Instrumental Music Teaching: Perspectives and Challenges, edited by Nick Beach and Gary Spruce, brings together eminent academics from the international field of music education to explore some of the major themes related to this often-overlooked area of the sector. Following in the footsteps of a number of seminal texts of the past 40 years, including those by Susan Hallam, Janet Mills and Kim Burwell, the editors have drawn contributions that examine a diverse range of issues related to instrumental music teaching, including creativity, assessment, motivation, access and inclusion and music technology.
Contemporary themes are set within both a historical and international landscape with a strong emphasis on the teacher-student relationship and musician identity. Instrumental music teaching, whether it takes place within an institution, such as a school, college or university, or in the homes and studios of the many private teachers who form a sizeable part of the music education sector, is not immune to the wider debates surrounding culture and tradition. Similarly, it is affected by the ways in which digital technologies and government policy, in relation to both the arts and education more generally, impact both the present and future direction of the sector.
The book comprises an introduction followed by twelve chapters under four broad headings: history, background and contexts; music learning, development and progress; practices and pedagogies; and the future of instrumental teaching and learning. All of the chapters are underpinned by an awareness that music and music education, and the world more generally, has changed dramatically in recent years, not least due to the advances made in the field of digital technologies. The authors recognise that it is impossible to explore contemporary perspectives and challenges in relation to instrumental music teaching without an awareness of the impact that technology has had and continues to have.
The opening chapter considers the historical context of instrumental teaching, highlighting that practices may still bear the influence of the colonial, imperial and capitalist views from the Victorian era. In particular, the author considers how graded exams have driven the ‘development’ of instrumental music teaching. Citing case studies from India, South Africa and Canada, there comes recognition that outside of the UK, British-graded exams remain as popular as ever. The current research landscape in relation to instrumental music teaching is explored, and this leads effectively to a wider consideration of musical development, ability, aptitude, talent and giftedness in the subsequent chapter. As well as an exploration of the development of instrumental teaching, focus is also placed on student development, with an accent on self-regulation and motivation, both of which have an important effect on teaching itself.
An exploration of creativity and imagination provides an important backdrop to the discussion surrounding assessment, and in particular, how this is affected by the widening number of styles and genres being taught, learnt and examined. With the advent and ever-increasing popularity of digital and recorded graded exams and assessments, the final section of the book explores the future of instrumental music teaching against a backdrop of digital and technological advancements.
A strength of this book is the structural incorporation of prompts for reflection. Each chapter is prefaced by an overview of its contents in the form of a commentary, and within each one are found a number of activities, practical, research-based and reflective, all designed to encourage self-reflection and development. In an area of the music education sector often overlooked within the wider research landscape, it feels especially important that books such as this are as accessible to as many people as possible, not just fellow researchers and academics but those teachers working at the grassroots level. That said, perhaps the greatest challenge is how to reach those outside of academia for whom the book is written.
In support of the book’s emphasis on digital technologies, further enhancement of these opportunities for reflection could have been achieved through the provision of some form of supporting digital resources. While the book is a great starting point for instrumental teachers to deepen their thinking and understanding of a variety of perspectives and challenges, it leads to consideration of what mechanisms could be utilised in order to explore these further, perhaps with a collaborative element.
While there is much to commend here, the emphasis on digital technologies having possibly the greatest impact on the future of instrumental teaching overshadows some of the other changes that many instrumental teachers are seeing. For example, adult learners are mentioned only briefly. The emphasis in research, including much presented here, is often focused on children and childhood musical development, yet for many teachers, notably private teachers, their student communities may look very different. The existing experience and autonomy that adult students bring have the potential to have a significant impact on both curriculum and pedagogy and its own set of challenges.
In a similar vein, there was scope for some exploration of the differing types of instrumental music teachers, contrasting those who work under the auspices of an institution or organisation and those who teach privately, often within the confines of their own homes, running their own business. These differences are perhaps borne out most acutely in terms of access to ongoing training and professional development, of which opportunities are already limited.
Overall, this is an important book that offers an accessible way for those working both within and outside the sector to engage with the wider debates surrounding instrumental music teaching in the 21st century, its past, its present and its future.
