Page 20 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo v Ljubljani / The Journal of Music Education of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana: Mostovi med formalnim in neformalnim glasbenim izobraževanjem, leto 15, zvezek 31 / Year 15, Issue 31, 2019
P. 20
SBENOPEDAGOŠKI ZBORNIK, 31. zvezek
Introduction
The role of music teachers in the modern society has changed and expanded in theoretical,
practical and contextual sense. Polisi (2016, p. 13) emphasizes the importance of
developing the professional identity of musicians as a sociological challenge and says that
„there should be no dividing line between artistic excellence and social consciousness“.
Therefore, a music teacher today needs to be educated as a good performer and artistic role
model, planner and organizer, communicator and pedagogue, facilitator, reflective
practitioner, advocate, networker and collaborator (AEC, 2010). The artist-citizen
dimension makes one of the most important parts of his identity, because it implicates an
inclusive engagement with music in different educational contexts (Schmidt-Campbell
and Martin, 2006; Elliott, 2015; Elliott, Silverman and Bowman, 2016; Polisi, 2016).
Integration of music and music education in all aspects of social life though community
music makes culture accessible to all citizens, which can contribute to the cultural
development and wellbeing of the whole society. This shift in thinking about musicians’
professional identity has affected educational and methodological paradigm of higher
education. Music academies are slowly developing their civic mission and becoming
places with “open doors” for different audiences.
As the potential and value of the civic engagement through community music in Croatian
society are still unknown, the purpose of this paper is to describe Notes of Love, one of the
community music creative workshops for children, made by students at Music Education
Department, Academy of Music, University of Zagreb in collaboration with the
non-governmental organization (NGO) Smile for Everyone. The activity is based on
making sounded stories, adapted mostly from the stories from the classical literature.
Every story has a follow-up part made of different artistic activities, which makes these
workshops interdisciplinary in many ways. The target group for workshops was originally
visually impaired children with developmental disabilities, but soon the program widened
the scope to all interested children in different contexts. In the first year of
implementation, it expanded to children’s libraries, parks and nature in the city of Zagreb,
and connected the Academy of Music with many NGO’s, schools, hospitals, children’s
homes and interested students from diverse universities in the local community. The
program of sounded stories Notes of Love also connected students from various musical
programs and their teacher in a transformative process which gives a significant chance to
all of them to explore different ways and contexts of music education practice. In two and
a half years of existing, the program gathered around 15 students. Using a/r/tography as a
methodology, this paper will gather all experiences of the program development, since the
beginning in academic year 2017/2018.
Theoretical background
Development of (music) culture in contemporary society implies a change of the
pedagogic-didactic paradigm of arts education to the organization of activities addressed
to the wider community (UNESCO, 2006 and 2010), which changes the education of
future musicians at music academies in the direction of service-based learning. Gaunt and
Westerlund (2013) cover this growing need of connecting music education and society
18
Introduction
The role of music teachers in the modern society has changed and expanded in theoretical,
practical and contextual sense. Polisi (2016, p. 13) emphasizes the importance of
developing the professional identity of musicians as a sociological challenge and says that
„there should be no dividing line between artistic excellence and social consciousness“.
Therefore, a music teacher today needs to be educated as a good performer and artistic role
model, planner and organizer, communicator and pedagogue, facilitator, reflective
practitioner, advocate, networker and collaborator (AEC, 2010). The artist-citizen
dimension makes one of the most important parts of his identity, because it implicates an
inclusive engagement with music in different educational contexts (Schmidt-Campbell
and Martin, 2006; Elliott, 2015; Elliott, Silverman and Bowman, 2016; Polisi, 2016).
Integration of music and music education in all aspects of social life though community
music makes culture accessible to all citizens, which can contribute to the cultural
development and wellbeing of the whole society. This shift in thinking about musicians’
professional identity has affected educational and methodological paradigm of higher
education. Music academies are slowly developing their civic mission and becoming
places with “open doors” for different audiences.
As the potential and value of the civic engagement through community music in Croatian
society are still unknown, the purpose of this paper is to describe Notes of Love, one of the
community music creative workshops for children, made by students at Music Education
Department, Academy of Music, University of Zagreb in collaboration with the
non-governmental organization (NGO) Smile for Everyone. The activity is based on
making sounded stories, adapted mostly from the stories from the classical literature.
Every story has a follow-up part made of different artistic activities, which makes these
workshops interdisciplinary in many ways. The target group for workshops was originally
visually impaired children with developmental disabilities, but soon the program widened
the scope to all interested children in different contexts. In the first year of
implementation, it expanded to children’s libraries, parks and nature in the city of Zagreb,
and connected the Academy of Music with many NGO’s, schools, hospitals, children’s
homes and interested students from diverse universities in the local community. The
program of sounded stories Notes of Love also connected students from various musical
programs and their teacher in a transformative process which gives a significant chance to
all of them to explore different ways and contexts of music education practice. In two and
a half years of existing, the program gathered around 15 students. Using a/r/tography as a
methodology, this paper will gather all experiences of the program development, since the
beginning in academic year 2017/2018.
Theoretical background
Development of (music) culture in contemporary society implies a change of the
pedagogic-didactic paradigm of arts education to the organization of activities addressed
to the wider community (UNESCO, 2006 and 2010), which changes the education of
future musicians at music academies in the direction of service-based learning. Gaunt and
Westerlund (2013) cover this growing need of connecting music education and society
18
