swann, 2010; Eidsaa, 2018; Hall, Thomson & Russell 2007), and have put forward suggestions for better working relationships between teachers and artists. However, they are not well suited to performing groups that are touring many places in a short period of time, and the

11 funding necessary for artist residencies may be out of reach for many schools. Research concerning the single-visit structure on the other hand has tended towards investigating only one side of the collaboration (Christophersen, 2013; Holdhus & Espeland, 2013; Kenny, 2010; Snook & Buck, 2014). This study aimed to investigate whether the single-visit structure could be improved by having artists and teachers collaborate prior to the visit, drawing particularly on the work of Froehlich (2018) and Partington (2018) to inform the methodology. Froehlich (2018) suggests the use of Frame and Stakeholder analytical tools as guides for understanding collaborations: acknowledging different frames of interpretation can allow teachers and artists to communicate goals and objectives clearly, and investment and involvement in the program will allow teachers to develop self-efficacy within the bounds of the program, instead of losing it. Partington (2018) suggests the use of collaborative musicking, a term coined by Small (1998) that considers musical actions as representations, explorations and reaffirmations of social relationships. In doing so, participants’ understanding of valid musical activity can be reshaped, allowing teachers to perceive themselves as not “others”, but “musickers” (Small, 1998). This can create balanced teacher-artist relationships that help grow teachers’ musical confidence, thereby “remusicalising” the school community (Partington, 2018). Since the literature suggests a power imbalance already exists in favour of the artists, this study used an action research approach, recognising at a methodological level the importance of the input of the teachers. It was undertaken with my ensemble, Quart-Ed, and four Stage 3 teachers from Banana School who described themselves as having low musical self-efficacy. Together the group prepared and delivered a single-visit program through a series of collaborative meetings, which served as opportunities for the participants to “music”, and to improve the ways in which they collaborated with each other. Overall, the study acts as the first cycle of a larger action research investigation of best practice collaborative strategies for visiting artists, but multiple cycles of program delivery are outside the scope of this thesis.

Research questions In order to focus my investigation, I developed three research questions. My main overarching research question is:

How can a collaborative process between artists and teachers contribute to the value of a single-visit performance?

To inform this question, I have developed two sub-questions: a. What strategies can visiting artists use to boost teachers’ musical self-efficacy? b. What strategies can visiting artists use to ensure a power balance with teachers during a collaborative project?

The main question addresses whether the single-visit structure can still be a vehicle for making a positive musical impact in a school. The two sub-questions explore whether visiting artists’ behaviour can have an effect on teachers’ self-efficacy and ownership of the program, which Froehlich (2018) and Partington (2018) consider integral to positive collaborations between artists and teachers.

The following chapter will review the literature related to artist-teacher relations, teacher’s attitudes to music and artists’ attitudes to education.

Key Terms

Self-efficacy: individuals’ belief about their ability to complete a task, which can be raised or undermined by experiences or beliefs an individual has (Bandura, 1977). Experiences that might shape a teachers’ musical self-efficacy include: mastery experiences, where an individual succeeds or fails at related tasks; vicarious experiences, where individuals see peers succeed or fail at related tasks; and more weakly, verbal persuasion, where others provide feedback on whether they perceived the individual to have failed or succeeded.

Musicking: a verb termed by Small (1998, 2001) describing all activities that contribute to a musical event. This includes enablers and organisers of musical events, as well as performers and the audience. The concept of musicking separates music from society’s currently valued “musical objects” such as particular composers or condoned performance spaces, and instead highlights that music is participatory and includes actions such as singing to oneself in the car, or listening to the radio.

Visiting Artist: professional artists who visit a school to present, share, collaborate or teach. Partington (2017) cautions that drawing distinctions between teachers and artists even within the discourse of research can exacerbate feelings of inadequacy in non- professional artists:

“The concept of the ‘musical’ individual cannot exist without implying not only its

opposite, the ‘non-musical’, but also its superiority over this opposite concept, and

therefore, for those who know about music, the perpetuation of their status relies on

some degree of the subjugating and exclusion of others” (p. 212).

This paper acknowledges the musicality of all participants, especially its participating teachers, and attempts to avoid the “demusicalisation” of teachers (Partington, 2017, p.

250) by naming both sets of participants under their primary occupation, i.e. classroom teachers and professional performers.

Teacher-artist relationship: The working relationship between teachers and artists. This includes literal interactions between the two parties, such as collaborating over a project, as well as sentiments, thoughts or ideas pertaining to each other.

Collaboration: One or more parties working together on a common project.

Collaborations can be very unequal and should not be assumed to be positive simply by being framing an activity as such.

Single-visit: a popular structure for artist visits. A single-visit structure is conducted over a single day or for the length of a concert and is often coupled with resources for classroom teachers to use before or after the visit, possibly including Professional Learning (PL) opportunities.

Chapter 2: Literature Review The following literature review explores the relationship between teachers, their musical self-efficacy, and the arts education industry. It examines the ways in which music education is delivered in NSW and the importance of teachers and visiting artists in shaping it. The implications of these practices on teacher (and consequently student) musical self-efficacy are also investigated. Small’s concept of musicking is used to show how beliefs about music and teacher-artist relationships shape each other.

Teachers and music education in NSW primary schools NSW does not require music to be taught by a specialist in primary school and is therefore the responsibility of the classroom teacher, particularly in the public school system (de Vries, 2015). However, in one study, 82% of surveyed Australian pre-service primary teachers believed they lacked personal musical experiences1, and considered it a barrier to teaching music in their future classrooms (Russell-Bowie, 2009). This sense of ill-preparedness is a deterrent to being involved in music education (Crooke & McFerran, 2015), with only 37% of surveyed Australian primary teachers reporting teaching music regularly (de Vries, 2017). There are multiple barriers for music education that are entrenched in the current frameworks and policies of Australian education. The entire Creative Arts KLA is allocated 6-10% of teaching time, meaning that music, as one of four artforms, is allocated about 2-3% of the total teaching time (NSW Education Standards Authority, 2019). Given that 45-55% of teaching time is being allocated to teaching English and Mathematics, it is unsurprising that training for primary school teachers does not appear to be providing them with the tools nor confidence to teach music (Parliament of Victoria Education and Training Committee, 2013; Hocking, 2009). Limited time allocated to the arts in Australian schooling is further exacerbated by the fact that students’ artistic success is not used a tool for standardised teacher or school evaluation (Crooke & McFerran, 2015). The

1 The usage of “musical experience” in this paper seems to refer strongly to formal music education experiences: Musical background was ascertained from questions in the survey which asked students [student teachers] if they could play a musical instrument, if they understood music theory, if others in their family played a musical instrument, if they were involved in music in their leisure times and as a family or socially, and if they had had music lessons out of school” (Russell-Bowie, 2009, p. 32-33).

17 perceived gains from supporting music programs in schools are therefore very slim if teachers do not “buy in” to the social and personal benefits of music to students. Additionally, while the Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus (Board of Studies NSW, 2006) implies that Music should be taught to provide a foundation for later music endeavours, its open- ended nature allows its requirements to be met in a variety of sporadic activities, for example, an annual performance night, or even the use of (or dependence on) visiting artist programs. This does not support the development of autonomy in musical skills, which is what increases musical self-efficacy in students (and teachers). These systemic issues mean that the quality of a school’s music education rests primarily on the enthusiasm of individual teachers or school leaders.

Music Education from Visiting Artists With primary teachers having low musical self-efficacy (de Vries, 2015), visiting artists have become an important source of music education for many schools. In Australia, the Musica Viva in Schools program is the leading organisation for bringing musicians to schools. The company facilitates both long-term residencies and single visits, which include lesson plans and Professional Learning for the teachers in the package (https://musicaviva.com.au/education/). New Zealand, Norway, Ireland and the UK have similar visiting artist programs (Snook & Buck, 2014; Christophersen, 2013; Kenny, 2010; Hall, Thomson & Russell 2007). The visiting artists model is highly supported by arts organisations and is utilised by schools with music education programs of all sorts. The students are treated to an extra-ordinary experience within their own schools that their teachers may not have the expertise or time to create, making music education memorable and exciting. While long-term projects are preferable, allowing closer interaction and collaboration between artists, and teachers, and students, the single-visit format is also popular due to it having less impact on the school’s schedule and budget. These visits, brought about by the initiative of a teacher and an offering from musicians, can be considered a collaboration, as it is an agreement between two parties to bring an experience to the students (Christophersen & Kenny, 2018).

Relationships and Collaboration Collaborations are the combination of multiple parties to achieve common goals. They can have mixed success based on communication and power differentials, shared priorities and common vocabulary or skills, and artist visits are no exception (Froehlich,

2018). The nature of the teacher-artist relationship directly affects the quality of collaborative activities, and therefore the end product (Partington, 2018; Hall, Thomson & Russell 2007). A successful, equal collaboration between teacher and artist can yield inclusive, memorable experiences that are musically and educationally sound, and affirms the worth of both parties’ expertise (Hultberg, 2018). However, current beliefs and practices create a strong power imbalance in favour of the musician, affecting the quality of teacher-artist relationships, as well as any future teacher-artist relationships that the participants might engage in (Partington, 2018). This has implications for the musical self- efficacy of teachers and the quality of the delivered program, and therefore the music education of their students.

Teachers’ Self-efficacy

Teachers who have high musical self-efficacy will be more likely to collaborate with musicians and will be more receptive to exchanging skills and ideas (Partington, 2018). They become assets to an artist’s program by teaching the program’s pre- and post- visit activities, extending its impact beyond the duration of the visit. Teachers’ generally passive participation in teacher-artist collaborations (Christophersen, 2013) can be attributed to two commonly held beliefs: that music-making is contained within specific, validated activities and objects (Small, 2001) and the 19th century romantic aesthetic theories that elevate the arts from education (Holdhus & Espeland, 2013). The musicians, as the curators and experts in art, are considered to be more powerful – in one study, teachers described musicians as “a cut above” educators (Snook & Buck, 2014, p. 22). A dichotomy of “artist” versus “teacher” is very evident in the language of teachers, and this demonstrates a perception of incompatibility between their identity as school-based educators and an involvement with art (Snook &. Buck, 2014; Digranes, 2009). Understanding how these beliefs interact with self-efficacy and locus of control allows us to understand how teachers think about their own musicality, and perceive their engagement in musical tasks as successes and failures. For example, teachers who believe skill acquisition in music is limited by having or not having innate talent will consider their musical ability out of their control, and may choose not to engage with learning or teaching music (Rotter, 1966). Professional Learning opportunities for classroom teachers led by performers or music education specialists may be less successful for teachers who may not consider the presenter to be “someone like us”, so vicarious success cannot be achieved

(Snook & Buck, 2014, p. 22). The (Western) belief that participation in music requires formal, specialist training and engagement with “musical objects”, such as particular styles of music or particular performance venues, continues to be a barrier to developing musical self-efficacy (Small, 1998, 2001). Teachers who hold this belief may refer to their own failures or disengagement with particular musical objects in their own childhood, and reason that this disqualifies them from participating in music or teaching music (Boyce- Tillman, 2018; Kenny, 2017). Indeed, teachers may be engaging in musical activities all the time but may simply not consider them to be so (Small, 1998).

Artists’ beliefs about education

Artists may also hold beliefs about schools, teachers or music that may affect their behaviours during an artist-teacher collaboration. One common trope used in the media is the artist as the “freer of potential” and a hero for those who are unsuccessful in school (Digranes, 2009, p. 104). Arts organisations’ media also tends to connect visiting artist programs with the extension of the culture sector, as opposed to an integration or a collaboration with the education sector (Digranes). Artists who subscribe to this view are more likely to decline the opportunity to collaborate with teachers as equals. They may consider themselves, like their art, a tool for revolt against structure and institutionalisation, and therefore necessarily do not consider the teacher an ally for their work (Digranes, 2009). It is possible that like teachers who experienced poor music education are afraid of teaching it, artists who experienced school structure negatively as children may consider it the antithesis to artistic and aesthetic integrity. Teachers’ mandated emphasis on numeracy and literacy also encourages beliefs in the arts sector that teachers are incompetent at the arts – Musica Viva described primary school teachers as “flailing – understandably” (Parliament of Victoria Education and Training Committee, 2013, p. 97). This outlook is not assisted by the attitudes perpetuated in tertiary music institutions, particularly ones that make distinctions between those studying performance and those studying education (Smith, 2018). This dichotomy denies the reality that many musicians become teachers in some capacity and can discourage them from pursuing education-related skills. There is therefore a very strong sense, from both artists and teachers, of a divide between artists and teachers that has been augmented by beliefs they developed through professional training. Distinct roles are not an issue in developing healthy collaborations. However, the perpetuation of attitudes relating to art

20 over education combined with the low musical self-efficacy of teachers takes credibility and power away from them, undervaluing their contributions and discouraging engagement in music.

Current practices and findings on the single-visit collaboration The effects of teacher and artist beliefs are apparent in the research that has been conducted on single-visit collaborations. The rigidity of the single-visit structure, which is usually designed ahead of time as a set experience, makes cohesion with school music difficult, especially when teachers do not make use of the preparatory and follow-up material that is generally provided (Christophersen, 2013; Digranes, 2009). Despite this material being developed for classroom teacher use, its connection to an arts organisation may make teachers feel as if they lack the knowledge to do its content justice. The situation can be likened to the concept of being “teacher-led”, in which learning is based in the experiential knowledge of the teacher, instead of “student-led”, in which experiential knowledge is co-built by the learners. Here, the teachers are receiving information and learning experiences from the artists without having had those experiences themselves. They may also feel unmotivated to complete the preparatory tasks because the program may appear unaffected by the completion or non-completion of the supplementary work, diminishing their importance within the collaboration. These behaviours are a result of both artists and teachers placing the value of the program within the musical object or works presented, thereby elevating artists’ skills and knowledge above teachers’ (Small, 2001; Holdhus & Espeland, 2013). Indeed, the single-visit format is built on the fundamental belief that what the artists bring is inherently good for the students. During the program, the teachers are left to find a new role for themselves, as “guards” of behaviour management, as translators of unfamiliar language, or disappearing from the performance altogether (Christophersen, 2013). Musicians resented teachers that were not involved (Kenny, 2010), “guarding” too strictly, or not “guarding” enough (Christophersen, 2013). These mixed responses may be the result of envisioning their performance as a dyadic relationship only between musician and student (Christophersen). This means that on the day, teachers become an uncontrolled factor to the artists who can be blamed for any unexpected outcomes. Teachers who have been sidelined from their usual role without explicit instructions are left to imagine ways in which they can best be useful, which is not always the same as what the artists hope. The teachers in Christophersen’s study asserted that being a “guard” was important as the best learning

21 from the musical experience occurred when the students were attentive and practising engaging with art, but it is also possible that the need for behaviour “guards” suggests that the artists are failing to engage the children, through repertoire choice or poor teaching skills (Boyce-Tillman, 2018; Holdhus & Espeland, 2013). However, teachers who have low musical self-efficacy may be unwilling to critique musicians doing what they perceive to be a “musician’s job”. The product for the students may therefore not be of its maximum potential quality due to the lack of programming input and behaviour management plans/suggestions from the teachers.

The need for teacher-artist collaboration Better collaboration is not only necessary for improving the quality of the program, it is integral for the continued development of music education within the school. Even if artists provide excellent music education to the students while they are there, their presence can further alienate generalist teachers from music-making (Partington, 2018), decreasing the likelihood of continued arts activities in the school after the collaboration (Snook & Buck, 2014; Holdhus & Espeland, 2013). This negative impact of programs is of immense concern, especially as they are often being used as a replacement of classroom music, instead of a complementary event (Christophersen, 2013). If teachers become reliant on external programs and less confident in their musical abilities, the net effect of the artist visit becomes detrimental to music education in schools. Music becomes a novel and distant experience to students who are inadvertently taught to know musicians only as visitors, and outsiders from their community.

“Remusicalising” teachers with Small’s musicking

Small (1998, 2001) writes about musicking, a verb encompassing all actions that contribute to the creation of a musical event. In the context of a Western performance, musicking includes listeners and the listening environment as influential shapers of musical events and recognises performers and listeners as both being actively involved in making musical meaning. Small writes that musicking is used in society as a way of exploring and affirming social relationships by representing them through the action of

22 musicking, and not the sound object itself2. Musicking is intended to remind users of the term that music is an action, removing music from socially prized objects, such as repertoire or performance space, and including humming, enjoying a TV theme song, or dancing to music as acts of musicking. Students who are brought up with this belief will be more likely to consider themselves as musical beings, which is in the interests of both teachers and artists: Teachers and school leaders with musical experiences as students grow to become initiators of music education (Crooke & McFerran, 2015; Kenny, 2017; de Vries, 2017). Looking to the future, developing school communities that are musically independent will increase the pool of future teachers with high musical self-efficacy. The musical identities of teachers as well as the educational identities of musicians are therefore necessary to increase the effectiveness and educational value of single-visit programs. Teachers who have musical self-efficacy and musicians who identify as teachers may be receptive to exchanging skills and ideas, and more likely to collaboratively develop a program that achieves both party’s goals. The value of the program can be extended past the presence of the artist when teachers feel confident to teach the program’s pre- and post- visit activities, and the value of the program itself is improved when artists consult teachers about appropriate repertoire and discussion points. Importantly, teachers with high musical self-efficacy are an example to their students that music is an inclusive activity that has a place in everyone’s lives (Partington, 2018).

Recent approaches to researching artist-teacher collaborations As previously mentioned, significant research including the perspectives of both artists and teachers exists in the context of long-term collaborations, such as residencies of composers and performers (Eidsaa, 2018; Burnard & Swann, 2010, Hall, Thomson & Russell 2007, Partington, 2017). The nature of these long-term collaborations is more conducive to the inclusion of the teacher, because communication becomes necessary for running such a large project. Many of the recommendations arising from these studies are not well suited to single-visit structures. The research on single visits has been conducted from one side of the collaboration, either from the teachers’ perspective (Snook & Buck, 2014; Holdhus & Espeland, 2013;

2 Small draws a parallel between sketching anatomical drawings: its importance lies in understanding the subject through the act of drawings, as opposed to the usefulness of the final drawing (Small, 1998).

Christophersen, 2013) or the performers’ (Kenny, 2010). These papers have highlighted issues that prevent positive collaboration, but as case studies are reported after the fact, they contain very little experimentation with solutions. To my knowledge, only one paper (Hultberg, 2018) exists about a successful single-visit collaboration, but Hultberg was an outside observer to the project, and much of its success lay in the initiative of an enthusiastic and confident teacher. Currently, a 3-year action research project is underway in Norway. Action research is geared towards finding solutions to problems, but these researchers are seeking alternatives to the single-visit structure, not ways to improve it (Holdhus, 2019). Finally, while research about the pedagogical identities of professional musicians has been conducted (Smith, 2018; Boyce-Tillman, 2018; Kenny, 2010), no research was found involving qualified teachers who identified as artists. Since the perception of a dichotomy between teachers and artists is partly the cause for poor collaborative practices, research involving artist participants who occupy the space between teacher and artist may provide further insight into the complexities of single-visit collaborations.

The following chapter discusses the methodology used in this study, and justifies the use of action research and qualitative data to understand and improve artist-teacher collaborations.

Chapter 3: Methodology Qualitative Paradigm Teachers and artists have beliefs about music, education, this project and themselves that respond to innumerable sources of stimulus that shape behaviour and interactions. The qualitative research paradigm allows me to examine this collaboration in a way that recognises “the richness, individuality, and subjective nature of a participant’s perspective and understanding [which] are not amenable to the usual scientific criteria” (Burns, 2000, p. 12). In acknowledging reality as shaped by an individual, the qualitative paradigm allows my research to explain behaviour in a way that is “highly predictive” and therefore beneficial for the future work of both participating artists and teachers (Burns, 2000, p. 12).

Action Research The aim of this study centred around the improvement of teacher-artist relationships in relation to the delivery of a single-visit program. The action research approach was ideal for achieving this aim because it allowed me to act on existing literature’s recommendations to collaborate within the methodology of the project. Action research mirrors this need for collaboration, since it relies on positive working relations between interested parties to generate lasting and effective change (Cain, 2008). To reliably evaluate the outcome of this project, teachers needed to be able to express their needs and provide constructive feedback about the artists. Since feedback from teachers about artist-teacher collaborations tends to be overwhelmingly (and possibly excessively) positive due to the perception of art being above education (Christophersen, 2013; Holdhus & Espeland, 2013), my identity as an artist was likely to affect the quality of data collected from teachers (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). However, reducing myself to an external observer could have resulted in poorer relationships with participants, also affecting the reliability of data (Hammersley & Atkinson). It is hoped that the impact of my involvement on data quality is mitigated or lessened by using this project’s action research approach to signpost the importance of the teachers and their honest feedback, for both the collaborative project and the study as a whole. According to a review of action research in music education, action research can be defined as "research undertaken by practitioners into their own practice, in order to improve it” (Cain, 2008, p. 283). It enables individuals, teams or larger groups to

25 investigate solutions to a problem through experimentation and reflection, and is characterised by a cycle of Plan, Act, Evaluate and Reflect (Cain, 2008). This process allows changes to be made to the project as data is collected, so that subsequent actions and decisions remain research-based and serve participant needs. Multiple cycles of this program are outside the scope of this thesis, making this one of many “truncated” single- cycle studies common to action research in music education (Cain, 2008) (see Fig. 3.1). However, a small reflection cycle will exist within the “Act” phase of this project, so that the quality of the collaborative meetings can be improved with each session.

Figure 3.1 - Structure of the project.

Sampling Method To be eligible for this project, the primary school needed to be located in Sydney for ease of transport, have no music specialist so that the teachers we worked with were the school’s only source of music education, and have no prior involvement with Quart-Ed. Ideally, the teachers would identify as having low musical self-efficacy, as teachers with higher musical self-efficacy are already likely to involve themselves in musical collaborations (Hultberg, 2018). The specificity of requirements and length of commitment made a snowballing process the most effective way of finding an eligible school. Through the personal connections of my supervisor Dr Jennifer Rowley, an eligible school was found, and a cover letter to the principal was sent explaining the project. Ethics approval was granted (see Appendix A).

Participants The four participant teachers were all of the Stage 3 teachers at Banana School, and were recruited for the program by T2, who is also the Vice-Principal. The teachers were provided with an information sheet about self-efficacy to help them determine whether they had low musical self-efficacy (see Appendix B). The artists in this project were an established string quartet made up of recently graduated specialist music teachers, and in which I am also a participant. During our time at university, we had the opportunity to tour to regional areas, using a single-visit style. Through this process we have been able to practice selecting repertoire and activities that in our view best resonates with varying audiences, but we have had little opportunity to prepare nor reflect with the teachers during our visits. Despite our tertiary training as teachers, similar collaborative barriers between us and the teachers are expected, as specialist music teachers function more like artists due to their high level of formal music training and typical style of employment in Australian schools: part time and “never around” (de Vries, 2017, p. 11).

Partington and Small Partington’s considers Small’s musicking to be a social affair that can be used to affirm existing social relationships or explore new ones (2017, 2018). It is mentioned here within the methodology due to its overarching influence on the development of this project. Partington found that the crucial aspect of a positive teacher-artist relationship that improved or maintained the musical self-efficacy of teachers was musicking itself, as it served as a platform for exploring a relationship in which teachers and artist were collaborators. As a positive music-based relationship is formed, it is anticipated that the latent musicality of the teachers can be acknowledged by both themselves and the artists, allowing a working, egalitarian relationship to be practiced outside the bounds of literal music-making (Partington, 2017)3. Partington stresses the importance of time in the development of these relationships, recommending “weekly, or at least fortnightly […] [musicking] over two academic terms” (2018, p. 166). As the intention of this study is to

3 Small’s definition of musicking is attractive to music educators seeking to remusicalise others, but it is not the predominant understanding of musicking in society. Therefore, experiencing musicking as per this definition may not be enough to remusicalise people, because they themselves do not recognise what they are doing as musical. It is likely for this reason that Partington’s recommended musicking seems to mean literal music-making.

27 investigate the single-visit structure, this project is unable to meet the time requirements of Partington’s model, using it instead as a guide. By explaining the model to all participants at first contact it is hoped that the effect of reduced music making was minimised.

Data Collection

The following is an outline of the activities and data collection at each phase. To increase a project’s success, action research requires continual reflection, so the data I collected was analysed as soon as it was received, and the participants informed of any relevant findings (Cain, 2008). Data analysis techniques will be discussed later in this chapter.

Planning Phase: Interviews In the planning stage, I used individual semi-structured interviews with both teachers and artists to collect background information on the participants (see Appendix C). A semi-structured style allowed me to pursue important topics whilst allowing for participants to “express how they regard situations from their own point of view” (Cohen et al., 2011, p. 409). This allowed me to understand the “frame” from which teachers and artists viewed music, education, their abilities and perceived role, informing their behaviour during the project (Froehlich, 2018). I also asked for their expectations about the project and the other participants. Interviews were audio-recorded for analysis and future reference, and notes were taken to record body language and gestures that augmented participant responses (Cohen et al., 2011; Neuman, 2006).

Acting Phase: Collaborative meetings and program delivery The acting stage involved two 60-minute collaborative meetings between the teachers and artists to develop a program using Quart-Ed’s existing repertoire, as well as the delivery of the created program to the classes. The topic of the meetings was the creation of the program, but its primary purpose was for the participants to explore how they might best collaborate in a way that supported the musical self-efficacy of the teachers. While the meetings had no predetermined structure, I shared Partington’s suggested “core commitments” (2018) as an initial framework for positive collaboration (see Appendix D).

Table 3.1: Core commitments from Partington’s model

Note: Summarised from Partington’s research (2018, p. 166-167).

Observe As teachers observe artists leading musicking, musicians should respective practice observe teachers teaching in their classrooms. This is to help the understand each others’ pedagogy, and to observe commonalities and differences between them.

Allocate time for “Regular dialogue and joint reflection about classroom musicking joint reflection (both reviewing activity that has occurred and planning together for future musicking) were found to be crucial in the establishment of mutually satisfactory partner relationships…”

Some aspects were less achievable within the time constraints of the single-visit structure, particularly the commitments “Observe respective practice” and “time for joint reflection” (see Table 3.1). Since collaborative meetings took place outside of class time due to the nature of the single-visit structure, observation of the teachers’ practice was not possible. Instead, the group shared resources, programs and term plans. In “Time for joint reflection”, musicking most likely referred to Partington’s literal music making, so to meet this commitment within the constraints of two hour-long meetings musicking was approached broadly to include all actions contributing to a musical event, including pedagogical discussions and planning as well as music making. These reflections, in conjuction with the data collected and analysed, allowed a smaller plan-act-evaluate-reflect cycle to occur within the Acting phase, so that this data could inform changes in our collaborative strategies during meetings. To accommodate for participant availability, the first meeting was carried out via Zoom, and the second in person. Both were audio-visually recorded, allowing me to participate in the meetings whilst providing me with a record that I could use to observe nuances in participant behaviour, such as body language and the distribution of conversation between participants (Burns, 2000). As the use of recording devices affects participant behaviour, I also took field notes immediately after meetings and rehearsals with Quart-Ed, which I participated in (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). Since field notes are both a construction and reconstruction of an event and therefore “inevitably selective”

(Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2001, p. 353), pairing them with audiovisual recordings provided me with two complementary sets of data that balanced researcher bias with participant self-consciousness. The delivery of the final product is also included in the Acting phase, since it is the purpose for the collaborative project. While the focus of this project lies within the collaborative meetings, an audio-visual recording of the performance was recorded for participants to refer to as a memory aid during the Evaluating phase if they wished.

Evaluating Phase: Closing interviews and questionnaire All the participants evaluated the project both informally directly proceeding the delivery of the program, and through semi-structured interviews in participant groups. The interviews explored their experiences during the study and their feedback for the other party of participants. The teachers were additionally asked again about their beliefs regarding music and their own musicality, comparing their perspectives before and after the project. The interviews were also audio-recorded for analysis, and notes were taken to record further observations and non-verbal details. A final questionnaire for the teachers was also sent out (see Appendix E). This provided teachers with a degree of confidentiality, to improve the quality of data concerning the success of collaborating with the artists. This was intended to help me obtain a glimpse of any potential long-term effects of the project4. Due to the complexity of the examined topics and in keeping with the qualitative paradigm, the questionnaire was written using open-ended questions to “enable participants to write a free account in their own terms” (Cohen et al., 2011, p. 382).

Reflecting Phase While a dedicated reflection phase exists for this project, it is acknowledged that the entire project is underpinned by all practitioners reflecting on their actions and acting on their reflections between each activity in this project (Schön, 1983). This reflecting phase is concerned with viewing the project from a personal frame, so as the researcher I undertook an extended reflection on the research project development process as well as the project itself. In the words of Donald Schön (1983):

4 The restrictions on visitors to schools and the increased workload of teachers due to COVID-19 severely impacted the proposed timeline for this project, resulting in the final questionnaire and the teachers’ closing interviews being less than a week apart in order to finish this thesis on time. A comparison of the proposed versus actual timeline can be seen in Appendix F.

When a practitioner reflects […] he may reflect on the tacit norms and appreciations which underlie a judgement, or on the strategies and theories implicit in a pattern of behaviour. He may reflect on the feeling for a situation which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way in which he has framed the problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger institutional context. (p. 62)

I considered the structure and outcomes of the collaborative meetings and program delivery, and the structure of the project as a form of research. I reflected on the relationship between planned material and activities and the project that actually occurred in reality, as well as my expectations and the measures of success that I used. Together with the reflections from the participants, the findings from this phase will inform the next cycle of teacher-artist collaboration, program deliveries and research endeavours. All parties, having undergone reflection, will now be able to use those reflective findings to interact more positively with each other, develop better collaborative strategies and produce stronger programs for their shared interest, the students.

Data Analysis

In order to understand the complexities of the entire collaborative process, data was collected through interviews, audiovisual recordings and field notes. Using these sources I analysed the data using a Grounded Theory approach, where “one begins with an area of study and what is relevant to that area is allowed to emerge”, which works naturally within an action research context (Strauss & Corbin, 2008, p. 23). In some cases, I collected multiple sets of data from one event from multiple perspectives and using a variety of collection methods, because significantly varied interpretations of the event were expected. Within-method triangulation allowed me to “[use] multiple perceptions to clarify meaning, verifying the repeatability of an observation or interpretation”, and was particularly useful for understanding the significance of the actions and dialogue that occurred during collaboration (Stake, 2008, p. 133). The data was organised using open and axial coding (Cohen et. al., 2011), and then presented as a narrative of the participants’ responses. While Grounded Theory was used to develop an understanding of this project’s unique scenario, the data collected from the collaborative meetings in the Acting Phase prompted the investigation of analysis techniques for understanding collaborative

31 dynamics. Froehlich nominates frame and stakeholder analysis as two frameworks useful for understanding teacher-artist relationships (2018). Frame analysis is a social theory developed by Goffmann (1986), based on the concept that each individual’s unique interpretation of reality is a “frame” from which they understand and communicate with others (Froehlich, 2018). “Misframing” is what happens when participating parties interpret the same term or idea in different ways according to their personal frames, and interact with the incorrect assumption that the others are thinking like they are (Froehlich, 2018). When these frames are too different, a frame dispute can occur, the resolution of which is reflective of the group’s power (im)balances: a single frame can be superimposed upon others’ frames, or a new frame agreeable to all can be developed, which is the process known as keying. The participants’ frames and the frames of their professional identities are evident in the ways they relate to music, education, and each other, making it a useful concept for my data analysis. When collecting and analysing data throughout this study, I also considered that my understanding of Froehlich, Partington and Small’s work would be considered a part of my personal frame of reality. Stakeholder analysis comes from organisational/management literature and is concerned with feelings of ownership and involvement (Froehlich, 2018). It takes into account “influential” stakeholders, who hold power over organisations, and “important” stakeholders, who are responsible for the implementation of a project (Froehlich, 2018, p. 21). Participation in decision making, defining issues and goals within projects, the amount of time spent involved in a project and information distribution are at the centre of stakeholder analysis. Stakeholder analysis is used for understanding power play within collaborations and was therefore a useful tool for decoding the exchanges between teachers and artists in the Acting phase. The following chapter will discuss the data from each of the phases and discuss the resulting findings of the study as a whole.

Chapter 4: Findings This chapter will present the results of this study chronologically, analysing and discussing each phase as seen through the lens of the action research model.

Planning Phase: Interviews

The interviews were intended to investigate the participants’ understanding of musicking, in relation to beliefs about developing musical ability. They were also queried on their expectations of the study, particularly their expectations of each other. The teachers’ musical self-efficacy was both directly and indirectly investigated, discussing personal history as well as their experience with teaching music. The artist interviews were conducted remotely, whilst the teacher interviews were conducted in person, and both sets were audio recorded for transcription.

Musicality and musicking The artists’ responses related to musicking were seen as similar and could be attributed to their identical tertiary qualifications, which included exposure to Small’s musicking literature. All three agreed that musicality was something accessible to most people, was developed through experiences, and was not a label restricted to those whose experiences have led them to attain a degree of virtuosity: A1: I think we have musicality within us, and the more tools and experiences we have, the more we can express that musicality. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

A3: If they enjoy it... I think that makes them musical. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

A3’s interpretation of musicality also includes an enjoyment factor, which contrasts somewhat with A2: A2: I think that having musical ears is very important…. some musical training that comes formally or informally by just listening to lots of stuff, to engage with it, and just make decisions - do I like it, do I not like it? (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

A2 echoes Small’s definition of musicking, framing musicality as an aspect of aesthetic sense that is exercised even if that person feels they dislike the music they are interacting with.

In contrast, the teachers’ interpretation of “being musical” seemed to have particular requirements in order to be qualified as such. When asked about their “current and past relationship with music”, their responses seemed to suggest that they felt as if their musical ability existed only for as long as one engaged in formal tuition, an activity related to today’s prized “musical objects”, such as repertoire and instruments from the Western art music tradition (Small, 1998): T1: I did piano for 13 years, and I’ve forgotten everything – so that was a long time ago, that was going all through school, Kindergarten to year 12. And I stopped – I did piano, and then I took up guitar, I did some exams with piano – guitar was just for fun. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T2: When I was a kid, I learnt to play the organ [...] so I have lost all of that skill as I got older! Coz I stopped playing and it was daggy [...] so these days I’ve got not a lot [of experience]! (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T4: I don’t really have a relationship with music at all, to be honest. […] I’ve never thought much of music, I played piano when I was about 10, and never really touched it since. (Interview, 28 September, 2020)

This preoccupation with validity of music experiences and knowledge also reappeared when the teachers discussed their concerns with teaching music. When describing their music teaching self-efficacy, the teachers highlighted knowledge and skills they considered important to music education that they lacked. Those mentioned appear related to the Western Art Music tradition and the notion of the virtuosic instrumentalist as the pinnacle of musical achievement. It was particularly evident from T2, whose many requirements may be attributed to having undergone a Professional Placement with a music specialist as a student: T2: I have taught choir in the past – I don’t mind teaching choir. I like teaching singing, [pauses] but I see music and singing as not necessarily always being the same thing. I don’t know. I feel like music should involve [pauses] instruments. When we do singing I guess, we never really formalise what we’re doing, we never have to talk about [pauses] about pitch and tone and rhythm, we’re just doing it. It’s a lot of imitation to begin with and then we just build on that. And that’s a lot easier. So choir I don’t mind so much [pauses] Music is [makes uncomfortable noises] different! […] I could show how long a quaver or a semiquaver is supposed to last relative to each other, but I don’t know how to do that

without those tools [pitched instruments]. There’s just one glockenspiel in this school. And it’s just one row. So no flats or sharps on it. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T2’s wish for a set of tuned instruments to facilitate music education was mentioned multiple times in their interview, also sharing that the school itself does not have such a set. T2’s definition of music education, which excludes the resources and situation available to them, may also be impacting their feelings of musical self-efficacy. The teachers also described music as their weakest Creative Arts syllabus subject, despite being trained for an equal amount of time for all four subjects. The overall picture of musicality from the teachers was therefore somewhat restricted, including their assessment of their own musical abilities and potential for development. However, when asked directly about what makes a person musical, their definitions broadened in a way that should have included themselves: T1: Having rhythm, I guess? Um, being able to at least sing or play an instrument. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T2: Being able to carry a tune doesn’t hurt, but I think actually wanting to do music enough to practice it? Can [pauses] make you musical? (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

When discussing the music education needs of their students, musicality was described as accessible, evident through enjoyment and developed through experience, much like Quart-Ed’s comments. This conflict of definitions could suggest that the teachers hold a belief that musical skills are more attainable in childhood, and past that are unattainable. T4 said that “all” their students enjoyed listening to and performing music, but explicitly stated that they themselves were “not musical”. These sentiments support the teachers’ expressed lack of confidence in Music specifically, of all the Creative Arts. My suspicion that Small’s musicking definition would be insufficient to remusicalise individuals was confirmed when I discovered that when asked, all four teachers said they listened to music regularly, making them musickers in Small/A2’s definition of musicality. The need to prompt the teachers suggested a feeling that their current musicking practices were irrelevant or invalid, and T3 and 4 even seemed unsure about the validity of their enjoyment of music: T3: Yeah, in terms of my relationship with music, it’s sort of mostly what sounds good but I appreciate moreso the lyrics – so that’s not really – I’m not sure if that’s considered the music side of it. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T4: I do, I enjoy listening to music, just really whatever’s on the radio basically. Pop is about as far as I go though, so… [embarrassed laughter] (Interview, 28 September, 2020)

Overall, the preoccupation with specialist music training and other “musical objects” was a significant deviation from A2’s concept of simply having “musical ears”. The dominant definition of musicality from the teachers was rooted in the performing musician, which may have been brought to the forefront of their minds during their interview due to my own identity as such a musician.

Expectations of interactions The artists’ expectations seemed to be informed by prior experience, where teachers they met struggled with valuing their own musicality because of an attempt to compare themselves with the artists: A3: My encounters with classroom teachers […] like, once they find out “OH, you’re a MUSIC person”, they tend to downplay their own confidence or their own abilities. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

The teachers’ beliefs about learning and interacting with music was identified as key to the success of the collaboration, if they could redefine themselves as having a deficiency of music experience, not musicality: A2: We’ve seen that [teachers] sometimes reflect badly on themselves, or they think what limited amount they’re able to contribute reflects badly on them, rather than just, you know, an inherent part of the amount that they’ve been trained for that particular role [teaching music], but if they’re open to learning alongside the students then it will be still really good. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

The artists also expected there to be an element of discomfort associated with having low musical self-efficacy, and considered reducing this discomfort by encouraging teachers to teach music before and after the program day to be a strategy for positive collaboration: A1: I guess I’m expecting since they have low self-efficacy, they might be a little scared to kind of get as involved as they could, maybe? I think that if the collaboration goes well, and we’re able to communicate well, maybe we can help them feel a little more comfortable to try things before and after the visit? Even if they’re not as involved when we are there, hopefully before and after the visit, at least. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

All artists considered clarity of communication, particularly with musical terminology and ideas, to be particularly important for encouraging the involvement and influence of teachers on the collaboration: A2: They will need, just, every possible detail checked, just to make sure that things aren’t going awry in misunderstanding […] so we might have to be quite proactive and encourage them to be proactive in checking things, just making sure we’re on the same page about language and terminology, and the purposes of exercises. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

Another strategy identified by the artists was directly targeting supporting the teachers by considering their social and emotional needs: A3: There could be that original awkwardness or intimidation, but I think hopefully, we can be open enough that they’ll just start asking questions and sort of just be really open about anything and everything even if it’s something that they perceive as dumb, or just simple stuff. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

Across the three artist interviews there appeared to be two dominant narratives about the role of the artist: The artist as the director and the teacher as the student, and the artist as the assistant of musical teachers. In stakeholder analysis terms, the difference is in who the “important” stakeholders are – those who hold the responsibility of project implementation (Froehlich, 2018, p. 21). A1 related to both of these narratives, suggesting that the teachers' limited musical experience would sometimes require the artists to necessarily be directors, even though they would prefer to just be assistants. This was particularly evident in the mixed use of possessive pronouns “we”, “our” and “their” when discussing ownership of the program: A1: [There’s] information that we’ll want to get from the teachers, so that might include their own musical experiences and self-efficacy, and what they’d be comfortable and not comfortable teaching, in terms of music in their classroom. […] Also just general things they’ve been teaching, like what the current unit is, so we can fit into that, but also maybe ask them what we could do to help them prepare for our visit, and what we could do to help make the visit meaningful even after the visit is over.

I guess, probably, communication so like being updated about what our musical intentions are, and what the outcomes being achieved are, and potentially either resources, or like, for lack of a better word, “training” or

like, ideas of things to do before and after, and during the visit. (Interview, 28 July, 2020)

The teachers, having no experience with any visiting artists, had few expectations. All four teachers’ interest in participation related to a self-expressed low musical self- efficacy, and a wish to deliver higher quality music education for their students. The field notes from the interview day remark that they appeared enthusiastic about participating in the study, less because of an anticipation of enjoyment, but rather an anticipation of self- improvement. When discussing the collaborative process, some teachers related strongly to the narrative of the teacher as student: T1: Um, they’re going to know most of the stuff, and pull up our slack, I hope. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T3: I’m expecting for them to do the talking and me to do the listening, and then chime in when I can tell them how much I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know if they’re ready for how little I know […] I know my place – you know, they’re experts, they’re professionals, they’re coming in, they’ve got the knowledge, I’m a humble student. I’ll just listen and figure it out. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

T4: Look honestly I think I will take more from them than they’ll need from me. I think there’ll be a lot more “me” learning, and like I said, this is so new to me. I don’t know what I’m doing at all when it comes to music, so I don’t think I can offer anything at all. (Interview, 28 September, 2020)

The teachers initially struggled with responding to the question “What do you think the artists will need from you?”, but when it was rephrased as “what do you think the artists might be deficient in that you have?”, all of the teachers were able to give more confident responses about the skill sets they felt could be valuable to the project: T3: […] obviously an insight into the practicality of teaching a class is different to just being someone that can play an instrument – how do you take that information, how do you take that musical knowledge and implement it into a teaching sequence, how do you get students of particular ages to be interested in what you’ve got to offer, and how do you transfer your knowledge to these young minds. Karen: So do you feel perhaps, with repertoire selection, would you be able to assist, knowing your kids and knowing what they’d be interested in? T3: Yeah, definitely, [that’s] something we could guide. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

The rephrasing of the question seemed to alter the emphasis of my inquiry, with the former asking the teachers to know and accommodate for our needs, whilst the latter invited them to identify and share their skillsets they knew would be useful to the project. The second question also seemed to better communicate the necessity of teacher contribution for a best practice collaboration and program, suiting the tone of this project better. It also became evident that the dual identities of Quart-Ed as both artists and teachers had the potential to be either an advantage or a barrier to developing equality in the collaboration. T2 considered our teacher experience as an advantage that would improve the quality of the program: T2: Yeah so you’ve all got that knowledge behind you of how kids behave and you know how to structure a lesson, so, on us our strength is structuring lessons and what’s going to work and our timing of things, but when it comes to the content you guys are really the experts. (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

However upon mentioning this same fact to T1, they changed their response to teachers contributing behaviour management skills to “Ah, so you should be fine”.

Preparation for next phase Following the coding of the interviews, an email was sent out confirming the time of the first collaborative meeting (see Appendix G). The discomfort of the teachers and both parties’ anticipation of unequal participation during meetings seemed significant, so some selected and anonymised quotes from both parties addressing this topic were included. Partington (2018)’s dialogic relationship model was also included as encouraged pre-reading. While Quart-Ed had the capacity to meet in the same room it was decided that we would call in individually in order to reduce possible exclusion from conversations inaudible to Zoom participants. I had wanted to leave the meeting completely unstructured, to indicate my intention to be a collaborative (not leading) participant, but in anticipation of the lower productivity of online meetings I used PowerPoint slides to help keep conversation productive. T2 also shared a Term 4 plan for Stage 3 with Quart-Ed, detailing their intended activities and themes for all subjects.

Acting Phase: First Meeting

The meeting was opened by a brief introduction of Quart-Ed and an overview of the project. This was included in order for the teachers to be as informed about the project as the artists were, who were very familiar with the themes and ideas of the project as a result of my involvement in Quart-Ed. The teachers’ interpretation of the project as “musician as director/teacher as student” in the interviewing phase prompted me as participant researcher to find a way to guide the participants’ “framing” of the collaboration by highlighting the importance of teacher contribution (Froehlich, 2018). This was done by reinforcing Partington's model for dialogic relationships, with the key concepts highlighted (see Appendix H).

Icebreaker activity During interviews, T3 and T4 had seemed particularly intimidated by the idea of working with artists, and their resolve to sit and listen would only be exacerbated by meeting in an online environment, which seems to encourage passivity. To combat this, I decided to use Zoom’s breakout rooms to encourage informal conversation between participants and ensure that every teacher got the opportunity to speak, if only to one other person. I attempted to respond to Partington’s recommendation to “share vulnerabilities and experience” (2018, p. 166-167) and develop through conversation a common understanding or “frame” about the value and purpose of music education (Froehlich, 2018). Teachers and artists were paired off to work through these questions, and the conversation partners were cycled once, so that everyone met two people (see Fig 4.2). It didn’t seem well received: T4: Did anyone else feel like they got an intense grilling? (First meeting, 2 October, 2020)

The questions may have been too related to the heart of the study, both poking at an already-acknowledged source of discomfort whilst also yielding very little new information. Furthermore, the music questions, intended to facilitate “keying” into a shared understanding of music education resulted in a frame dispute in which the artists, being more experienced in music literature and philosophy, were the “winners” (Froehlich, 2018). T2: I think it’s pretty clear that we don’t know enough about music. (First meeting, 2 October, 2020)

Figure 4.2 – Breakout room questions.

Informally reflecting afterwards, it seemed that the artists had not gained much empathetic insight into their partners’ perspectives, expressing discouragement that their musical philosophies were so different. A3 found it disheartening that the teachers were most interested in themselves and the students being listeners instead of composers or performers, and A2 disliked the tendency to cite “brain development” as the reason for music education. Their objection to these attitudes may also have fueled their wish to “win” the music philosophy questions. A1 noticed that it was easiest to put aside their artist “hat” to develop rapport, presenting their teacher-self to establish common ground. This was a unique option available to us: attempting this activity without this “fallback” option might have either resulted in further alienation based on opposing philosophies, or possibly forced a positive teacher-artist relationship built on differences to emerge. Agreeing that we had all eventually reverted to teacher-selves, there was some unsureness about whether our decision had contributed for or against authentic and honest collaborative relationships. Retrospectively, the icebreaker tactic was simply too heavy- handed to have “honest and vulnerable” conversations about professional weaknesses and musical philosophy and was neither information seeking nor a re-evaluative activity, as action research should be (Cain, 2008). Lighter conversation points, such as sharing favourite bands or artists, would have been a more natural way to help the teachers to recognise their own musicality, and would have been a more effective way of establishing collegial rapport.

Freeform conversation Concerned with ending up as the “leader” of the collaboration by structuring the whole meeting, I left the next section unplanned. This process was expected to be a conversation in which teachers shared plans and artists shared repertoire and possible activities related to each piece, in order to establish the themes and musical goals of the program. It was also an opportunity to observe what conversational and social decisions each participant made in order to promote positive collaboration practices.

Contribution imbalances Zoom’s inability to process multiple conversations forces all participants to maintain one conversation, making it difficult to display agreement, add short comments, or request clarification in a way that does not totally disrupt the main speaker. This may have discouraged T3, 4 and 1 to engage verbally in the conversation, though they appeared to be attentive listeners throughout the meeting. With T2 having been nominated by the other teachers as being most experienced in teaching music, as well as being the school’s Vice Principal, T2 already holds a position of authority amongst the teachers. Additionally, being the point of contact for the school’s participation in this study may also make T2 a highly invested stakeholder, motivating their strong involvement (Froehlich, 2018). It was also discovered in the meeting that T2 was the designated planner of music for all Stage 3 classes. The Term 4 planner had not included any details for Music, so as T2 shared what was “in the works of [their] brain” it is likely that the other teachers were not equipped to contribute because of T2’s monopoly on information, including the desired outcomes for the program: T2: [showing a YouTube clip]5 […] the aim is to work to some rhythms that they could work together and then […] we have to do an end of year concert. So the end goal is to have some version of body percussion that the kids have helped us to construct. (First meeting, 2 October, 2020)

This imbalance of contribution was also somewhat mirrored in Quart-Ed, with myself speaking the most, however with all quartet members being knowledgeable about all possible repertoire, it was less pronounced.

5 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/38TDSAI (the percussion show, 2012)

Artists as assistants The provision of information from the teachers, including the pre-provided Term 4 planner and T2 describing the intended music outcomes, allowed Quart-Ed to offer repertoire and related activities that responded to the needs of the teachers and their students. All quartet members prefaced their suggestions with a reference to teacher- provided information, which demonstrated a link between the repertoire and the teachers’ goals and acknowledged the value of their input on our choices. This gesture attempted to reverse the usual pattern of teachers having to “fit around” performers’ repertoire. A2 took this a step further and attempted to respond to and communicate through the musical vocabulary of the participant teachers. While T2 was showing their YouTube clip, A2 attempted to copy the performers’ movements and dancing to the music. They responded to T2’s body percussion plans for the end of year concert, saying, “that sounds like so much fun!” and later refers to it again, saying, “that video was fantastic, I’m going to watch it again later.” This validation of teachers’ musical choice and knowledge supported a “performer as assistant/teacher as musical” narrative. Later in the conversation, A2 used the teachers’ musical vocabulary to create a personal link between their current knowledge and new knowledge through a YouTube clip6: A2: I don’t know if you’ve seen, there’s a version of Africa… T2: Like, the Toto song? [other teachers smiling] A2: That’s the one! And they create a whole soundscape of rain by using body percussion on mass scale, it is soooo well done! (First meeting, 2 October, 2020)

A2 also attempted to be a bridge from the other side, dancing along to an audio recording of Dancing with Strangers to demonstrate the piece’s capability to be accessible and fun, despite being art music.

Teachers as student advocates The most valuable information to Quart-Ed was ultimately the insight the teachers had about the interests of their students, their attention spans and their abilities: T2: The biggest challenge you’re going to have with Year 6 boys is they’ll get overexcited – flow between bringing them back up and then all the way back down. If you want to interact

6 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/2Lilnhw (Genius, 2009)

with them you’ll have to calm them down between each bit. (First meeting, 2 October, 2020)

This happened to be the skills that they mentioned as possible contributions in the interview stage, and their confidence in these areas seemed to improve T3 and T4’s verbal participation. T4 in particular did not contribute to the meeting unless requested by T2, but they did comment voluntarily about A2’s YouTube clip that “among all of them that’s been the one that I can relate to the most with our kids”. T4’s decision not to comment on the unrelatedness of the other repertoire could be attributed to a belief about inexperience in music rendering making one’s musical judgements worthless or incorrect. T2 also provided important information about the behavioural patterns of the students, suggesting that the program should remain under an hour, unless the presentation was broken up by small group work. This initiated a discussion about a longer-style model using breakout spaces to do composition activities.

Reflection To finish the meeting, a joint reflection was attempted (see Fig 4.2). The main points from the meeting were recounted and noted for both teachers and performers, and Quart-Ed agreed to finalise a possible set of repertoire and propose a program structure for the next meeting. The rest of the questions were not really addressed, however T2 did make a comment that the icebreakers were a “good way to know each other, but we may as well just get straight into it”.

Figure 4.2 – Reflection questions.

While our intent was to include and support the teachers, there were some instances in which potential for alienation still occurred. During the meeting I had sensed disengagement presenting Dancing with Strangers7, an art music piece. At the time, I put this down to the style of the music being unfamiliar. Later when I presented Something About the Ocean (Oceans)8, T2 commented: T2: We pretty well trust you guys – we’ve got no idea really on the music stuff, so if you guys tell us that’s what it’s going to do, we’ll believe you. (First meeting, 2 October, 2020)

However, the teachers seemed to respond better to material presented in an audio-visual format, as when A3 played a video of us performing Oceans 9 and used it to describe the related activity for students, it was met with a much more positive response. I realised that presenting just audio clips demanded significant musical experience to understand its relevance to a school program, and leading discussions based on them was an alienating musicking experience.

Preparation for the next phase Immediately after the meeting Quart-Ed debriefed to narrow down repertoire possibilities based on the discussion. It was noted that not being familiar with significant teacher involvement, we were in danger of creating the stereotypical student-artist dyadic relationship because of our usual responsibility of shaping content to be relevant. Allowing the teachers to be the context builders places them in the relationship as a valuable third party who are holders of classroom knowledge. For this reason, the repertoire Quart-Ed had considered worthwhile simply due to its relevance to other KLA’s – our usual practice when we are only able to quickly speak to teachers before programs – was rejected. A program entirely based on body percussion was therefore proposed, and a draft run sheet was created with possible learning sequences to be used in advance of the performance (see Appendix I). The knowledge that a projector would be available led to the decision to include an excerpt from Hedron10, a piece which has accompanying visuals that aids understanding of its extensive polyrhythms. A related polyrhythmic activity by Greg

7 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/2LiQppl (Stanhope, 2014) 8 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/35dbFUK (Sandiford, 2018) 9 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/3rT0w4V (Quart-Ed, 2019) 10 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/38ejY4x (Mulligan, 2019). Excerpt from 3:14-5:31.

Sheehan was also included as the program opener, based on Josh Bennett & Joe D’Esposito’s Greg Reel11. The discussion about body percussion soundscapes also led to the inclusion of Oceans. Hedron’s learning sequence was intended to begin with Quart-Ed and be continued by the teachers after the program day, whilst the activities for Oceans were planned to begin with the teachers and lead into the program day.

Acting Phase: Second Meeting

On the day of the second meeting, T2 expressed an interest to conclude the meeting in 45 minutes, with themselves and T4 needing to run errands. T1 was only able to attend for half of the meeting, and A2 arrived late. The pressure to communicate and finalise plans for the performance in this shorter timeframe may have had an impact on the proceedings of the meeting.

Warm-up musicking Perhaps in our enthusiasm to be with the teachers in person, our meeting was begun off-kilter with a misguided musicking activity. The teachers wanted our first order of business to be for us to perform something. However, afraid that this activity would only highlight the discrepancy of musical experience, we counter proposed to “make some music together” as suggested by Partington (2018), with Greg Reel, our proposed starter activity for the program. The musical parts to it are simple on their own but with teamwork make a complex musical experience that Quart-Ed found satisfying to accurately execute. However, the teachers’ response to the activity, despite performing their parts accurately, was lukewarm, and for some, seemed to deepen their feelings of inadequacy. Retrospectively, our interpretation of collaborative musicking had relied heavily on musicking-as-performing, ultimately highlighting our differences in musical experience. Our attitude that our activity was “simple and fun” resulted in frustration for the teachers that made mistakes, and may have been an alienating, rather than collaborative moment (Partington, 2017). The strong positive experience that occurred when Quart-Ed eventually performed suggests that the recognition of listening-as-musicking would have allowed the meeting to have been opened with a common musicking activity in which both parties felt comfortable and experienced.

11 See the following for a demo-recording: https://bit.ly/3rWJdzW (Quart-Ed Quartet, 2021).

Hedron: Mastery Experiences The proposed activities for Hedron were based around body percussion patterns of 3, 4 and 5 beats. Quart-Ed had created a learning sequence to be initiated on the day of the program and continuing on after the visit, with the students composing patterns that could be linked together for the end of year performance. However, as we taught the teachers the patterns, T2 offered to prepare them in advance. The teachers all agreed that they would be comfortable teaching this to their classes, and so it seemed that experiencing the student activities allowed them to decide for themselves what they felt comfortable teaching based on what they had “mastered” (Bandura, 1977). Learning the preparatory material from us first-hand and seeing us demonstrate its relevance to the program may have also encouraged them to prepare part of it in advance, so that the students might get further along the sequence on the program day. Part of achieving mastery and confidence in music teaching is anticipating how students may react to teaching strategies. Experiencing the activities first-hand prompted discussions about these practicalities of teaching music, in ways typically gained by experience, rather than resource booklets: T3: I don’t know if I just slapped myself too hard, but it hurts after a while – how long are the kids going to be slapping themselves? Could we substitute a stomp, does that work? A2: Stomping’s going to get very chaotic. A3: It can turn into jumping. A2: Because if they hurt, they’ll do it softer. In here we’re controlled, but when there’s 100 of them, the softer they are compelled to be, the better. T3: Ok, so it’s like a little [pauses] self control! (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

The teachers’ confidence to teach our proposed Hedron activities contrasts starkly with the reception of our Oceans activity, and may have related to our decision not to do the activity itself in the meeting.

Oceans Activity: Miscommunication The original activity for Oceans was an extension of the usual activity accompanying it – but instead of just improvising a body percussion soundscape, the Oceans recording would be sent in advance, and each class would compose and rehearse an accompanying ocean soundscape, which would be recorded with us playing live on the

47 day of the program. The activity also introduced the musical concepts of tone colour and volume through graphic notation, with students notating both their class soundscape, and the Oceans recording as an “Attentive Listening” activity (Campbell, 2005, p. 33). With time short, we chose to rely on recalling last meeting’s discussion about Oceans to describe our proposed activity. The lack of clarity seemed to lead to the development of a second idea: T2: It would be interesting if like, one class did a city, one class did a rainstorm […] if we did three different things and we could come and share them in that space, […] then it’s kind of like a sharing, - “that’s what you did, cool, well do you want to learn another one, let’s do it as a big group, see if we can pull it off”, kind of thing. (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

When our idea was reexplained, T2 agreed to teach it, but after the meeting we decided to write learning sequences for both ideas in case they had just agreed out of politeness. In the end T2 opted to use their own, which supports this theory that our “miscommunication” had simply been an indirect rejection of our proposition. Retrospectively, the inclusion of a teacher-nominated activity was actually better as it was a good opportunity to acknowledge teacher input at a programming level.

Power imbalances About halfway through the meeting, T4 announced that they would not be present on the day, in a way that seemed less to do with being busy so much as feeling some discomfort by being here (see Appendix J for the extended quote): T4: I'm not even gonna be a part of this now […] Week 4 is the week that that hour [when the program is scheduled] is my fundraising, slash Orientation, slash, uniform, slash […] (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

In a debrief after this meeting, Quart-Ed expressed surprise that the imbalance of contribution between the teachers on Zoom had been more or less replicated in this meeting, with T2 being the main contributor, T3 and T4 mainly engaging in the conversation to respond to a comment from T2, and T1 just listening. The earlier hypothesis of T2’s position of “influential stakeholder” as Vice Principal and programmer of music affecting the teachers’ collaborative dynamic was seeming more likely (Froehlich, 2018, p. 21). Upon further reflection, by continuing to allow the first speaking teacher (T2) to speak on behalf of all teachers, we may have discouraged ownership of the

48 project and consequently participation in decision making. Neglecting to seek out the opinions of T1, T3 and T4 meant we had neglected to demonstrate our consideration of the other teachers as both “influential” and “important” stakeholders, who in their own classrooms both hold power over and are responsible for the implementation of the project (Froehlich, 2018, p. 21). T4 may have been particularly affected by our unintentional deferral to T2’s opinions, because of their relationship as job-share partners. With T2 being as involved as they are, T4 may have felt like neither an influential nor important stakeholder. They may have also felt overwhelmed with new information and terminology, and potentially felt challenged by the activities and discussions in the meeting so far.

Listening-as-musicking The input of the teachers was particularly useful when discussing the opening piece of the program. Picking repertoire without the teachers is often a guessing game for Quart- Ed, based on the age of the students and what we assume to be popular with them. While the teachers initially admitted that music from How to Train Your Dragon might not be considered “cool” by their students, they gave us insight into student reactions: T3: When they can relate to something they’d still love that. T2: They pretend that they’re too cool for it, but as soon as they hear something that they’re familiar with, they’re like, “Oh, oh my God, this is [gestures]!!” and they’ll still like it. (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

The best input that we received from the teachers, however, was their strong reaction to Quart-Ed playing an excerpt: T2: God, they’re gonna LOVE that, like absolutely! I mean T3’s just so excited - T3: Mate, if you thought that square [that A1 had earlier drawn very neatly] was impressive! [laughter heard from K, A1, A2, A3, T2, T4 (T1 absent)] T3: It was so good! I loved that. That was so good. (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

The strong positive reaction was significant in a number of ways, other than cementing the piece’s spot in the program. Engaging in listening-as-musicking may have allowed the teachers to better understand what the students would experience on the program day in a way that Quart-Ed’s demonstrations and explanations could not. Following the performance, the conversation began to move much quicker, with T3 in particular contributing strongly, even offering suggestions for future repertoire:

T3: I think they’ll be listening to it, and really trying to figure it out, like just that engagement’s on another level because it’s actually personal. T2: And it’d be really good to not tell them what it is, and see if they can work it out - T3: Oh, 100%, definitely! T2: Anything you could make guessing games [out of], and interactive, they’re gonna love. T3: They would love – d’you know what’d be insane, but that’s like way too much work for you – just like, a mashup of – T2: Movie montage! T3: Swear to God! Just, you’d go through it, and they’d be like, [mimes looking one direction intently, then quickly moving in another direction], coz they’ll know it, it’d be crazy! (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

This moment was also the only time where the teachers requested the artists to conduct themselves in a certain way (not introducing the piece), as up until this point the conversation was more to do with what the teachers could do to prepare the students and make changes in their practice for us. This assertiveness coming out of a listening-as- musicking experience was definitely a surprise to us, and when reflecting later as a group we wondered what the meeting would have been like if we had started by performing, as the teachers had asked. Perhaps the most unexpected outcome of this musicking event was the impact it had on the mood of the group. The tone, set up by the musicking-as-performing Greg Reel, had been quite flat and awkward, and may have contributed to T4’s eventual request to be excused from the performance day. T3’s humour following their listening-as-musicking experience led to a moment of laughter shared by the whole group, finally authentically breaking the ice between the groups. T1’s absence from this moment should be noted as a potential factor in the events of the following phase.

Wrapping up With the “Reflection slide” from the Zoom meeting so poorly received, I opted not to structure a joint reflection, instead closing the meeting with everyone confirming what teachers and artists would have prepared for program delivery day. An interesting moment occurred whilst Quart-Ed packed up our instruments. Perhaps in putting away our instruments and moving away from the board, we broke the “performer-as-director” tone of the meeting, as T2 then came up to the board and used it to share their planning documents for music:

T2: There’s a song, we do some body percussion, and then we look into some element, whatever element of the week it is that we’re looking at, and then how do we relate it back to what we did today […] so that’s kind of the format we’re going with […] so they’re fairly simplistic. We like simple. (Second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

This action may have also been motivated by an interest in communicating the teachers’ comfort zones of music teaching to us, or it may have been a subtle request for feedback on their current music teaching strategies. A2 was once again a validator of teacher input, but not much discussion ensued due to time constraints.

In a short debrief together after the meeting, Quart-Ed noted the impact of standing at the front of the room, sensing a power imbalance: A2: There was a keenness towards giving us lots of power […] They’re full of bullets, from shooting themselves in the foot, verbally. (Post-second meeting, 15 October, 2020)

I had originally envisioned the meeting to be conducted around a large table, with room to the side for everyone to get up and try musical activities as we went along. In reality we met in a classroom, making do by sitting roughly in a circle despite all the desks and chairs facing a SmartBoard. Lack of foresight on our part meant that to show our proposed run sheet, we would have to display it on the SmartBoard. This resulted in Quart-Ed occupying the space typically inhabited by teachers during class time, and the teachers, in an effort to see the board, were sitting in the “student space”. This layout, reinforcing the “performer as director” narrative, may have affected the interactions in the meeting. Printing the run sheet would have allowed the group to remain in one collaborative circle. Retrospectively, this imbalance was a logical result of working with participant teachers selected for their low confidence in music. A1 recalled how T2 told us, “we want to see how you teach [Hedron] to the kids”, and A3 felt that “they just want a model, which we tried to do but didn’t do fully” due to the restraints of time (though our performance of Dragons could be considered a “model” in that it was an unabridged experience identical to what would be presented on the day, with strongly positive results). As the teachers had expressed interest in presenting a longer program with time for breakout spaces, we decided those breakout rooms could be used as an opportunity to model classroom music teaching strategies in a more relevant context than the four of us in a quartet.

Preparation for the next phase T2 took note of the tasks to be completed for the performance, including teaching the Hedron beats, and composing, notating and rehearsing a class soundscape based on an excerpt of Oceans. At Quart-Ed’s rehearsal a finalised run sheet was created, which included the development of pre-visit teaching resources and activities for teacher reference (see Appendix K). With the program including student performances, we realised we had an opportunity to model musicking-as-listening. As a peer feedback framework did not exist at their school, A3 suggested we use the framework of “Kind, Specific, Helpful”.

Acting Phase: Program Delivery

The following is based on the recording of the program, field notes, and reflections from the other participants from the Evaluative Phase. While collaboration prior to the program remains the focus, I realised that many of our choices made in those meetings impacted the “value of the program”, which is the core interest of this study, hence this analysis.

Dragons and behaviour management Upon arrival, Quart-Ed was met by excited teachers: T2: We’re prepared, we’re practiced, the kids are good, and they’re very excited. (Program day, 5 November 2020)

The teachers’ excitement seemed to stem from looking forward to a program they had approved, and created a mood different to single-visits where the teachers may only know that they have to keep their students attentive (Christophersen, 2013). Behaviour management had not really been a topic we had discussed in meetings, so our decisions were mainly informed by our understanding of each other and the program, with mixed success. In some cases, it was most effective to give all of the instructive power to the teachers. The size of the classroom required the students to sit very close together, so Quart-Ed chose not to interact with them as they walked in, to avoid distracting them as the teachers gave instructions. During this time the teachers were able to make preventative behaviour management decisions, separating students most likely to cause disruption when sitting together. This reduced their need to take up the typical “guard” position, freeing them up to be more involved in the program.

The program started with T1, T3 and T4 standing at the front, sharing the “teaching space” with Quart-Ed. This felt like a significant move to us as the teachers at schools we have visited usually remain within the student body as “guards”. By sharing the front space, the teachers and performers demonstrated a unity of intention and shared power, both in the knowledge of the musical content of the program and the expectations of behaviour from the students. We found that the response to behaviour management directions throughout the program was most effective when we coordinated our efforts. During Dragons, the teachers split roles, with T1 and T3 at the front as musicking-as- listening role models, and T4 and T2 within the student body as “guards”, possibly as their class was furthest from the front and therefore most likely to disengage or cause disruption. Some uncoordinated management resulted in less controlled behaviour. Occasionally, we made the mistake of selecting a student to answer a question instead of asking a teacher to select someone. The proximity of the students to each other made it difficult for the chosen student to know who they were, with the student in front typically answering instead. Our selections were not informed by the behaviour profiles of the students, so eventually the room became chaotic every time we asked a question. It took T3 announcing that future volunteers and respondents would be chosen on the basis of best behaviour to bring the room back down. Activities requiring stricter behaviour management felt harder to Quart-Ed to achieve alone, particularly when we realised we did not know the teachers’ “teacher names”. Luckily T3’s enthusiasm to participate from the front of the room allowed for some fast communication – from this we know that the flow of the program would definitely have been improved with “teacher names”. The teachers were able to use our names to ask us targeted questions to clarify ideas for the students and may also have allowed them to ask questions for their benefit, to understand the content well enough to explain it after the performance. This was Quart-Ed’s first time using Hedron in a program and consequently the delivery was somewhat unpolished, so their communication to us provided us with useful feedback on our delivery of content.

Hedron and pre-teaching The activity for Hedron was to learn to play the 3, 4 and 5 beat patterns simultaneously, as it occurs in the piece12. The students’ familiarity with the patterns they

12 See the following for a recording: bit.ly/3okg0gg (Quart-Ed, 2020)

53 had learnt in class meant there were high levels of student success and engagement, despite it being an untested activity sequence for us. Perhaps preparing their class gave them a sense of musical authority, as during this segment T3 was highly involved, both modelling the patterns and giving frank musical feedback where we would have politely said “well done!”: T3: There’s a couple slackers being slow. [points at the students] Don’t ruin it. (Program day, 5 November 2020)

T3’s insistence on quality musical achievement encouraged Quart-Ed to do the same, resulting in better musical outcomes for the students. Another interesting development was T2’s redefinition of the word “instrument”, which may be indicative of an attitude change: T2: I would find a specialist music teacher to help me out, and I would have some instruments that are more than just a box of just those random percussion ones […] (Interview, 22 September, 2020)

You don’t play your instrument [body percussion] yet, you just have it ready. (Program day, 5 November 2020)

Breakout Rooms and team teaching For this process, the students were split into class groups and worked on a composition using the Hedron patterns. Delayed communication about the total length of the program led to the breakout rooms being planned as optional, and so on the day, A1, 2 and 3 were the sole holders of information about the breakout room activities. A1, 2 and 3 worked with a class and their teachers, leaving me to walk between groups and make field notes, especially of T1 and T3’s classes, whose rooms were not being filmed. The findings are summarised in Table 4.1. A3’s decision to facilitate small group composition appeared to be the most effective way to encourage teacher involvement, as it gave them both a space to be music educators for the class. A1’s attempt to involve a teacher in a two-part composition may have also been a successful collaborative strategy, however in reflection A1 expressed difficulty with getting the teachers involved without their “teacher names”. T2 in particular became more “guard”-like, taking disruptive students in and out of the classroom during the session. Neither A1 nor A2 had the opportunity to share their plans with their teachers, which may have strongly impacted their decision to move into a “guard” position.

Table 4.1: Summarised observations of breakout room activity

Teams Composition task Observations A1 / T2, Compose as a class a 25 • Requested a teacher volunteer to assist with T4 beat sequence using demonstrations. T2 was occupied speaking with Hedron patterns. Split a disruptive student, and no one volunteered. class in half and perform • When A1 divided the class into two halves, T2 notated pattern forwards stepped in to assist the other half. and backwards • T4 called out to A1 to request a revision of simultaneously. material to improve the performance.

A2 / T1 Compose a class • A2 and T1 “sandwiched” the students as they composition using walked to their classroom and did not discuss student volunteers to add the plans for the activity. a shape at a time. Repeat • The students huddled around the whiteboard entire pattern to increase with A2, and T1 started the session filming the length of composition. students, then moved to work on their laptop. • T1 was not observed joining in on the body percussion. A2 was also not observed verbally requesting T1 join in, however nonverbal communication was attempted.

A3 / T3 Compose and notate in • A3 discussed their plans with T3 as they walked small groups a 25 beat to the classroom. Upon arrival, they shared the sequence using Hedron “teacher space”. patterns. • T3 instructed the students to get mini whiteboards to work on compositions in small table groups. • Both T3 and A3 walked around the classroom, assisting the groups. • A3 made use of T3’s behaviour management techniques, with great success.

Soundscapes and musical teachers In this part of the program, the teachers all stepped into the “teacher as musically competent” narrative and became musical leaders. In T2/4’s class, both teachers were giving instructions to place the students into a particular formation to set up, with T2’s sense of musical directorship clearly heard: T2: I have six people that need to stand! (Program day, 5 November 2020)

T2 led the class by slowly drawing a finger over their graphically notated score, with T4 standing with the students who were “stompers”. T2’s style of leadership seemed to be informed by their familiarity with the Western art music traditions and teaching choir, acting authoritatively much like a conductor. T3 did a “soundcheck”, “testing” each sound used in their soundscape with T3 pointing at the students responsible for each. T3 also used this method of cueing sound in the performance, using their notated score as a guide and pointing at the students for the required sound. In some ways this method feels most conductor-like, but the complete dependency on T3’s creative whim makes this performance style somewhat freer than T2/4’s. T1 used a different approach that relied on significant preparation in advance rather than on-the-day teacher leadership, which could be likened to the preparation style of a chamber ensemble. The students had brought copies of their graphic score with them, reading and performing it themselves using the stopwatch T1 had put upon the board. This obvious preparation may have been why T1 was quick to excuse the soundscape for presumably not sounding as expected, as there had been no tables available to make differently pitched sounds. T1’s more collaborative tone contrasts with T2’s use of first person: T3: Now, we do apologise, the pencils were supposed to replicate horses. (Program day, 5 November 2020)

When discussing this later, the apology surprised Quart-Ed, who as performers had been taught never to expose a mistake in performance. However, watching the footage, T1’s apology actually appears to be directed at the class – so this might have been their way of validating and publicising their hard work and the quality of the musical product that they had developed in class.

Musicking-as-listening For each performance, a teacher/artist pair used the “Kind, Specific, Helpful” model to give feedback. As a result of not explaining the model in a meeting, each participant interpreted the model differently, with some giving three pieces of feedback, one for each category, and others giving feedback that was all three at once. Despite this, the creation of performer/teacher teams seemed to be useful, with A2/T1’s partnership appearing stronger on this second opportunity to work together. Furthermore, it gave an opportunity for the teachers to once again step into a position of musical authority, whilst also experiencing a style of giving music feedback that could be useful in future. The

56 validation of each other’s’ musical capabilities and leadership seemed to be meaningful: T2 likened T3 to a “conductor” and the class “like an orchestra”, causing T3 to smile.

Wrapping up and informal discussions The program had gone overtime so there no question time, but the students were given “free time” in class since they had missed lunchtime and were able to speak to us afterwards anyway. Whilst chatting with T2 we learned that upon reading our run sheet, instead of advising us that our program was very likely to go overtime, they had all planned free time directly before it in anticipation of missing lunchtime: T2: As soon as we saw your program we were like “hm, that’s a bit ambitious for an hour!” so we planned ahead… we let you do it so you could learn, like we let our prac students make mistakes. (Program day, 5 November 2020)

This moment which could be interpreted as a moment of “bowing to the performers”, was instead a moment in which the teachers took it upon themselves to give us a moment to learn – their expertise and passion, as ours is to encourage musical self-efficacy.

Evaluating Phase

The closing interviews were conducted face-to-face, in groups. Some informal reflection including both teachers and artists also occurred immediately after the program. The teachers’ data in this phase is drawn from both their group interview and their individually completed “follow-up surveys”.

Evaluation of the program All participants agreed that the program was well received, and the teachers peppered their interview with comments about particular students and their reactions, a level of evaluation unavailable to Quart-Ed. Our differing musicking foci was evident, with Quart-Ed gauging success based on the students’ engagement with performing music, and the teachers on their engagement whilst listening. The teachers particularly valued how the students got to interact with live musicians, and suggested that Quart-Ed playing more would have been welcome. T4 animatedly described the students’ excitement during Dragons – which we had considered a mere introduction – highlighting our tendency to forget the value of musicking-as-listening:

T4: That was so cool coz some kids picked it up straight away, and then other kids were like, “I don't know what - was it?” and then when the other kids – “aww yeah, yeah!” (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

Quart-Ed attributed the students’ strong engagement and program’s success to the teachers’ preparation, both musically and with behaviour management. Going overtime was blamed on the new Hedron activities, and we agreed that the teachers’ foresight to prepare their students to remain engaged for such a long program had given us a huge learning opportunity: A1: I think they wanted us to learn as well, taking up the teacher role. I think it was a valuable learning experience.

Karen: We got to try all the weird and wacky things we wanted to do with Hedron and I think we have something we can really do with it now. (Group interview, 5 November 2020)

Both parties mentioned the soundscapes in particular, with Quart-Ed valuing it for the opportunity it gave the teachers to be the musicking leaders in the room: A1: I think the soundscape thing, like the whole idea, they owned it as well, and they were sharing it with us, was really effective. (Group interview, 5 November 2020)

Having a portion of the performance day as their responsibility may have strengthened their sense of ownership over the project. While the teachers seemed to really want more “Quart-Ed playing/students listening” time, the teachers seemed to also value how the soundscapes allowed the “musician spotlight” to be placed on classroom music: T2: And I liked that we came to the session with something with the kids and they got to perform for you guys as well, because I guess it forced us to really put a bit of an emphasis on music this term. […] Creative arts is the first one that gets shoved to the side when we’re running out of time, and it forced us to make sure it was a priority which was good. (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

T2’s comment suggests that our visit may have functioned similarly to how mandatory measurement of literacy and numeracy contribute to the prioritisation of English and Mathematics in the classroom.

Evaluation of the collaborative process

When asked about the success of the collaborative process, the artists expressed disappointment that we kept ending up being leaders instead of collaborators: A1: I think in the meetings, I did expect more collaboration. Karen: I was a bit underwhelmed by the meetings. A3: Same. A1: I think having it over Zoom might have impacted it, and then when we did [in person] – it was how we were standing up the front, it was presentation vibe – I think those two things might have impacted it. (Group interview, 5 November 2020)

The teachers, however, valued the meetings as a chance to familiarise themselves with the material, and considered their “collaborative action” to exist in their delivery of prepatory material in the classroom, rather than in the development of said material: T3: I think it was mostly facilitated by you, but I think the fact that we had the meetings before hand, and we got to bring things back into the classroom and get ourselves ready for the day, you know we did have contributions in that way. It made it a lot more accessible for us as teachers that are not very confident in music teaching, to sort of get a hold of it, and get our heads around it before we actually do it in the classroom. (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

This view was echoed by A3, who felt that despite it requiring a more “performer-led” approach, the teachers’ learning of our activities was a contribution in itself, as they were a good predictor of student engagement, citing the teachers’ lukewarm reception of the Greg Reel.

Meeting activities The number and length of the meetings seemed to be sufficient, with both commenting on the need to be “time smart”: T2: We want to be mindful that we don’t want to spend too much time preparing for a lesson. If you teach for an hour you don’t want to be spending 3 hours planning. (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

A3: Classroom teachers – they’ve already got so much going on. A2: Yeah, they kind of want the decision made. (Group interview, 5 November 2020)

However, T4 found the number of meetings necessary to build up their confidence. T4’s recognition of the material’s reusability for future music units made the meetings valuable to them, and demonstrated the new level of confidence that they have: T4: […] you learnt enough from that one thing that we’d be able to do that again, like the [body percussion patterns] without having to have that hour session. (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

T2 also felt that the behaviour management that we so highly valued on the day was possible because of the familiarisation process. Experiencing the material only really occurred in the second in-person meeting, and while T2 enjoyed the icebreaker activity on Zoom, a more succinct meeting solely to communicate about the planned topics for the term might have yielded the same result, possibly better, if it was shortened in favour of having a longer in-person meeting. A2 felt that giving the teachers more opportunities to fully experience the student activities would help them learn how to teach music themselves without our explicit instruction – oddly, a “student led”, experiential approach created by Quart-Ed leading an activity. Their idea was based on observations of T1, who instructed their class to play table sounds on the floor and seemed to be disappointed with the results: A2: I wonder how much he’s played the floor and the table himself. (Group interview, 5 November 2020)

The rigidity of a pre-developed musical activity seemed to give the teachers more confidence to suggest modifications, as they approached it as a resource that required adapting for their abilities and their students’. We also found the creation of new content to require more music experience than the teachers possessed to be involved in the discussion, and thus ran the risk of being an alienating musicking experience.

Icebreakers and breakout rooms Using breakout rooms to model music teaching was new to Quart-Ed, so this was discussed at length. Upon comparing the three rooms, it was concluded that the A3/T3 partnership was most collaborative because A3 had shared their plans with T3 before beginning. T3’s active involvement allowed A3 to observe and emulate the behaviour management strategies used by T3, to great success, and T3 was able to observe A3’s modelling of a music lesson. By contrast, T1/A2’s classroom fell into Christophersen’s (2013) “dyadic relationship” between student and artist:

A2: I hadn’t met T1 properly in the [meetings] […] and then also when we walked to the classroom […] T1 was at the front leading the way and I was at the back […] so there wasn’t really a brief then either, or time to chat about “here’s what’s happening, here’s what we’re gonna do, and here’s what you’re gonna do T1, ha! (Group interview, 5 November 2020)

A2 suggested that the breakout rooms could have been more valuable had the teacher- performer partners known they would be working together earlier. The ice breaker conversations over Zoom could have been the point of introduction, where the performers might get to know that teacher’s personal goals and interests, allowing them to develop a partnership in the lead up to sharing a classroom together. A2 also suggested that this would be an opportunity to “see the teachers running the class, or even a video of them running the class”, which would fulfil a part of Partington's dialogic model (2018) which I had assumed impossible for this project. The pairs would be able to discuss behaviour management tactics, the individual needs of that class’s students, and also develop a rapport that is apparent to the students, setting them up to share the “teaching space” on the day.

Impact on teacher self-efficacy The teachers were asked how they felt about their musical ability following the project. T1: confident to re-teach that. T2: confident to re-teach that. T1: … and not much else. T2: But that's a step. That’s a big step. T4: Absolutely! I could definitely go and […] make that actually like a five- or six-week unit, really. (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

This matches with Quart-Ed’s conclusion that the teachers’ preparation of their students allowed them to see the success of their teaching through the success of their students. It follows that their confidence improved in the area of music that they taught, because they had mastery experiences specifically with that material. To continue raising the self- efficacy of these teachers, they would need to have mastery experiences in a variety of musical areas, possibly with as much guidance as they received with the Quart-Ed material:

T4: Moving forward I feel we would need more direction and inspiration to divert away from this particular program and still have the confidence to deliver music lessons. (Questionnaire)

Impact on attitudes towards music teaching T2’s interest in having visiting artists become a regular part of the music scope and sequence seems to me as participant researcher a bit of a mixed success, as despite our best efforts we may have created another situation where music education is event-dependant: T2: I would like to see that become a regular part of the music scope and sequence […] because the kids don't get those performances often enough, I think that collaboration and that time setting it up before made it something that was really meaningful to them, because they were bringing something to it as well.

We definitely devoted more time to music in those couple weeks […] because we were trying to make sure that we were prepared for the presentation […] at the end of it we were like “ok we can take a couple of weeks of no music because we'd like hammered […] music hours we need to catch up with all the other stuff now” (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

However, it seems that the main motivation to not teach music regularly is a curriculum imbalanced by literacy and numeracy’s mandatory assessments. More reassuring was T3 and T4’s redefinition of what they consider to be music education, suggesting a possible “remusicalisation” of the school should they teach to this broadened view: T3: I don't know about the school’s instrument situation, but we literally used our bodies the whole time. So it's basically just making music relevant – you can basically use your body as an instrument and we didn't have any limitations in terms of resources, we could go ahead with the learning with what we had. (Group interview, 26 November 2020)

T3: [The experience gave] me the capacity to understand that music is not just necessarily about musical notation but also includes just [pauses] feeling and creating soundscapes, and what can we use to create sound and how can we compose it, how can we put it together […] just creating sound together is in itself music.

(Questionnaire – spoken response via online interview, 27 November 2020)

T4: The program has allowed me to think differently about the way I deliver music lessons to my students. (Questionnaire)

Clearly, increased musical self-efficacy was reported as a result of the program, however with the final questionnaire being completed so soon after, there’s not a clear understanding of how the teachers’ music teaching practice may have changed.

Chapter 5: Conclusions/Reflection Phase Reflecting as a participant researcher, I refer back to my original research questions: How can a collaborative process between artists and teachers contribute to the value of a single-visit performance? a. What strategies can visiting artists use to boost teachers’ musical self-efficacy? b. What strategies can visiting artists use to ensure an equal power balance with teachers during a collaborative project?

One of the decisions I made as participant researcher was to refrain from constantly referring back to my research, in an attempt to balance my involvement as an equal member of my quartet with my position as researcher. In doing so, I returned to them with the realisation that I failed to notice a tension between the two sub-questions, instead attempting to satisfy both with each strategy and being disappointed that it failed one or the other aim. We had to teach the teachers in order to give them something to teach their students, thereby increasing their musical self-efficacy, but to do so necessitated a power imbalance at the moment of transmission. At the same time, the artists needed to demonstrate the equal importance of the teachers, and we realised that this could not occur through Partington’s interpretation of literal collaborative music-making within the time constraints of the single visit structure. Instead, we had to elevate the importance of their behaviour management strategies, respect their musical goals and respond to their knowledge of the students. Doing so felt like risking restricting the teachers’ role to being the “guard”, but it seems that the combination of valuing these skills as equally important to ours (which they are) gave them the confidence to step beyond that role using the musical information we had provided them in a moment of imbalanced power. Additionally, when the participants discussed ownership and contribution, both teachers and artists focused on who was responsible for implementing the idea, rather than its creation, suggesting that we may have been overly concerned about being directors instead of assistants. Therefore, artists can develop a collaborative relationship that contributes to the value of the single-visit structure by using a tasteful combination of strategies supporting either the boosting of musical self-efficacy or the development of equal power balance.

This project focused on improving the value of the single-visit format, and found that by modifying artist behaviour during collaboration, teachers’ musical self-efficacy and sense of program ownership could be improved. These behaviour strategies can be found on Tables 5.2 and 5.3, colour-coded according to their success within this particular cycle of research. Additionally, the collaborative meetings themselves were found to positively “contribute to the value of the single-visit performance”, and these impacts are summarised in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1: Collaborative meetings and their contribution to the single-visit performance. Communicative, but not • Teachers’ knowledge of and access to teaching resources collaborative discussion informed and widened Quart-Ed’s considered repertoire for the students, making a presentation of Hedron possible with the SmartBoard. • Artists’ provision of a runsheet allowed teachers to prepare the students for a long program. Teachers’ experience with lesson planning meant our overtime was anticipated and compensated for, so students were able to experience the full program despite our poor planning. Consultation/discussion- • Artists suggested repertoire based on the teachers’ based collaboration communicated plans for Music, so that the value of the visit was extended by virtue of being related to the rest of the term’s plans. • Teachers’ expressed interest and subsequent organisation of running breakout room activities allowed the artists to model the next steps of the Hedron sequence for the teachers, within the confines of a single-visit format. Musicking activities: • Completed preparation allowed the students and teachers to testing out student experience being musickers as composers, listeners and activities performers during the visit. This also allowed Quart-Ed to model best practice musicking-as-listening and giving feedback, which is atypical to the single-visit format. • Students’ engagement and success in the program due to the completed preparation positively impacted the musical self- efficacy of the teachers, which will have a positive effect on their music teaching following the visit.

Limitations and Future Research The original timeline of this project would have allowed me to observe the effect of the project months after its completion using the follow-up survey, however due to unforeseen circumstances with COVID-19, this source of data yielded very similar information to the final interviews. Future cycles of this action research project would benefit from following the original timeline, and it may be interesting to observe the differences in results with participants who meet entirely online for the meetings, or entirely in-person. This project came to its conclusions based on the dynamic that existed between the eight unique participants. Though broad conclusions have been drawn, significant variation in responses to collaborative strategies may be observed when repeating this project with different teachers, particularly as this school’s situation meant that one of the teachers was in a position of executive power within the school. Teachers who have prior experience with visiting artists through avenues such as Musica Viva may also be interesting participant teachers that are able to offer more critical feedback about the artists. Finally, Quart-Ed, by virtue of my participation, have learned so much from the action research process that a repeat of this project even with the same teachers next year would yield even more findings.

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Appendix A: Ethics and SERAP approval

Appendix B: Self-efficacy Tool

Appendix C: Interview Questions

Appendix D: Partington’s Core Commitments

The following table is a paraphrased version of Partington’s core commitments with their explanatory notes:

The honoring of “… recognize the professional skills and expertise of respective expertise the other as being of fundamental significance in the pursuit of dialogic relationship.”

Observe respective As teachers observe artists leading musicking, practice musicians should observe teachers teaching in their classrooms. This is to help the understand each others’ pedagogy, and to observe commonalities and differences between them.

Share vulnerabilities and “The sharing of musical ‘histories,’ fears, concerns, experience and areas of self-identified musical or more general pedagogical strengths and weaknesses” were expected to enable power imbalances to be addressed.

Honesty “….Being freely and constructively critical without fear of causing offense appears to be integral to teachers’ sense of agency....”

Allocate time for joint “Regular dialogue and joint reflection about reflection classroom musicking (both reviewing activity that has occurred and planning together for future musicking) were found to be crucial in the establishment of mutually satisfactory partner relationships…”

(Partington, 2018, p. 166-167)

Appendix E: Final Questionnaire

Appendix F: Proposed and Actual Project Timelines

T2 Week 6/7 School and participant teachers found

T2 Week 8/9 Opening interviews completed

T2 Week 10 First collaborative meeting

T2/3 Holidays Prep time

T3 Week 1/2 Second collaborative meeting T3 Week 1 School and participant teachers found (Stage 2) T3 Week 2 Artist opening interviews completed

T3 Week 4/5 Performance

T3 Week 5 New participating teachers found (Stage 3) T3 Week 6 Closing interviews completed

T3 Week 10 Teacher opening interviews completed Term 3/4 First collaborative meeting Holidays T4 Week 1 Second collaborative meeting

T4 Week 4 Performance + Artists’ closing interviews

T4 Week 7 Teacher’s closing interviews, questionnaire sent out T4 Week 8 All questionnaires completed T4 Week 8 All questionnaires completed

Appendix G: Pre-meeting email

Appendix H: Highlighted and summarised core commitments

Appendix J: T4 extended quote

T4: I'm not even gonna be a part of this now. T2: I wanna do something to pull you into it. If it’s Thursday, on that middle session, so from 11:40 to 11:45 - T4: Well, what week is it? Because… T2: Week 4. T4: Well, Week 4 is the week that that hour is my fundraising, slash Orientation, slash, uniform, slash… T2: Well that’s where I’d like to chat to [school executive] about you coming along to the quartet, instead. I think we should do that. Because that way you can come. I want you to be there. The kids will want you there. T4: Well I’ve got that one hour of RFF, so I can come then… T2: I can make your RFF up on Wednesday, if you like. T4: Oh. Uh, whatever. (2nd Meeting, 15 October 2020)