Music, Theatre, and Dance

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    CALLED TO THE CONVERSATION: A DIGITAL ETHNODRAMA EXPLORING COLLISIONS OF CALLING AND SHADOW ACROSS A COHORT OF JOURNEYS INTO PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANHOOD
    (2021-11-17) Sievers-Hunt, Tara S.; VanderLinde, Deborah; Hogle, Lauri A.; Martin, Robert
    Called to the Conversation is a digital ethnodrama in three movements. It is the final research product resulting from a series of interviews with nine graduates of a small liberal arts college in Detroit as conducted by their former professor. This dissertation study arose from the question: How might the curriculum of a college music department be meaningfully informed by examining the musicianship journeys of its alumni?While transcribing and exploring the nuclear episodes (McAdams, 1997), stop moments (Fels, 2019), and narrative and resonant threads (Clandinin, 2013) from these participants’ interviews, I discovered that a calling to professional musicianhood (Ansdell, 2016) leading to the pursuit of an undergraduate voice performance degree enkindled a narrative structure similar to a hero’s journey (Vogler, 2020; also Campbell, 1949/2008; Ford, 2000; Frankel, 2010). Specifically, I focused on how the interaction between a Call to Adventure (crossing the Threshold into the Otherworld of higher music education) and their Shadow fear culminated in an Ordeal to be faced before leaving the Otherworld. Methodological, structural, and artistic-theatrical influences behind this work have created a bricolage (Kincheloe, 2005; Berry, 2015) of narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2013; Riessman, 2008), performative ethnography (Denzin, 2003), currere (Pinar, 2019), a/r/tography (Irwin & Springgay, 2008; Leavy, 2009, 2013), verbatim rhythmic transcription, ethnodrama (Saldaña, 2005, 2011a), digital storytelling (Lambert & Hessler, 2020), digital performance (Dixon & Smith, 2007), and narrative monologue—all grounded in a paradigm of critical constructivism (Brooks & Brooks, 1999; Claxton, 1996; Fosnot, 2005; Freire, 1970/2018; Gay, 2018; Kincheloe, 2003, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 2009; McLaren, 2017), a philosophy of musicking (Small, 1990/2016, 1998), and a sense of relational ethics (Clandinin et al., 2018; Ellis, 2007). Engaging the processes of research and artistic creation as an a/r/tographical bricoleur (Irwin et al., 2018; Kincheloe & Berry, 2004; Pinar, 2004a) revealed new understandings of lifelong learning as a self-authoring process (Baxter Magolda, 2004, 2009) —a life curriculum into professional musicianhood. This work poses a number of questions to spark reflective conversations (Renshaw, 2007) about making space for student-musicians’ theories of musicking (Small, 1990/2016, 1998) and their subjective experience within official and operational curricula (Mayes, 2010).
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    AN INTERACTIVE ECOSYSTEM OF MUSIC LEARNING: INDIVIDUAL LEARNING IN SMALL GROUP CONTEXTS IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM
    (2022-03-17) Grekin, Joshua David; Wiggins, Jacqueline H; Ricks-Doneen, Julie; Oden, Sherri L; Shambleau, Krista; Carver, Cynthia
    In this qualitative study, I explored the relationships between individual and group learning in the context of music ensembles in the classroom. I sought to understand how groups and individuals construct and develop identities and search for power in this context and how the self-esteem, efficacy, and productivity of groups and individuals may be related. As a teacher-researcher (Kincheloe, 2003) in an interactive, interconnected multi-age, constructivist learning environment (Brooks & Brooks, 2001; Fosnot, 1996; Wiggins, 2015) where learners and groups of learners were encouraged to share ideas and knowledge, I examined the musical community from multiple perspectives; focusing separately on the entire school community, small musical ensembles, and individual learners. The relationships among these perspectives, and the experiences of these individuals and groups were the primary focus of this study. Data consisted of extant videos, audio recordings, teacher observation notes, and informal interviews, and were analyzed through a process of identifying and categorizing emergent themes. The findings of this study enabled me to conceptualize the entire musical community at the school as a constantly evolving ecosystem in which every individual and group was influenced by the evolution of the entire ecosystem, and the evolution of the entire ecosystem was influenced by every individual and group. Through this lens, musical groups and musical communities are seen as cohesive and developing entities separate from, and interacting with the individuals who constitute them. Further, I found that ideas, understandings, resources, and innovations resided within the ecosystem and that a robust, multi-perspective awareness of the ecosystem, both in its entirety and of its individual parts, by the learners and music teacher, positively influenced self-efficacy, creativity, development, and growth.