Some music teachers stay with you

Through this project I aim to investigate how meetings between pupil and teacher can influence a person’s musical life. The empirical base will be adults’ life stories about either teachers who they perceive as having deprived them of their view of themselves as “musical” or musicians who deduce their interest for music to a teacher.

The background to the project is all the stories I have met when I introduce myself as researcher in music education. People have told about how they where asked to sing quiter or right out mime, or even told to do something else when the rest of the class where making music, because they, according to the teacher, was non-musical. This still affects them deeply as adults, and often the story is accompanied by a sigh as they wish they could sing or play even if they are “non-musical”.

On the other side there are the people who have aacuired a strong identity of themselves as being musical and have a strong music identity. Some of these tell a similar story, that a teacher made them believe in themselves and encouraged their development as musical beings. To investigate how these adults describe their musical life stories and their meeting with their teacher will provide important insights into what constitutes rewarding and destroying didactic meeting.

The plan is to find and do in depth interviews with adults. I have applied for money for a pilot during spring 2011 and will apply for money for a post doc ahout this project fall 2011

Leave a Reply