Informal Music Learning Theory and it's Reflection in the Virtual Voice Studio.

Informal Music Learning Theory and it's Reflection in the Virtual Voice Studio.

One-on-one studio instruction is a long-standing and treasured form of formal education in the music making community (Brook et al., 2017). While formal education has been the default method of studio music instruction for many years, as a private voice instructor, I recently felt compelled to move beyond formal education and try a different approach, reflecting the changing times of the current global climate. The chaos of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic has necessitated hundreds of thousands of educators worldwide to immediately shift their courses to online platforms (Meyer, 2020), myself included. The purpose of this action research study was to explore how students would respond to informal music learning practices in both virtual private voice lessons and virtual group vocal technique classes. The theoretical framework for the study was guided by the tenets of Lucy Green’s Informal Music Learning Theory as described in her 2008 publication, Music, Informal Learning, and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy. The research design was conducted as a mixed methods action research study, where the quantitative research practice served as a supporting method to provide greater insight and depth to my qualitative findings. The quantitative data was analyzed by running the descriptive statistics for the data set. The various qualitative data collected were analyzed through transcription, coding, and mind-mapping. From the following data analysis procedures, three themes emerged: (a) fluctuating motivation in a virtual reality, (b) strategies for achieving balance, and (c) student and teacher readiness for informal learning practices.

Byassee, Elena Gabrielle

Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Music Education Department

Kang, Sangmi

Adobe Acrobat PDF

English

Thesis