Volume 20 of the Nordic Research in Music Education Yearbook marks the yearbook’s transition from printed physical book to open access publishing under the name Nordic Research in Music Education (NRME), as part of a newly established collaboration between the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Norwegian publishing house Cappelen Damm Akademisk. As editors, we endorse this development towards improved visibility, a better profile, and the widening of access to research in music education to the public.
This first volume of the NRME Journal includes eight articles. The contributions here represent a broad variety of topics and contexts for research in music education. A common feature among them seems to be the interest in asking provocative questions about music and music teaching practices as spaces for subjects’ agency, autonomy, identity constructions, transformations and disruptions.
In his article Music, agency, and social transformation, Kim Boeskov shows how a community music program among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon contributes to the construction of Palestinian national identity. However, while musical practices can work to consolidate national identity, they can also enable and empower participants to counter established social norms.
Anna-Karin Kuuse uses dramaturgical theory in her article ‘Konstnären’, ‘fostraren’ ‘tjänestemannen’ och ‘rebellen’ to depict how Swedish music teachers relate their teaching to democracy and social justice. In the article, Kuuse reveals an apparent tension or ambivalence between teachers’ perceptions of democracy and justice, and the practical task of teaching music. This tension may stem from implicit assumptions about music teaching as well as the institutional structures that govern it. Based on her findings, Kuuse prompts readers to reflect on the connection between these issues.
Disruption of social reproduction in the field of instrumental tuition is another dimension of social justice in music education, and the topic of the article Music teachers’ perspectives on their chances to rupture cultural and social reproduction in the Swedish Community Schools of Music and Arts by Cecilia Jeppson. By employing the concepts of explicit and implicit pedagogy (Bourdieu) and visible and invisible pedagogy (Bernstein), Jeppson highlights perceived difficulties in challenging social structures, especially when reaching out to parents and children from immigrant backgrounds.
Implicit aspects of instrumental pedagogy is also an important finding in Carl Holmgren’s study of the development of the interpretive dimensions of musicianship among higher music education students in the field of Western classical music. In his article Conditions for piano students’ learning of musical interpretation in one-to-one tuition within higher music education, Holmgren asks how students and teachers understand this development, and finds that conditions for learning musical interpretation are highly dependent on both students’ ability to reach a high degree of autonomy and on teachers’ implicit expectations.
This volume also presents two different contexts for creative music practices in Improvisation i musikundervisningen by Christina Larssen and Eva Georgii-Hemming on improvisation in the general music classroom, and Developing reflection-in-musicking in creative practice by Tine Grieg Viig on a collaborative Write an Opera project. Both articles raise reflection in relation to creative music making as a key point. Even when the lack of a professional language inhibits verbal reflection among teachers (Larsson and Georgii-Hemming), it is embedded in their practice, for example through “reflection-in-musicking” (Viig).
Professional language and thinking can be developed by searching for new perspectives in unexpected places, as illustrated in the articles by Ketil Thorgersen and Ola Buan Øien. In Music education as manipulation, Thorgersen builds on a theory of aesthetic communication to discuss how the notion of manipulation can shed light on the power of music to affect people in unpredictable and deep ways. In the article The philosophical fiber, Øien employs the theory of practice architecture and investigates whether an analysis of record producer Daniel Lanois’s practice can provide insight into aspects of musical leadership that are relevant to ensemble conducting.
The editor group would like to thank all of this volume’s authors for their valuable contributions that ensure both continuity and renewal in our field. Information about each author follows his or her article. The quality of this journal also depends on contributions from our scholarly community of peers. We would like to thank all peer reviewers (see Review panel) in this and previous volumes of the NNMPF Yearbook.
Editorial work for this volume began with the previous editor group, comprised of editor-in-chief editor Olle Zandén and editors Alexis Anja Kallio, Frederik Pio and Guro Gravem Johansen (see separate menu for full information). The current editor group wishes to thank each of them for all of their effort. We would also like to thank Anders Eggen at the Norwegian Academy of Music and Marte Ryste at Cappelen Damm for their assistance with the final editing work, decisions regarding layout, and for handling the creation and launching of the Open Access site.
Guro Gravem Johansen (editor-in-chief), Anna Houmann (editor) and Danielle Treacy (editor)