Community-based Traditional Music in Scotland: A Pedagogy of Participation

This book examines the community-based learning and teaching of ?traditional? music in contemporary Scotland, with implications for transnational theoretical issues. The book draws on a broad range of scholarship and a local case study of a large organisation. A historical perspective provides an overview of new educational formats emerging from the mid-twentieth century folk music revival in Scotland. Practices through which participants encounter and perpetuate the idiom of traditional music include social music-making, learning by ear and participatory and presentational elements of musical performances. Individuals are shown as combining these aspects with their own learning strategies to participate in the contemporary community of practice of traditional music. The work also discusses how experiences of learning contribute to identity formation, including the role and practice of ?tutors? of traditional music. The author proposes conceptualising the teaching and learning of traditional music in community-based organisations as a ?pedagogy of participation?.

CONTENIDO:

List of Figures

List of Music Examples

Acknowledgements

Preface

Learning and teaching traditional music: Refocusing the questions

Introduction

Transmission and enculturation

?Traditional? music

Community-based settings

A ?non-formal? setting?

Communities of practice

Masters and apprentices

Family

Oral tradition and music literacy

Socialisation

Researching the case study

Methods and ethics

Notes

?A passport into a community?: Setting the scene

Learning and teaching: the revival and post-revival contexts

Learning and teaching: formal education

?Take off?: community-based organisations

Introducing Glasgow Fiddle Workshop

Locality: a sense of place

Introducing the tutors

GFW in a stylistic community of practice

Notes

?I?m a better learner now?: In the class

Joining a class

Learning the shared skills

Learning and teaching a tune

The role of listening

Playing it through

Varying, ornamenting and arranging tunes

Dealing with notation

Choosing repertoire

Notes

?Actually doing it?: Participating in performance

Participation or presentation?

GFW sessions

Slow session and pre-class warm-up

Prepare for the pub

Very slow session

Islay Inn session

Concerts

Cèilidh dances

Member-led groups

Notes

?You can make it your own?: Individual musical trajectories and organisational constraints

Encouraging agency at GFW

Self-directed learning

Making progress: reflecting on learning

?Expressing? the tune

?Learners? and ?musicians?

Music as leisure and levels of involvement

Non-participation and dissent

Musical trajectories beyond GFW

Notes

?A sense of who we are?: Creating a musical identity

A GFW identity

A community-based identity

A traditional music identity

Tensions and boundaries: ?who we are? vs. ?who we are not?

Notes

Community-based learning and teaching: Towards a pedagogy of participation

Learning and teaching traditional music in a post-revival landscape

The ethos of the ?community-based? organisation

Repertoire

Tutors

Learning and teaching practices: between participatory ethos and individual musical trajectory

Conclusion: A pedagogy of participation