Music Education Research

Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2008, 1
14

CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
Lifespan engagement and the question of relevance: challenges for music
education research in the twenty-first century
David E. Myers*
School of Music, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
The scope of music education research has expanded significantly over the last
50 years. Nevertheless, many studies remain atomistic, with limited contexts for
questions, methods, findings and implications. Such approaches may seek to
validate instructional strategies within an established music education system,
rather than developing a continuum of questions, perspectives and dynamic
principles and applications that radically challenge existing assumptions.
Ironically, attempts at more holistic research may offer innocuous description
of observed phenomena, thus bypassing the rigorous analysis that could help
advance current practice. In a global society, music engagement and learning are
studied across cultures, ages, and ranges of opportunities. This context demands a
robust and catalytic research approach, one in which inquiry logically derives
from the ways in which systematic music education
across the full gamut of
learner characteristics and settings
may embrace a fundamental human intrigue
with music. Research thus offers a foundation for music education that empowers
musical choice, connects music learning with larger musical realities, nurtures
both independent and social engagement across the lifespan, and enhances our
quality of life and the societies in which we live.
Keywords: real-world; relevance; research; music education; public value; arts
education; lifespan music engagement

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with
which we created them.

attributed to Albert Einstein

Relevance as a context for research

Calls for real-world relevance are prevalent among todays global efforts to improve
education. Political, social, and economic concerns typically provide the context.
Proponents assert the need to prepare and continually update a workforce that can
apply its knowledge and skills to real-world problems. Such a workforce, they argue,
will not only advance global societies through improved economies, but will also
yield personal and corporate financial advantages.
*Email: music@gsu.edu
ISSN 1461-3808 print/ISSN 1469-9893 online
# 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14613800701871330
http://www.informaworld.com

D.E. Myers

This conception of relevance makes it challenging to describe an authentic and

essential role for arts education in a global society. As a result, music and arts
educators may find themselves striving to convince policy makers that the arts are
central to a vision of relevance that largely bypasses those cognitive and expressive
aspects of human endeavour most influenced by artistic engagement. Rather than
subscribing to the inevitability of such myopic perspectives, arts educators might
seek to advance a more holistic vision of relevance that embraces intrinsic values of
the arts for the worlds citizens. By designing, implementing, and analyzing
programmes that embody authentic relevance, arts educators may influence policy
perspectives through the evidence of demonstrated impact.
The 2006 World Conference on Arts Education, sponsored by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the
country of Portugal, provided an international forum to discuss arts education
across geographic boundaries, to develop global perspectives and collaborative
initiatives, and to bolster arts educators dialogues with policy makers. A theme of
the conference was that creative capacities developed through the arts are essential
for confronting the problems of a global society (Mbuyamba 2006).
As alluring and logical as this generic proposition may seem, it also points up the
flaws of superficially aligning the arts with limited visions of relevance. Creativity is a
complex construct, and it too frequently serves as a catch-all label for a diverse range
of habits of mind indelibly associated with the arts. Nurturing creative capacity is not
a sole province of arts education; in fact, arts education may be implemented in
teacher-dependent ways that do not engender creativity. Many artists are focused on
their own creativity without regard to societal relevance, and there is no current
evidence that links arts study to problem solving at a societal level. To fortify the
assertion that the arts contribute to solving societys problems, the field would need
to articulate and model relationships among deep study in the arts, the types of arts
learning that foster creative capacity, and the intentionality of applying such creative
capacity to broader societal concerns.
At the core of relevance for arts education is the need to increase perceptions of
its value and relationship to daily life among the public. Though various studies have
shown that people generally believe in the idea of arts education, evidence of public
belief in arts education as an essential programme component of schools and
communities is lacking. In this regard, two crucial items appear to be missing in the
published agenda of the Lisbon conference: (1) reflective and critical analysis of why
the public is tepid in its endorsement of the arts and arts education as non-negotiable
investments in schools and communities; and (2) serious consideration of the
responsibility that the arts and arts education communities bear to foster enhanced
public value through universal access to high-quality engagement and learning
across the lifespan.
In the twenty-first century, music educators cannot afford to limit their research
to questions that primarily reinforce insularity and circularity of thought and
argument among a closed community of like-minded individuals. Neither can they
implicitly reinforce irrelevance by limiting inquiry to music programmes that fail to
engage the full spectrum of learners or by conforming to expectations of advocacy
for a host of extra musical benefits. To be respected participants in the global
concern for education, we must pursue rigorous methods of discovery that
accomplish two aims: (1) enlarge the research perspective to pose questions within

Music Education Research

a context of societal relevance; and (2) urge the field beyond passionate advocacy
towards greater clarity about the complex functions of the arts in society, and
towards practices and policies that effect a culture of public value through
sustainable engagement.
Based on Deweys writings, Carol Rodgers (2002) has distilled four criteria of
reflective thinking that are applicable to a research orientation towards relevance: (1)
reflection moves a learner from one experience to another with deeper understanding
of its relationship to other experiences and ideas; (2) reflection is a systematic and
rigorous way of thinking; (3) reflection needs to happen in community; and (4)
reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself
and of others [italics added].
Research based on collaborative, relational, reflective, and rigorous approaches
offers a benchmark for relevance. As professionals whose roles often cross
boundaries among researchers and practicing teachers, performing artists and
composers, and policy advocates and participants in the wider educational
community, we must be leading the way in asking the difficult questions about
music educations real-world relevance. What does it mean? How does it look? What
are its implications for research? What does relevance mean in the situated contexts
of schools, of pre-schools, of adult learning programmes, of career preparation? And
how do we balance the pursuit of excellence within our specific disciplines with
application to broader contexts, both within and beyond music?
Undertaking this exploration should not be a function of political advocacy,
which too often circumvents critical analysis of both musical and educational worth.
Rather, these questions must be pursued as a function of an articulated commitment
to the place of high-quality music experience in the lives and learning of all people,
across cultures and generations, regardless of prior musical knowledge and
experience, and as a matter of our belief in the humanising value of music in the
communities and the global society in which we live.
Relevance and lifespan engagement
Lifespan engagement is an historic and intrinsic staple of dialogue about the
relevance and value of systematic education, including music. Contrary to notions
that lifespan perspectives equate only to adult learning, or to preparation of youth
for adulthood, lifespan engagement is about a lifetime continuum of learning.
Within this continuum, the years of formal schooling, whether for leisure or career
pursuits, are one important segment. Lifespan engagement entails universal design
and multiple entry points that invite people to begin or extend their musical growth
at any age or stage. It embodies relationships between learning in structured settings
and less formal participation and learning outside those settings. Lifespan
engagement forges seamless, symbiotic relationships and third space environments
that blend systematic learning with community endeavour, career preparation with
the professional world, and schools with a host of external agencies, so that the real
world of music, including its functional roles in society, is indelibly and interactively
linked with educational pursuits.

D.E. Myers

Meanings of relevance
UNESCO has called for twenty-first-century education to be relevant to a changing
society across a variety of domains, including technological, social, scientific,
humanistic and economic. The International Center for Leadership in Education
(ICLE), which identifies itself publicly as being committed to rigour and relevance
for all students, has designed a framework for merging levels of Blooms cognitive
taxonomy with levels of knowledge applicability. Within the framework, the highest
levels of success occur when students are able to apply their knowledge to real-world
situations at levels comparable to their cognitive abilities to analyse, synthesise and
evaluate (ICLE 2007).
As with all popularly applied terms, assumed meanings and connotations of
relevance may vary widely. Moreover, assumptions about relevance may be uniquely
associated with the particular fields to which the term is ascribed. A fundamental
aspect of relevance in music is how well systematic engagement connects with
peoples intuitive inclinations and nurtures their inherent musical capacities. If it
does not, people drop out, or, in the case of students in required classes, tune out.
According to the News Hour with Jim Lehrer (Suarez 2006), a primary reason
teenagers give for quitting school is that their classes are not interesting. This
suggests that classes may fail in being relevant to students autonomous desire to
learn, a trait we as educators generally accord all human beings.
The absence of such relevance in music is perceived by students as implicit
affirmation that they lack musical talent, even though music educators are fond of
saying everyone has the capacity to learn music. Unsuccessful students assume the
problem is theirs, and they may begin a lifetime of music education avoidance. Such
avoidance is key in those situations where a relatively small percentage of students
elect music instruction in secondary schools. As we know from anecdotal data and
market and cultural participation research, people do not avoid having music in their
lives, nor do they avoid participating in music. Rather, they avoid music in certain
contexts, which for many include classical concert halls, operas, and a music
education system that has historically focused more on preserving cultural tradition
by educating observers, or audience members, than by empowering self-efficacy for
creating, performing, understanding, and listening perceptively to music (McCarthy
et al. 2004; National Endowment for the Arts 2004; Wolf 2006).
For those of any age interested in music as an avocation, the relevance of music
study might be viewed in terms of personal goals for participation and fulfillment
rather than achieving certain levels of expertise
playing an instrument, composing,
forming a band, reading music, joining a choir. In higher education, relevance for
aspiring career musicians increasingly goes to issues of what it means to be a
musician in society and the multiple roles musicians may fulfil for the public good.
For those taking music as part of their humanities studies, relevance may be defined
in terms of its relation to concepts in other disciplines or to previous and concurrent
musical experience.
Interviewed by a Washington Post writer in 2004, composer Libby Larsen
charged that music education has a crisis in relevancy (Strauss 2004). Her position
is that American schools performing ensembles
bands, choirs and orchestras

exist around repertoire that represents only a small percentage of music in the world
today. Thus, the medium and the music are, to some degree, both culturally and

Music Education Research

musically irrelevant. Larsen mentions one American university where faculty have
considered a diverse range of ensembles in view of the schools demographic, cultural
and geographic contexts. She also refers to methodologies that she believes focus
too much on listening and appreciation in Western idioms, and that are failing to
teach children the skills of reading and writing music at an early age. To Larsen,
reading and writing are the fundamental relevant dimensions of peoples ability to
become lifelong music participants.
Music parent and music lover Stephen Budiansky (2005) wrote an article that
appeared in the Washington Post nearly a year after Larsens interview. Budiansky
criticised music performed in American schools as having limited worth that fails to
instil childrens passion for music into adulthood. He challenged commercially
produced music for schools and some contemporary commissioned works as having
no relevance in terms of their musical value, or in terms of being music that students
may experience throughout life.
At the International Music Education Policy Symposium in April 2004 Bennett
Reimer uttered the oft-cited assertion that music education worldwide is facing a
potential crisis of irrelevancy. Reimer contended that the field has neglected
musical realities and cut itself off from effective ways to help satisfy the needs of rich,
multi-musical cultures around the globe (Reimer 2004).
In fact, the question of relevance is far from recent in the annals of music
education. In American music education, it is a theme that has persisted among
perceptive observers since the early twentieth century. The two pervading facets of
this theme have been these: (1) the need for connection between music in schools and
the nature of musical experience, participation, and learning beyond the schoolroom
walls; and (2) the question of how music in schools may equip students with the
knowledge, skills, and confidence to become lifelong participants and learners. A
complete history is beyond the scope of this paper, but by way of example, Birge
wrote with optimism in 1928 that school music is no longer cloistered. . . . School
and community are rapidly coming together (Birge 1966, 226). In 1961, University
of Michigan music dean Allen Britton noted that music education operates at a
distance from both popular and artistic musical life outside the school (Britton 1961,
215). And in 1967, United States music educators gathered at Tanglewood for a
symposium under the theme of Music in American Society, where they concluded
that music and music education must be relevant to a changing society (Choate
1968).
At the 2005 International Symposium on Lifelong Learning in Music (Myers
2006b), I argued that Reimer might well have omitted the word potential from his
assertion of irrelevance. I would further contend that casting music educations
irrelevance as a crisis, while certainly an appealing call to arms, obscures the fact that
current irrelevance is a natural consequence of a cloistered, status quo system that
has been perpetuated without critical analysis or alternative models. Against this
backdrop, the research community must seek to extract itself from the tendency to
confirm the obvious and move towards an attitude of discovery that pushes the field
forward, particularly with regard to the duality of lifespan engagement and
relevance.

D.E. Myers

Research for progress and growth

From an ecological perspective, the research community in music education is not a
distinct entity, but is directly engaged with practice. Most researchers are, or have
been, active musicians and teachers. How is it, then, that a large body of work over
many decades has essentially ignored the dichotomy between childrens out-ofschool musical enthusiasm and their frequent lack of interest in school music
programmes? Or, to pose the question from a lifespan perspective, why is there an
apparent disconnect between many peoples autonomous interests in music and the
frustration they often experience when they undertake systematic study?
Researchers spend enormous time and energy on questions relating to teaching
methods, repertoire, music preferences, classroom environments, attitudes, lived
experiences, technology, creativity, aptitudes, intellects, aural skills, reading skills,
musicianship, social issues, and equitable participation among those who do
participate, either by requirement or on an elective basis. But almost no energy is
vested in understanding why such large numbers of otherwise musically intrigued
people either avoid or disengage from systematic music education.
The Musical Futures project, directed in the UK by David Price, is a notable
exception. Why, Price has asked, is there a gap between adolescents widespread and
enthusiastic out-of-school musical pursuits and their low levels of engagement with
school music. Prices work connects directly with questions of real-world relevance.
Analyses of Musical Futures model programmes are informing the ways in which
music learning in the school context may connect meaningfully with adolescents
fundamental drive for music engagement.
Musical Futures rests on an approach derived organically from the inherent
nature of music and music learning; it aligns with the personalised learning needs of
adolescents; it nurtures student investment and ownership; and it fosters musical
leadership as an avenue of continuing growth and participation. Musical Futures
builds relationships between schools and communities, enlisting a host of collaborators that share a commitment to pathways for a musically enlivened society. It uses
existing research as a context for developing and testing innovative programme
models, and it is contributing not only to understanding music instruction and
enhanced participation, but also to whole-school atmospheres and educational
policy (Price and DAmore 2007).
At Georgia State University in Atlanta, a programme entitled Sound Learning is
connecting university music students, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, community
musicians, and local schools in a model based on real-world relevance. As university
students learn to engage with the community, they gain broadened perspectives
regarding musicians roles in society. Career musicians similarly develop knowledge
and skills for interacting with the community. Children and teachers grow in their
understanding and appreciation of music through high-level interactions with realworld musicians and through real-world music making and composing in their
classrooms (Myers 2006a).
In my own inquiry with adults, I have witnessed repeated instances of frustration
and attrition in classes when well-intentioned teachers fail to connect with the
musical drive of students, their personal goals for music learning, and their need to
realise demonstrated progress
all of which are documented in the research literature
as aspects of success. Once, when interviewing a 70-something beginning guitar

Music Education Research

student, I asked her why she thought so many people had dropped out of her class.
Well, she said, I think maybe if we had learned to play a real song, instead of just
practicing exercises, more of them would have stayed.
Unfortunately, research in general carries a legacy of perceived irrelevance among
many members of the public. Perhaps that is one reason why The American
Institutes for Research (2007) is so conscious of making its relevance transparent.
The Institutes website states that Our overriding goal is to use the best science
available to bring the most effective ideas and approaches to enhancing everyday life.
For us, making the world a better place is not wishful thinking. It is the goal that
drives us. In a 1983 book, The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schon, a professor at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued that problems of technical interest
to researchers are often unimportant to society. According to Schon, the real
problems exist in what he called the mess of the swampy lowlands, where technical
rationality fails to be relevant to problems that do not have easily defined answers
(Schon 1983).
Applying this perspective to music education research leads directly to the
question of whether our own fields version of technical rationality may divert us
from the messiness of everyday problems. To what extent are questions about the
status of music education in schools and society subjugated in mandates to define
researchable hypotheses, or employ prescriptive methods, or provide data for
advocacy? Why is it that so many research studies in music education continue to
address questions in which it is self-evident from practice, prior research, and the
limitations associated with school environments that no statistically significant
differences will emerge between two instructional approaches? Why is it that too
many qualitative studies indiscriminately report on existing endeavours without any
theoretical justification for studying them and with virtually no analysis of their
lessons for the field? And why is it that the discussion and implication sections of
research reports rarely tell practitioners anything they do not already know, or
cannot ascertain for themselves?
The central question is simply this: What difference does music education
research make in creating sustainable cultures of high-quality music learning and
engagement across the lifespan, and how might those cultures potentially lead
towards an enlarged sense of public value regarding the place of music and music
education in society? This question is not posed as a researchable topic. Rather, it is
posed as a robust point of departure for contextualising research that offers
leadership to move the field towards institutionalising music and music educations
value. The question encompasses the complete gamut of learner characteristics and
settings and the full range of goals from career preparation to personal fulfillment. It
also subsumes the organic musical proclivities of humans, the nurturing of musical
independence for personal and social engagement, empowerment for musical choices
of value, and commitment to enhancing the quality of the human condition and the
societies in which we live.
Patricia Cross (1998) has suggested that research on learning can fairly be
represented by the analogy of mining a ton of ore to find a nugget of gold. The fact
that we continue to mine is not the issue; mining is essential for finding nuggets of
value. The concern is that most of the ore we retrieve adds up to larger piles of the
same stuff we have been retrieving for decades. This is reminiscent of the professor
who told his introductory research class that research is not a discovery process but

D.E. Myers

merely a systematic way of confirming what we already know to be true. Too much
research in music education continues to test the theory that teaching people
something using a reasonably defensible method generally results in learning.
I am not making light of the continuing quest to understand as much as we
possibly can about every conceivable aspect of our field. I applaud the methodological expansion that has occurred in recent years, particularly the increasing use of
qualitative designs. The field is far less prone to designing researchable questions in
light of a prescribed methodology than in the past, and we are more comfortable in
the swamp, with the messiness of questions, than we were when we tried to make
everything fit the quasi-experimental box.
I do, however, challenge the fact that too much research, regardless of method,
addresses relatively atomistic questions without regard to prior knowledge, the
wisdom of practice, or the contexts of larger realms. The music education profession
is ready to move beyond its self-limiting perspectives, on the one hand, and its
tendency to make unsubstantiated passionate claims for all kinds of benefits on the
other. Posing questions with regard to the multiple facets and dimensions of
relevance, as well as cognizance of the relationship of any particular topic to lifespan
engagement, offers an avenue of making research itself more relevant to the role of
music education in schools and society. Towards this end, I will suggest some
implications based on four types of challenges we face in moving research towards
greater relevance.
Challenges for research
The challenge of generating substantive questions: seeking versus finding
From the interdependent perspectives of lifespan engagement and relevance, the
purpose of music education lies in the learning and teaching of music for the goal of
a musically enlivened society. Substantiated claims for societal relevance beyond that
goal may emerge if the field is clear in its relationships among systematic music
education, music in the real world, and lifespan musical growth and engagement.
The perspective I suggest does not limit our inquiry. Rather, it challenges the
research community to contextualise questions within a larger realm of value and
purpose. If one believes that hearing impaired older adults are losing opportunities
for rewarding musical experiences because they cannot match pitch, he or she may
wish to investigate the following: (a) the extent to which pitch matching can be
improved; and (b) the potential for more successful participation as it relates to
improved pitch matching. From a relevance and lifespan engagement perspective, the
researcher may want to enlarge the question to one of older adults initiative and
satisfaction as they relate to improved pitch matching and more successful
participation in music.
A technical
rational approach might assume that the primary question has to be
whether an effective treatment can be implemented to improve pitch matching in an
older adult population. The researchable question then revolves around the effects of
a treatment and quickly focuses on designing and testing a strategy, the value of
which is best determined by a comparison of experimental and control groups. In
this scenario, the researchers interest has moved from the learner-based relevance
of improved pitch matching for meaningful music engagement and initiative to

Music Education Research

a researcher-based question of treatment design. Presumably, if effective treatment

cannot be demonstrated, one cannot deal with the larger issue of how pitch matching
may relate to musical satisfaction.
By contrast, if the question truly focuses on whether and how improved pitch
matching might enhance musical engagement and satisfaction among hearing
impaired older adults, then the inquiry is guided by a very different value system.
This question does not negate the potential for testing a particular method of
enhancing pitch matching, but the knowledge likely to be discovered will go well
beyond reporting whether the treatment achieved a particular result. This approach
encourages the researcher, from the outset, to be more concerned with incremental
and variable improvements and their meaning than with definitive proof of treatment
effectiveness. It allows for adjustments and variations in the treatment based on
discoveries that occur during the course of the project. It compels contextualisation
of the research relative to individual differences, levels of motivation, and
participants perspectives on personal and social music making; and it offers
potential for relating findings to the larger question of how adjustments and
compensations for hearing loss relate to more generalised aspects of life satisfaction
and continuing social engagement among an elderly population. The implication
from the first form of the question is likely to be that more research is needed on
effective ways to improve pitch matching in hearing impaired elders. The second
form of the question demands richer data and analysis, the why and the how, that
relate directly to musics relevance in larger life issues.
Such consciousness about relevance is applicable across the full range of potential
research interests. With school populations, the questions and the findings become
richer when a relationship can be drawn between school music experiences and
empowerment for independent musical pursuit and satisfaction beyond school. In
conservatory and university settings, the questions are more relevant when they
derive from and inform transparent concerns regarding effective roles and career
development of musicians beyond the classroom.
The challenge of robust and rigorous methodology: understanding versus proving
Methodology is a function of inquiry. Relevance requires that substantive questions
lead to designs and methods that are most likely to reveal increased understanding of
practice and inform progress. As music educators have adopted a wider spectrum of
methodologies, the dialogue from research findings has become richer. However,
persistent problems remain. Literature reviews increase in relevance as they move
towards critical and analytical discussions of prior research and clear relationships to
the current project. In addition, analyses of findings with regard to the literature
studied should lay a foundation for how the current research represents growth of a
body of work rather than reiteration. While replication has its legitimate function,
undertaking studies that primarily serve to confirm what is already self-evident or
widely understood are of limited relevance.
Questions of understanding, as opposed to proving, frequently lend themselves
to qualitative designs. However, care must be taken not to assume that qualitative
inquiry is inherently more compatible with relevance and engagement than
quantitative design. In fact, mixed methods approaches, whether undertaken within
one study or as different investigations of the same phenomena, may be an effective

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D.E. Myers

way of accomplishing robust investigations, given the essential relationships among

skill development, knowledge, and expression entailed in music learning.
The rise of interest in qualitative inquiry requires a circumspect approach to
rigour and relevance. A weakness in some qualitative designs is that the substance of
questions too frequently fails to approach the issues of relevance and engagement I
have raised in this paper. The danger of limited questions is twofold: (1) that a
rigorous design will be applied to questions of limited value, yielding limited
knowledge; or (2) that a comparably weak design will further compromise the
research effort. Though studies may invoke the vocabulary of high-level qualitative
design, if the topics, questions, methods, and analyses essentially lead to an
interesting report rather than findings that can be tied to relevance and engagement,
the studies are likely to perpetuate the insularity of the field from societal concerns in
and beyond music. Though I take no issue with Professor Brands recent article
entitled Putting the Joy Back into Music Education Research (Brand 2006), I
believe we must remember that research is not about the researcher but about the
learning. Brand asserts that narrative research . . . is most of all a reflective process
(Brand 2006, 79). I would urge that we increasingly think of all research, regardless
of method, as a process of deep reflection.
A closely related concern in qualitative inquiry is the depth with which data
collection occurs. A few superficial observations and interviews, no matter how
much attention one may give to transcribing and coding data, cannot offer a basis for
theoretical contextualisation or relevance. One recent study was based on several
hours of data collection via observations and interviews with a small number of
individuals in an after-school programme focused on ethnic music. The researcher
concluded that the programme offered a model for others wanting to integrate ethnic
music into their school music curricula. However, neither the research objectives nor
the methodology were designed to investigate a relationship between the after-school
experience and the in-school curriculum. If the constructs of lifespan engagement
and relevance are to be fulfilled, such superficiality cannot be tolerated.
The challenge of context: dynamic versus static
Just as the World Conference on Arts Education, UNESCO, and others have noted
the complex challenges of a changing society, so music educators must acknowledge
that relevance is a dynamic construct. The challenge is to separate those principles of
music teaching and learning that transcend change from aspects of principles that
are interdependently fluid with change in the realms of music, education, and the
larger society. In this regard, research increases its relevance as it provides bases for
initiative and adaptation to ensure the highest levels of practice in the face of
constant change.
The music preferences of young students and adults alike, for example, are
influenced by culture, familiarity, the media, and a host of social and contextual
associations, and are thus not likely to be the same preferences exhibited by
succeeding generations, or even succeeding classes. Endeavouring to codify
preferences for the purpose of determining curricular content may be irrelevant
and perhaps even misleading unless researchers pursue the question of how teachers
may consider the variable musical preferences within and among students as they
plan and implement instruction. Otherwise, teachers may assume that indicators of

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11

what students like at any given point in time should in some way dictate curricular
decisions.
The predictable outcome of many preference studies is that teachers should
include various musical styles in their classrooms. The more relevant issue is how
teachers engage students with diverse styles in the interest of enhanced perception,
empowerment for informed choices, the ability to derive meaning from musical
experience, and an understanding of the role that diverse musical expressions play in
a global society. The extension of teaching for openness and acceptance of musical
styles through engaged understanding is potentially relevant to embracing diversity
in other areas. However, if research is rooted only in the present rather than
adaptation to change within the broader principle of diversity, then the research
offers little to the relevance of the profession.
The challenge of catalysing change: status quo versus new horizons
Inquiry for discovery and understanding, as opposed to proof, places a heavy
obligation on the research community to work collaboratively in translating its
findings into leadership for practice and continuing growth. It is sometimes easy for
researchers to believe that their primary task is to inform, and to leave implementation from research findings in the hands of practitioners. However, as noted earlier in
this paper, the line between those who research and those who practice in music
education is a thin one, with the majority of individuals fulfilling multiple roles
(Hewitt and Thompson 2006).
The research community in music education is well suited to develop and
research models of practice that move the field beyond its existing conceptions of
programme design, pedagogy, and implementation. Because many researchers have
the advantage of directly influencing practice, they can engage their students in
research-based internships and reflective practice to expand their vision of what is
possible in music education. Such vision may, in fact, relate to how music and arts
education generate creative capacities that participants in the World Conference on
Arts Education hoped will contribute to solving societys problems.
As music education students undertake field experience, they will experience
value as they are placed in settings that encourage research-based experimentation
and reflection rather than status quo practice. Such settings may have to be designed
as research and development initiatives where they do not already exist. In
collaboration with mentors, who may also be researchers, pre-service students may
experience their first professional opportunities as change agents rather than
assimilators of prevailing cultures of irrelevance in music education. Graduate
students who are beginning their research careers may be assigned to study such
programmes as models of change in situated practice rather than focusing on
traditional systems that offer limited examples of relevance.
Those who think from a research perspective are generally engaged in the
business of asking questions and identifying problems. Though creative capacities
are often construed in terms of knowledge and skill for solving problems, they are
also essential for anticipating problems. The music education profession must come
to terms with the fact that its undervalued status is, at least in part, a function of its
tendency towards insularity and irrelevance. The problems associated with irrelevance must be anticipated, identified and researched.

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D.E. Myers

If those conducting research view themselves as catalysts for change and act on
their unique positions to model and analyse relevance across the lifespan, they will
make important contributions to enhancing a sense of public value around music
and music education. Until such value is realised, the lobby for political answers to
the lack of extensive music education in schools will be unlikely to achieve its aims.
Conclusion
In a book entitled Teach Like Your Hairs on Fire (Esquith 2007), Rafe Esquith, who
identifies himself as an actual classroom teacher, chronicles his experiences
teaching fifth grade in a poverty and violence-plagued Los Angeles neighbourhood.
Esquiths students voluntarily show up at 6:30 a.m. and remain until after 5:00 p.m.
They learn about handling money through a classroom economic system, and each
year they produce and perform an unabridged Shakespeare play. Real-world actor
Sir Ian McKellen has been a guiding force in the programme, and Hal Holbrook,
Michael York, Sir Peter Hall, and others have directly inspired the students. Esquith
says he does the play because he has found no other project that allows [him] to
teach the students everything [he wants] them to learn in a single activity (Esquith
2007, 208).
In chapter 15, entitled Its Only Rock n Roll (but I Like It), Esquith notes that
students didnt used to play music. But today, they can play anything from Muddy
Waters to Radiohead. More important, Esquith says, they understand the music
they play. In Room 56, reading music is taken as seriously as reading itself (Esquith
2007, 190).
Esquith says, I want the kids to be lifelong musicians, not trained seals
performing for some school function. In Room 56, the students learn to read music
by playing scales. Before long they move on to playing simple classical pieces (2007,
191). Esquith emphasises the relevance of real world music, not watered-down
versions, as an intrinsic motivator for kids musical interest and growth. He says, By
using rock lines that are musically correct, the kids learn to play like the pros. In
addition, their ability to read and play classical music allows them to learn pop songs
incredibly quickly (2007, 196).
Arasi (2007) undertook an investigation of how adults perceived the lifelong
impact of participation in a highly regarded choral music education programme
during high school. Experts from around the United States directed her to several
programmes and she ultimately focused on one that seemed to satisfy her criteria for
excellence. She conducted extensive interviews of former students in the programme
and, to her disappointment, found that adults rarely reflected on any long-term
musical values. Their reflections, while positive, centred primarily on time-limited
social benefits, competitions and trips, and the strong personality of their teacher.
The researcher found almost no perception of direct links to musical interests or
pursuits after secondary school.
When a music teacher from a renowned school music programme came to see
Rafe Esquiths class, the music teacher was puzzled by how the same songs could fit a
different Shakespearean play every year. Esquith explained that the kids learn new
songs each year. The music teacher said that in his school, if students stayed in the
music programme, they continued the same songs from year to year because the
older students did not have the skills to progress on their own.

Music Education Research

13

By contrast, Rafe Esquith claims to teach for relevance. All of his 10-year-olds
sing in harmony. This is what he says about it: . . . . you get to involve more students.
When everyone sings melody, many children are thinking, I dont really have to sing
this. With fifteen other kids singing, who would notice if I wasnt here? By singing in
harmony, the students learn more about music, improve their listening and singing
skills, and feel better about their own contributions to a song (Esquith 2007, 194).
Esquiths students record their songs and reflect on ways to improve them.
Sometimes improving songs requires performing in a different key. Esquiths advice
on changing keys is this: Although a capo can change the key on a guitar, and the
key of an electronic keyboard can be changed with the push of a button, these
shortcuts deprive students of the opportunity to play in different keys. Once we have
chosen the key in which we will perform a song, we play in that key. It is sometimes
harder, but the children become better musicians, and thats the point (2007, 195).
Esquith is neither a music teacher nor a researcher, and his descriptions of what
happens in his classroom are clearly his own. Nevertheless, he seems to understand
relevance and the potential for lifelong music engagement growing out of what his
children are doing. From a research perspective, this may be a programme worthy of
attention and analysis. As a music education research community, it is important
that we be able to say, like Esquith, that we are here to help people become better
musicians for a lifetime of meaning and value, and to relate that value to the cause of
an enriched life in our communities and our society. If we fulfil that mission, we will
have played an important role in securing perceptions of value for music and music
education among current and future generations.
Notes on contributor
David Myers is Professor of Music, Associate Director of the School of Music at Georgia
State University. His primary interests are teacher education, lifespan music learning, and
collaborative music education programmes. Through the Center for Educational Partnerships
in Music at Georgia State, he has initiated programmes in support of music and arts
education. One of these, the Music Education Leadership Institute, fosters school
community
collaboration and provides professional development and recognition for music educators
from across the state. He is editor of the section on partnerships for the second Handbook of
Research on Music Teaching and Learning, as well as author of a chapter in that volume
entitled Policy Issues in Connecting Music Education with Arts Education.

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