Music-ITE

‘More learning takes place out of school than in’;

‘More learning takes place when self-directed than when directed by somebody else’.

While these statements may or may not challenge the way we think about learning, they do lead to thought about the way we now live and learn and about the loosening of the boundaries between school and not school. In response there is much interest in the similarities and contrasts between formal and informal learning and how, by thinking about this, fresh ways of learning and providing for musical education can be developed. Mobile learning, e-learning, life-long learning, the learning society are examples of the ways in which we now speak about learning. Below is an example of ‘mobile learning’, literally learning on the move and using a mobile device.

Year 7 pupils Alex, Sarah and Jessica move quickly from the last lesson of the morning school to the music department. They have booked a practice room so that they can complete urgent business, the composition of their song. ‘Where have all the answers gone?’ is a song setting out to deal with ‘the blur’ that is Year 7 in their new school. The song’s lyrics have already been created through their mobile phone conferencing the previous evening. The impulse is strong. The song must be sung. Jessica explains:

Like all young people, Alex, Sarah and Jessica are experienced informal learners. In what follows I will explore what it might mean to learn music informally and consider implications for student-teachers and those who assist them in becoming music teachers. After clarifying the most natural kind of learning and which is common to all, I will first define Formal Learning and then Informal Learning, intentionally setting these types apart. While this is rather too simple, it will help to see in due course how these types might interact and how a continuum of practices might be understood. I will make use of examples within the context of Initial Teacher Education whenever possible to make my argument clear and relevant. I will describe and analyse student-teacher’s learning, pupil’s learning and situations where student-teachers and pupils are learning together.

As a first step it will be helpful to recognise that we all learn through a natural process of enculturation. From birth and without self-conscious effort we memorise snatches of songs, rhythms and melodies simply experienced in our day to day living. Such learning lacks explicit instruction or any intention to learn on our part. We have a basic capacity to learn in this way and this will develop as we grow older. The idea of informal learning and formal learning both imply an intention to learn and are both distinct from the idea of enculturation.

The idea of informal learning exists in contrast, even opposition, to the idea of formal learning. Formal learning implies ‘teaching’ and the recognition that what is being learnt is planned for. There will be some clear intention and common agreement that learning will take place. It also implies that the place where this learning takes place has been designated a site for both teaching and learning. The school is perhaps the most obvious example. Indeed, this has been the raison d’tre for the existence of the school as a place set apart. Formal learning is institutional and learning will take place within the constraints set by the institution. Beyond the school this regulated situation can be found in music making groups within the community: in Rock Schools, Saturday morning schools, Brass Bands, Choirs and Orchestras, for example.

In contrast, informal learning takes place in environments that are un-regulated. The learner finds ways of learning appropriate to their needs and in those places most convenient for personal goals to be met. It will be self-regulated. At the same time there will be a self-conscious effort to learn.

Folkestad (2006) argues that informal-formal should not be seen a dichotomy, rather a continuum, while Hodkinson, Colley and Malcolm (2003), investigating how terms like ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ were used within educational ‘talk’, found much confusion. They suggest that thinking about the process of learning, the conditions under which it takes place, the content of the learning and the purposes of the learning help to understand distinctions. Thus:

Informal learning is a process that is:
unstructured;
there is the absence of pedagogue;
there is a lack of overt assessment

Informal learning takes place in a location and setting where there is:
no certification;
no time constraints;
no predetermined learning objectives;
no specified curriculum

The content of informal learning is:
everyday practice;
non-elite knowledge

The purpose of informal learning is:
decided by the learner;
initiated by the learner

PJ didn’t opt for GCSE music. He wanted to avoid the imposition of ‘elite knowledge’ on his particular musical love, hip-hop. He wanted to avoid making music to please his teacher and meet criteria that weren’t relevant to his way of making music. PJ’s programme of self-regulated learning is well developed. He knows how he does music. He works with self-made targets and is ruthless in meeting these. Indeed, failing to meet his own deadlines is a source of anxiety and frustration. Making tracks involves the appropriation and transformation of material and ideas gleaned through listening. This is rarely a direct process of listening and copying, rather:

What PJ arrives at is different, original and his to mould further with the help of the sequencing programme named ‘Reason’ available in the music department’s recording studio. PJ initiates his own learning, manages and evaluates it himself, key elements of informal learning. Typically, PJ is thought of as a ‘popular musician’, although he might not choose such a label. Lucy Green (2007: 10), following her study of how popular musicians learn, puts forward five principles of ‘informal learning’ in music. PJ fits well enough. The learner:

• Chooses what is to be learnt
• Works by listening and copying
• Works alone or with those she/he chooses to work with
• Learns in a haphazard, idiosyncratic way
• Brings together listening, improvising, composing and performing in a highly integrated way

PJ has decided to reject formal learning. Jennie in year 9 on the other hand has embraced it enthusiastically, not so much in school but in the playing of her euphonium in the local Brass Band. For Jennie learning music is a segmented business. There is classroom music, the school wind band, the village brass band, sifting and sorting downloads on the school bus as well as her composing of meandering songs made on her home computer. Jennie moves in and out of informal and formal learning with ease. There are times when learning is highly regulated and others where it is entirely self-regulated. Like Jennie, student-teacher’s own musical learning is likely to have been, but not necessarily, a mixture of the informal and formal and shaped by a variety of processes, settings, content and purposes. Reflecting upon this is a useful place to start.

Victoria, Ivan, Stephanie, Jo, Richard and Alison encountered elements of informal practice along with the rest of their PGCE Group of twenty on the first day of their PGCE Course. They were asked to bring along an instrument and after a little getting- to-know-each other Salsa dancing, they formed four groups, were provided with a CD and CD player and asked to copy what they heard and to prepare a performance.

There was a good deal of listening and re-listening, times of coaching each other through demonstration of what had not been mastered accompanied by the occasional verbal prompt and confirming words and gestures. There was constant rehearsing of what was being learnt and there was refinement and readiness to perform to other groups. The student-teachers brought to the task their variously developed aural-kinaesthetic-visual perceptual capabilities. Indeed, they were adept at perceiving and distinguish between whole texture and particular strands. This is aural analysis. They also brought to the task ensemble performance skill requiring watching, looking and listening, giving and taking, yielding and empathising. There was much prior learning in evidence. By the end of the exercise they had become acquainted with a musical work from the inside.

Victoria had brought her viola to the session and tells what the experience was like for her:

While the activity had been regulated by time and place and was not a task of the student-teachers’ own choosing, it did open up thinking about how music might be learnt and provided a reference point for the remainder of the course.

Following this taster session the group of twenty were divided into two groups. Each group was to have five one hour weekly ‘informal learning’ sessions where, using whatever resources were available, asked to learn something new and to help each other in the process. Again, while this situation was regulated, it did provide a time to explore and learn about informal practices.

For the first session student-teachers were given guitars and asked to teach each other what they had taught themselves before the start of the course. This developed into an orderly session where there was working all together and apart, individually, in pairs and in small groups, culminating in a whole group vocal-guitar performance of Amazing Grace in a four verse arrangement. By week two sub-groups were forming and different interests expressed through the activity undertaken. In the video extracts we see one group making a boomwhackers band, another learning more guitar and others interested in bass guitar, drumming and jamming. They were now deciding what to learn, how to learn it and who to learn it from.

I have selected five short cases to show differences and similarities in the ways student-teachers responded and how their ideas about informal learning are developing. We will see that Victoria, Stephanie, Richard and Jo start from a different place to Ivan and Alison and that experiences met with in school placements interact with University-based experience in very particular ways. In their different ways these student-teachers have achieved success within the bounds of a formal music education. They have acquired specialised knowledge and learnt to be ‘the right kind of knower’ as set out by official music education. They are able to work with what Lamont and Maton (2008) define as an ‘elite code’.

In the third session Victoria brought along a CD of an Electronic re-mix by artist Pedro. The group listened and copied. Ivan on keyboard suggested jamming using motives gleaned from Pedro. While this is Ivan’s preferred way of working, others in his group expressed some doubt but decided to ‘go for it’. An hour later they were still playing. For Victoria ‘this was about learning to take risks, learning from what doesn’t work but that’s OK.’ Victoria recalls that after class on another day teaching herself to drum ‘four in a bar’ and through trial and error she made it ‘really, really good. I feel I could now pick up any instrument and have a go. You can learn without learning by the book.’ And this is what she was doing in school as she found time to extend her guitar skills alone in the music room. Experimenting with the Blues Scale she stumbled on the intro to Layla by Eric Clapton. A friendly voice called: ‘Miss, I didn’t know you played the guitar’. Daniel in year 11 told Victoria how he was learning to play the same piece and showed Victoria what he knew of the music, an example of spontaneous, informal learning.

A little later student-teacher Anthony invited Victoria along to a World Drum Festival in London. The day was set up so that those enrolling for the day would be expected to opt for two of the classes offered. What was learnt would be performed at an evening concert later in the day. In addition to the formal classes, there were rooms set aside for the informal sharing of what had been learnt. In the evening learning carried on as performers encouraged their audience to learn from and take part in what was being performed. The setting encouraged informal learning. However, working like this in the classroom didn’t feel easy for Victoria. Replicating the kind of experiences had on the day in London felt less authenetic in the classroom. Students were not used to having the tables and chairs moved back and dancing in music lessons was not normal. There was much that potentially might compromise authenticity. Nevertheless, for Victoria her journey was well underway and she continues to experiment.

Ivan came to the course with well developed understanding of how informal and formal approaches to learning worked. Ivan felt comfortable with both the taster session and with the five sessions that followed. ‘This was how I learnt.’

While it was good to share skills, Ivan wanted, as we saw above, to work with ‘free playing’, experimenting through jamming and trusting a trial and error approach. This Ivan believed would make for truly informal learning. Musical skills, so Ivan argued, are developed inside the making of music, ‘that’s where it really happens.’ This is the insight of a musician working across the informal-formal spectrum and in this respect Ivan came to teacher training with a music educational history very different from Victoria.

From age seven in his native Norway, Ivan learnt the Hardanger Fiddle, by looking, listening and copying. This was tightly regulated by his teacher and with great formality and with due attention to tradition and convention. At age thirteen Ivan began learning the piano and this took him into notation and the conventions of Western European music. Later Ivan moved into Jazz and through his career as a professional musician learnt to work easily across musical codes.

From informal course sessions Ivan has taken a desire to develop his drumming. He keeps working at this with break-throughs from time to time. In school he is leading a Jazz Band and shows what’s wanted through his drumming as well as his keyboard. Ivan enjoys being musical alongside pupils and constantly looks for opportunities to capitalise on informal interactions with pupils and groups of pupils. He catches, for example, a year eleven boy drumming on congas, ‘a catchy rhythm’, says Ivan. Ivan joins in on keyboard and they get in the ‘groove’. Ivan notes, ‘sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.’

For Stephanie the taster task was daunting, ‘I was not excited about the prospect of this activity, but with support it became manageable and enjoyable.’ Stephanie admits that this was not a way of learning that she had experienced before. In the five informal one hour sessions Stephanie and her group concentrated their efforts on mastering guitar. Again, this felt outside her ‘comfort zone’ and she knew that the success of these sessions would rely on very close cooperation within the group. They became methodical, systematic and made much use of ‘the book’. In the video clip we see Stephanie to the fore deferring to the manual.

Stephanie now sometimes jams on her own experimenting with chord sequences and enjoys the experience of not quite knowing where the next chord is coming from. She recently found herself impromptu teaching guitar chords to her next door neighbour Helen who learnt four chords in an hour, a transforming experience for Helen who is continuing to teach herself the guitar.

In school Stephanie encountered the introduction of an informal learning approach with Year 9. It was the first stage of the Musical Futures Project as set out at Classroom Resources for Informal Music Learning at Key Stage 3 PDF. Here the intention is for learners to work by listening and copying from a CD of their choice. Lucy Green’s five markers of informal learning come into play.

Stephanie notes:

As the year continued Stephanie learns more about the gap between informal learners and formal learners from teaching A Level Music Technology. The four male students are all in bands. Once presented with music for appraisal they are quickly into an aural analysis, making fine-grained judgements and critique, and in particular really listening in to and identifying with the parts their own instruments are playing. ‘Could I play this?’ Stephanie notes: ‘the conversations don’t go where I quite expect them to go.’

These boys are expert informal learners. In their A Level music technology course they are required to ‘sequence’ a piece of classical music. The task is a laborious code cracking exercise and in preparing for their examination attempts at mastering an ‘elite code’ continues to demoralise them. ‘Miss, we don’t need to know this! Just tell us the answer; we don’t need to understand this.’ And Stephanie replies: ‘But I want you to understand this’…’but Miss, we’re not Sarah Enharmonic (pseudonym used). Sarah is Grade Eight violin and is doing Music A Level!’

Jo has much in common with Stephanie: a very formal music education learning piano and clarinet. However, Jo recalls at sixth form being invited to join a rock band on keyboard and this proved to be a considerable challenge. The Faculty taster task was something of a novelty for Jo and in the first two of the five sessions that followed she felt a sense of adventure. However, by week three Jo was less sure about it. ‘Just why were we doing this? Couldn’t time be spent more productively?’ In hindsight Jo views this reaction as naïve as she came to appreciate the feeling you get when something you didn’t think you would get, you get. Finding the ‘groove’ was good. In school Jo’s story of teaching sixth formers how they could learn music by listening and copying makes interesting listening and is impressed by how quickly Year 11 students prepared a performance for a school concert by listening and copying.

Richard notes that there is something exciting about taking on a style direct from a recording. The University-based sessions messing around musically and learning to listen in a new way gave Richard the confidence to set up a Klezmer Band. It became natural as a member of the band to use a semi-formal approach and this involved taking Klezmer tracks and playing along with them. This helped Richard to identify with the music directly as a musician rather than as an academic musician. In Faculty sessions Richard appreciated the space given to student-teachers to run the sessions for themselves. However, he feels that informal learning in formal settings can be problematic.

While his informal learning project with year 9 classes is going well, he cites the case of one class in particular and notes that the formalities of schooling still penetrate. In Richard’s case his placement school has a great many formalities and it is not easy for these to yield in the name of informal music learning. The year 9 class in question must still line up in silence, be registered and there is just the one hour slot with no opportunity to extend sessions. He notes too that it is more difficulty to build relationships with pupils in his more detached, hands-off role. And, some pupils feel let off the hook, some feel affronted that the teacher is not doing his job and he admits to undermining the whole approach by reminding students of assessment in a school where pupils are very focused on national attainment levels. In this school there is strong staff peer pressure to maintain rigorous discipline, judgemental dispositions and the problem of furniture.

Alison came to the taster session having had violin lessons, made it to Grade 5 theory but then as a part of a BTEC post 16 course started learning as a member of a band. Alison soon got the hang of it and has been in bands ever since. Alison currently manages to be in three: the PGCE Klezmer Band, Pandora Pop and Rock and another named Donkilnan Irish Rock.

Faculty sessions suited Alison well and she particulary enjoyed the idea of sharing skills informally. Alison needed more stimulation than the boomwhackers group provided and quickly moved to guitar and drums. Working alongside a classical guitarist and a drummer was good. Like Ivan, Alison claims to learn best by getting inside a jam. Playing around with music is Alison’s preferred way.

Jo reports that her PGCE experiences in University and school have lead her to think about musical learning in new ways and ‘I think I will be for quite a while’. Like Victoria, Richard and Stephanie, Jo is a student-teacher revising her ideas about the way music is learnt and the implications for her as a music teacher. In the cases of Ivan and Alison ideas about learning are being confirmed and enriched. All have become more aware of the spectrum of informal-formal practices in and out of school and of the opportunities and challenges that this presents. What may be of most significance, as vividly exposed in the case of Stephanie, is that the informal-formal divide connects not only with the process of learning music but with what music is learnt, the content. There is elite knowledge and there is everyday knowledge. This raises challenging questions concerning the future development of the music curriculum as ipso facto a formal curriculum, an official curriculum and as legitimated by the QCA, OFSTED, National Strategies and Examination Boards. Whatever, Stephanie needs to join her Music Tech boys’ band even if they say, ‘but miss, you're rubbish.’

Beyond this, the student-teacher’s encounter with informal learning in school, most commonly in the form of an interpretation of the Musical Future’s ‘In at the Deep End’, is proving informative with much to evaluate as they develop their music teacher identities. In the next section Jacqui reports in some depth on experiencing ‘In at the Deep End’ in school and uses a particular theory of learning and motivation as a means of analysing its success. Jacqui’s conclusions provide more food for thought.

Jacqui observed systematically as part of a research assignment and wanted to make a connection with a theory of learning and motivation. In this case it was Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘Flow theory’. Jacqui writes:

‘‘Flow’ is “the positive aspects of human experience – joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992, p xi). ‘Flow experience’ is “an optimal state determined by an individual’s perception of high skill and high challenge for a given task” (Custodero, 2005, pp. 185-209). Custodero’s definition of ‘flow experience’ indicates how it is linked to the concept of self efficacy, with perception of skill and challenge. These ‘flow experiences’ happen when we are presented with tasks that challenge us, but not beyond our real performance ability, and we do not see ourselves as “separate from what we are doing” (Conway & Finney, 2003, p. 126). By observing indicators of flow experience, we can see the levels of engagement with the musical activities. Conway and Finney (2003) provide one way of defining ‘engagement’, and that is to call it “an experience where we become wholly involved in and deeply attached to something other than ourselves” (Conway & Finney, 2003, p. 127). This is a definition that helps us to understand the experience of ‘flow’. Through engagement we can challenge our understanding further and allow our own creativity to prevail also – what Csikszentmihalyi calls ‘deep play’ – which is essential for the Musical Futures project.’

Jacqui observed Year 9 students learning informally in her placement school. Jacqui writes:

‘It was the school’s first venture into working with The Musical Futures project which seeks to “informalise the way music is often taught, and to personalise the nature of the opportunities on offer”. In this instance, the project set, over one half term, involved the following process:

• Pupils chose a group to work in – these were mainly friendship groups, although they were encouraged to think about each other’s qualities, skills and behaviours when choosing groups.
• Each pupil brought in one song of their choice, then as a group, they chose one song that they would like to recreate themselves.
• The groups then had a series of lessons to work independently on producing a performance of their chosen song, using whatever resources were available, and by listening carefully to their song.’

As a way of better understanding what Jacqui was becoming a part of she uses Custodero’s Flow indicators: Challenging Seeking Behaviours; Self Assignment; Self Correction; Challenge Monitoring Indicators; Anticipation; Expansion; Extension and Awareness of Peers and Adults and from the use of structured observation noted:

Challenge Seeking Behaviours

• Pupils actively sought to discover new challenges in many instances, for example, working out melodies on instruments they had never played before.

Self Assignment

• Purposeful activity was initiated by pupils, as they took the lead in finding resources and using them appropriately.

Self Correction

• Pupils self corrected through the use of their listening skills – they attempted to recreate sections/parts of their song, then listened back, evaluated their work and corrected as necessary, repeating the process numerous times.

Challenge Monitoring Indicators

• Pupils adapted the task to either raise or lower the level of challenge presented to them, for example, one pupil began by playing single notes on the piano, but soon changed to figuring out 3 note chords. Similarly, a pupil who had begun by trying to work out combinations of notes but struggled reduced his task to working out the melody line.

Anticipation

• Certain pupils began to ‘guess’ what the next part of their song was without returning to active listening first. They gradually gained more confidence as they checked back and re-evaluated.

Expansion

• A minority of pupils began to expand the task beyond simple recreation, with varying levels of success.

Extension

• There was clear evidence of pupils being immersed in the task so much that they extended the time given, for example, continuing to discuss the project and work out sections even after they had been asked to stop, and on the way out of the classroom also.

Awareness of Peers and Adults.

• The pupils often showed a lack of awareness of adults in the room, even when they were observed at close range. They did not seek to communicate unless prompted. During the project the groups of pupils seemed able to ‘block out’ their peers, however in the final performance they were more aware than ever of their presence.’

In order to verify these findings Jacqui made use of questionnaires and here points were raised that:

‘counteract these observations, including those who stated that the part of the project they didn’t enjoy was working out the music. Others enjoyed the preparation but not the performance. Most pupils stated that if they were to repeat the project, the things they would do differently would be things thatwould lower the challenge of the task, for example, choosing a slower song.They did not mention skills. It is important here again to remember that pupils’ own perceptions of themselves and the task play a large part in flow experience - “strong efficacy beliefs lead to greater persistence in the face of difficulties, reduce fear of failure, improve problem-focused analytic thinking and raise aspirations.” (Oettingen, in Bandura, 1995, p169).

In conclusion Jacqui writes:

‘It seems that the Musical Futures project has very different ramifications for different pupils. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to music, and this project, whilst producing amazing levels of flow in some pupils, clearly ostracises and depresses others, particularly those who dislike performance. This is somewhat ironic, as one of the main purposes of the project is its commitment to personalised learning. Like any other activity, flow can only be experienced during the Musical Futures project if it is an activity you enjoy – only then will the skills/challenge ratio be applied successfully to indicate flow experience. Flow is ultimately about happiness, and those who gave certain indicators of flow, for example, immersion in the task because they knew they would be assessed at the end of the half term, were unlikely to be experiencing flow in its true sense, as they were not truly happy in the experience. Happiness is an integral component of self efficacy, and therefore of Csikszentmihalyi’s experiences of ‘flow’. As Oettingen points out, “emotional distress over poor...performance would contribute a sense of inefficacy…” (Oettingen, in Bandura, 1995, p154). Thus it seems that with the removal of assessment, i.e. extrinsic motivation, the project would flourish further, and experiences of flow would be much more likely to occur for many more pupils.’

Jacqui’s investigation has given her a good number of unanswered questions still to pursue as she develops her vision of how music education should be. Like all student-teachers Jacqui will need to address a question of great significance.

Lev Vygotsky, father of social-constructivist theories of learning, asks the question, ‘Who is the more knowledgeable other?’ Earlier we saw student-teacher Victoria learning from Daniel in Year 11 and presumably Daniel is well placed to teach his peers and take a lead in Year 8 Blues lessons. We can recognize too that there is much scope for peer tutoring as seen in the five informal session reported above. However, in terms of student-teachers acquiring the everyday musical knowledge as well as the elite knowledge of their students, it might be valuable to consider a formal procedure for achieving this. Here is a case in point.

The music teacher of Morgan, Brian, Tyson and Rachel in year 8 recognized their out-of school informally learnt musical talents. Their knowledge of street music and dance was impressive and they were now used to teaching this to others in their school. As they moved from Year 8 to Year 9 they were challenged to become teachers of student-teachers as they taught their special skills to trainee music teachers. The pupils were pretty nervous about taking on the challenge and once achieved had a lot to say about the experience and about teaching music teachers.

For their part student-teachers identified eight significant attributes of Tyson, Morgan, Rachel and Brian’s teaching.

1. Confident expression of authority
2. Relating and empathising
3. Quality of instruction
4. Level of challenge
5. Chunking of material
6. Degree of support and encouragement
7. Creating a teaching and learning dialogue
8. Capacity to share a love of their knowledge

Of course, Tyson, Morgan, Rachel and Brian have learnt how to teach through carefully observation of their best teachers. The interplay of the informal and formal becomes endlessly fascinating and something of a creative labyrinth.

This resource has set out to stimulate thinking about the place of informal learning within the field of music education and in particular its place in the developing practice of student-music teachers. We have considered examples of learning that is unstructured and where it flourishes without the presence of a teacher-expert and free from an externally imposed assessment framework. We have seen examples where there is some regulation imposed from outside in terms of setting and time-constraints. Throughout we saw learners focused on everyday practice avoiding elite aspects of knowledge with the learner to a great extent in charge and pursuing their own learning goals. The process of learning, the conditions under which it takes place, the content of the learning and the purposes (Hodkinson, Colley and Malcolm, 2003) were in the hands of the learner. Making use of Lucy Green’s five markers where the learner:

• Chooses what is to be learnt
• Works by listening and copying
• Works alone or with those she/he chooses to work with
• Learns in a haphazard, idiosyncratic way
• Brings together listening, improvising, composing and performing in a highly integrated way

it appeared that in the case of student-teachers, while there was evidence of individual differences in their approach to learning, there was rarely anything haphazard about it. They simply knew too much about how to organise learning, how it had been organised for them in the past, how to work systematically and in becoming a music teacher knowing that is likely to be important.

The integration of listening, improvising, composing and performing which student-teachers experienced in University-based sessions from the outset of their PGCE Course may yield the most potential to bring fresh thinking to their classrooms and beyond. In this close-knit ensemble of musical processes there is more opportunity for the music to do the talking, getting the feel of the music directly, its idiom and style and the pleasure of ‘finding the groove’ with much to talk about later. The learner develops an intimate relationship with the music, with a ‘work of art’. This immediacy of getting to know music unmediated by conceptual clutter could form an antidote to some of the more lifeless forms of classroom pedagogy.

In one of the student-teachers’ five sessions one group played along to a Jimmy Hendrix track. Once into it the recording was turned off as they continued into free-play. The temptation is now to codify this into a micro-teaching strategy and to give it formal status. It is this kind of opening up of new possibilities that playing with informal pedagogy ushers in. Likewise, Victoria and Anthony’s example of their drumming day where there was the relative formality of musical transmission set alongside space provided to learn from each other informally, might open up thinking about the interplay between the informal and the formal. This might help the student-teacher working within an institutional structure that is particularly formal. Beyond this, Stephanie’s disconnected conversation with her A Level music technology group highlights a need within Initial Teacher Education for student-teachers to spend time inside the informal settings in which their pupils develop everyday knowledge. (See Philpott, 2007)

Becoming a music teacher requires the student-teacher to develop dynamic leadership skills most obviously seen in the ability to transmit musical material directly, and in the role of workshop leader and ready to work with their pupils’ ideas. There is the requirement too, to know how and when to intervene in learning boldly, with subtlety and with discretion. And there is the requirement to understand the informality of so much learning that takes place where there can be no ‘teacher’. If Stephanie finds the time to join the band of one of the boys in her A Level Music Technology class, her disconnected conversations may become more connected. Come on Stephanie, it’s worth a try! If they do say, ‘but Miss, you’re rubbish’, you could always be their recording engineer.

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