Musicianship for Teaching

Abstract

This chapter considers the broad and versatile musicianship skills that music teachers require to be successful in 21st-century classrooms in which students from a variety of backgrounds bring with them diverse musical interests and needs. After considering how musicianship has been defined in a variety of professional and scholarly literature, the chapter enumerates musical skills that are important for preservice teachers to develop and considers how those skills, which often have been too narrowly construed, can be expanded and reimagined. This includes emphasis on creativity (composition, improvisation, songwriting), as well as exploration of vernacular music and music technology. Consideration also is given to the many structural barriers that limit the way musicianship is conceived, taught, and learned in both K–12 and college/university settings, as well how some adjustments to curriculum, entry requirements, and other structures could open the door to solving the musicianship conundrum that music teachers and music teacher educators face.

Preservice Music Teacher Education: The View From 20 Years Later

“…Defining musicianship beyond primary instrument skills has been suggested in multiple recent teacher education sources. Taggart and Chapman Hill (2020) reviewed the empirical literature in this area and suggested, “The structure of music programs in K-12 schools and colleges/universities limits the ability to build the broad, versatile musicianship called for here” (p. 316). Although these 20-year veteran teachers hold these same concerns about the need for broader musicianship, they also recognized the importance of high-level applied lesson and ensemble experiences.…”

An investigation of musical “boundary crossers”

“…As abundant as calls for embracing popular music have been, few advocate a zero-sum takeover in which traditional ensembles must be abandoned and replaced—nor is this what seems to happen when popular music offerings are added to traditional ones (Powell, 2021). The same teachers who provide innovative, forward-looking school music experiences may also be stewarding time-honored school music traditions—requiring that they boundary cross and utilize “broad, versatile musicianship” to help them “solve [this] musicianship conundrum” (Taggart & Hill, 2019).…”