View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenGrey Repository Access to Electronic Thesis Author: Tim Robinson Thesis title: How popular musicians teach Qualification: PhD Date awarded: 12 January 2011 This electronic thesis is protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No reproduction is permitted without consent of the author. It is also protected by the Creative Commons Licence allowing Attributions-Non-commercial-No derivatives. If this electronic thesis has been edited by the author it will be indicated as such on the title page and in the text. HOW POPULAR MUSICIANS TEACH by TIM ROBINSON A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD Department of Music University of Sheffield March 2010 ii ABSTRACT The present study asks how musicians who have learned outside the classical tradition teach others to play. A group of eight instrumental teachers were studied, all of whom grew up playing ʻpopularʼ, vernacular styles of music. While most of them had at least some experience of being taught classical music, they spent their formative years committed to largely self-directed learning, acquiring the skills they needed in order to play the styles that appealed to them at the time: namely rock, blues, jazz or folk. The teachers were interviewed about their learning histories and their teaching practice, and were filmed teaching a total of eleven students. There was a wide range of instrumental teaching strategies in evidence, from the orthodox teaching of classical music to lessons based entirely on listening and copying. However, in exploring the relationship between how this group learned to play and how they teach others to play, it was evident that they were not ʻteaching as they were taughtʼ, nor were they necessarily re-creating their own ʻinformalʼ learning practices. Rather they were creating their own idiosyncratic teaching strategies, drawing on those elements of their own learning histories which they valued, and supplementing these with aspects of musical learning which they felt they had missed out on; in short, they were attempting to teach as they would have wanted to be taught themselves. Their teaching practice, and their sense of identity, was strongly influenced both by the economic realities of trying to survive as musicians, and by the nature of their students, who were generally viewed as relatively unmotivated. The study addresses an under-researched area of music teaching, and the findings are relevant to course designers, syllabus consultants and instrumental teachers generally, as well as music education researchers, in particular those interested in popular music and informal learning. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 A story 1 1.2 Lack of regulation 3 1.3 The conservatoire model 5 1.4 How musicians teach 7 1.5 Popular musicians and the classical tradition 9 1.6 Popular musicians as teachers 10 1.7 My own history as a learner and teacher 15 1.8 The structure of the thesis 17 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21 2.1 Introduction 21 2.1.1 Project design 21 2.2 Participants 24 2.3 Procedure 34 2.3.1 Interviews and lesson observations 34 2.3.2 Data collection 38 2.3.3 Saturation 42 2.4 My role as researcher 45 2.5. Analysis 57 2.5.1 Interviews 57 2.5.2 Lesson observations 62 2.6 Methodology: conclusion 65 iv CHAPTER 3: LEARNING 67 3.1. Introduction 67 3.2 Informal learning 68 3.2.1 Self-recruitment 69 3.2.2 Learning without pedagogy 79 3.2.2.1 Use of recordings 79 3.2.2.2 Peer-group learning 83 3.3 Formal learning 87 3.3.1 Being taught 89 3.3.1.1 Giving up instruments 92 3.3.1.2 Giving up lessons 95 3.3.2 Using notation 101 3.3.3 Learning through teaching 108 3.4 Learning practices: summary 111 3.5 Relevance of music education research 112 3.6 Musical categories 118 3.7 Learning: conclusion 124 CHAPTER 4: TEACHING 127 4.1 Introduction 127 4.2 Research literature on instrumental teaching 128 4.3 Formal teaching 132 4.3.1 Notation 133 4.3.2 Technique, theory and grade exams 139 4.4 Informal teaching 149 4.4.1 Getting started: looking and listening 149 4.4.2 Playing with others 157 4.4.3 Improvisation 162 4.5 Teaching practices: summary 164 4.6 Lesson observations 165 v 4.6.1 Introduction 165 4.6.2 Fit 166 4.6.3 Style 174 4.6.4 Lesson observations: summary 178 4.7 Teaching: conclusion 179 CHAPTER 5: BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES 182 5.1 Introduction 182 5.2 Learning histories 182 5.2.1 Learning: Bill and Frank 183 5.2.2 Teaching: Bill and Frank 187 5.2.3 Learning histories and teaching strategies: the other 196 participants 5.2.4 Learning histories: summary 202 5.3. Identity 203 5.3.1 Becoming teachers 204 5.3.2 Identity work 208 5.3.3 Identity: summary 212 5.4 Role 213 5.4.1 Flexibility as teachers 214 5.4.2 The attitude of the students 218 5.4.3 Refusals 221 5.4.4 Other views about student motivation 224 5.4.5 Motivated pupils 227 5.4.6 Role: summary 229 5.5 The politics of popular music 231 5.5.1 Institutionalising informal learning practices 232 5.5.2 Participantsʼ views on musical politics 239 5.5.3 Participantsʼ political position 246 5.5.4 The politics of popular music: summary 247 vi 5.6 Beliefs and attitudes: conclusion 248 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS 250 6.1 Introduction 250 6.2 Validity 251 6.3 Research into instrumental teachers 252 6.4 How teaching strategies evolve 254 6.5 Motivated teachers and apathetic learners 255 6.6 Training and experience 256 6.7 Methodology 258 6.8 Studying motivated learners 259 6.9 My own perspective as a practitioner and researcher 262 6.10 Relevance of this research 264 APPENDIX 1: Consent Form 266 APPENDIX 2: Participant Information Sheet 267 APPENDIX 3: Interview Questions 268 BIBLIOGRAPHY 270 vii LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: Age and experience (2.2) 28 TABLE 2: Chronology of data collection (2.3.2) 39 TABLE 3: Lesson observations (2.3.2) 40 TABLE 4: Learning and tuition (3.3.1) 90 TABLE 5: Overview of lesson observation activities (4.6.2) 167 TABLE 6: Regrets about learning (5.2.3) 197 TABLE 7: Do you think the way you teach is better than the way you 199 learned? (5.2.3) viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank several people who had a hand in the inception, progress and completion of this project. Prof. Paul Cameron not only improved my teaching, but also encouraged me to keep writing. Family and friends were consistently supportive. Prof. Norma Daykin offered helpful suggestions from start to finish. I am particularly grateful to my supervisors at Sheffield University, Dr. Nikki Dibben and Dr. Stephanie Pitts. I somehow convinced them that all this would be a good idea, and there must have been times when they wondered if it was. However, all I ever received from them was good advice and good cheer, and I was very lucky to have their guidance. Finally, and most of all, I would like to thank all the teachers (and their students) who agreed to take part in this project. Without their help I wouldnʼt have had any research to write about. 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 A story The present study is concerned with a selected group of instrumental teachers who grew up playing ʻpopularʼ, vernacular styles of music. While most of them had at least some experience of being taught classical music, they spent their formative years in largely self-directed study, acquiring the skills they needed to play the styles that appealed to them at the time: namely rock, blues, jazz or folk. Using in-depth interviews I consider how this group learned to play their instruments, and both discuss and observe how they teach others to play. I question how their learning histories have influenced their teaching practice, and describe both how they see themselves, in terms of their role and identity as teachers, and how they regard their students. I begin, however, with a story that introduces some of the issues affecting instrumental teachers at work in the UK. I had been working in Bristol as a drum teacher for several years when, in the autumn of 2003, I received a telephone enquiry from someone interested in coming for lessons. My prospective student was in his mid-thirties and had, by the sound of it, been playing for some time. He said he wanted to work on his reading skills, as well as doing some ʻjazzy stuffʼ. We duly arranged to meet. After around ten minutes of his first lesson, it was clear that he was certainly an experienced and accomplished player with strong listening skills and no little technique. However, he brought proceedings to an abrupt halt by announcing, somewhat sheepishly, that he had a ʻconfessionʼ to make. He explained that he was completely self-taught, and did indeed want to come for lessons to develop his own playing; however, he had a more pressing problem. He was himself a drum teacher, and he was due to give a lesson the next day to a promising student who wanted to start a new piece. He was not confident that he knew this well enough to teach it: could I go through it with him? 2 The piece was part of a grade 4 exam syllabus for drum kit, and he was most reluctant to volunteer any attempts at playing what was written.