Page 24 - 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. 24
SBENOPEDAGOŠKI ZBORNIK, 31. zvezek
outside Zagreb were financed mainly by the organizers and from personal resources. In
2020 the program will be completely moved to the NGO Smile for Everyone because the
Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, unfortunately, didn’t show any possibility to
financially support the idea. Smile for Everyone has a plan to expand the whole idea
including more resources from the civic sector, so it will be interesting to see how the
whole story will develop in the future.
Methodology
The main idea of the research process was to follow and explore the process of developing
the community music programme at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, from
artistic, pedagogical and research position (university teacher as an autoethnographer), as
well as from the position of students involved in the program. That’s why the a/r/tography
as a research method was chosen. According to upaniæ Beniæ (2016), a/r/tography is a
form of action research which gives the possibility for a/r/tographer to make a contribution
both in the artistic and educational research field. A/r/tographer’s artist, researcher and
teacher role are inseparable and interdependent and covers interspace of personal,
professional and social, so it demands certain flexibility in the process observing. Besides
interaction between personal a/r/t roles, an a/r/tographer needs to observe dynamic of
interactions in the process of creation, which makes process and context itself equally or
even more important than the result. The specificity of the a/r/tographic method is that it
uses autoethnography as an approach both in analysis and presentation of the results. For
that reason, as a/r/tographer, from this moment in the text, I will write in the first person. In
order to describe collaborative processes, I will use the „we“ formations.
Research questions explored were:
1. How to develop and design a community music program at the university that
will:
a) be interdisciplinary?
b) include different music teaching areas (singing, playing instruments, listening,
creative work, learning about music)?
c) gain quality both in artistic and pedagogical excellence?
d) be inclusive?
e) reach a wider audience and connect spaces in the community?
f) give students opportunity for collaborative teaching and learning and
meaningful additional practice?
g) encourage the social engagement of music academy?
2. What do students learn from the process? What I as an a/r/tographer learn from
the process?
Data used in the research was diverse. As the autoethnogaphy was crucial for the analysis
and presentation of the results, I used my own reflective diary, reports that we had to
submit after each workshop to the NGO (written by the students or by myself), interviews
with students engaged in the program (N=4), online and live brainstorming meetings,
audio-recordings from rehearsals, conversations with colleagues at the open rehearsals (or
presentations at the Academy for blindfolded audience), and my own participation in the
process. Since it was a completely new and different experience both for my students and
22
outside Zagreb were financed mainly by the organizers and from personal resources. In
2020 the program will be completely moved to the NGO Smile for Everyone because the
Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, unfortunately, didn’t show any possibility to
financially support the idea. Smile for Everyone has a plan to expand the whole idea
including more resources from the civic sector, so it will be interesting to see how the
whole story will develop in the future.
Methodology
The main idea of the research process was to follow and explore the process of developing
the community music programme at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, from
artistic, pedagogical and research position (university teacher as an autoethnographer), as
well as from the position of students involved in the program. That’s why the a/r/tography
as a research method was chosen. According to upaniæ Beniæ (2016), a/r/tography is a
form of action research which gives the possibility for a/r/tographer to make a contribution
both in the artistic and educational research field. A/r/tographer’s artist, researcher and
teacher role are inseparable and interdependent and covers interspace of personal,
professional and social, so it demands certain flexibility in the process observing. Besides
interaction between personal a/r/t roles, an a/r/tographer needs to observe dynamic of
interactions in the process of creation, which makes process and context itself equally or
even more important than the result. The specificity of the a/r/tographic method is that it
uses autoethnography as an approach both in analysis and presentation of the results. For
that reason, as a/r/tographer, from this moment in the text, I will write in the first person. In
order to describe collaborative processes, I will use the „we“ formations.
Research questions explored were:
1. How to develop and design a community music program at the university that
will:
a) be interdisciplinary?
b) include different music teaching areas (singing, playing instruments, listening,
creative work, learning about music)?
c) gain quality both in artistic and pedagogical excellence?
d) be inclusive?
e) reach a wider audience and connect spaces in the community?
f) give students opportunity for collaborative teaching and learning and
meaningful additional practice?
g) encourage the social engagement of music academy?
2. What do students learn from the process? What I as an a/r/tographer learn from
the process?
Data used in the research was diverse. As the autoethnogaphy was crucial for the analysis
and presentation of the results, I used my own reflective diary, reports that we had to
submit after each workshop to the NGO (written by the students or by myself), interviews
with students engaged in the program (N=4), online and live brainstorming meetings,
audio-recordings from rehearsals, conversations with colleagues at the open rehearsals (or
presentations at the Academy for blindfolded audience), and my own participation in the
process. Since it was a completely new and different experience both for my students and
22
