The role and significance of masterclasses in creative learning

Abstract

Masterclasses have a prominent place in the education of future musicians within the western classical music tradition. This chapter gives an overview of research on teaching and learning in masterclasses with a focus on how they might benefit the students, as well as how master teachers and students can optimize learning and teaching outcomes. The merits of various types and formats of masterclass and styles of interaction are discussed, as are the challenges faced by master teachers and student performers. One section of the chapter is devoted to the possible benefits for students in the audience, benefits which might be contested by the students themselves. Drawing on theories of learning by observation and of peer learning and assessment, the chapter argues that there is significant learning potential for the audience as well. It concludes by considering some implications for practice of the roles that the conservatoire, the master teacher and the principal instrumental or singing teacher can respectively play in helping both the student performing and students in the audience to get the most out of masterclasses.

Implementation of a Remote Instrumental Music Course Focused on Creativity, Interaction, and Bodily Movement. Preliminary Insights and Thematic Analysis

“…The present research explored the verbal descriptions and reflections of participants who enrolled to a group, online course based on creativity, movement, and collaboration. As such, this work complements other studies that focus on the transition between face-to-face and remote learning (e.g., Camlin and Lisboa, 2021 ; Ritchie and Sharpe, 2021 ), on online music lessons offered to more skilled participants (e.g., Johnson, 2017 ), and on forms of musical learning based on imitation and the reproduction of scores ( Lisboa et al, 2005 ; Hanken, 2017 ). To achieve our objective, we asked four novices to participate in a 12-week, newly designed music course delivered remotely from the start and conducted two semi-structured interviews with each learner after 1 month and 3 months from the beginning of the course.…”

Voicelikeness as discursive strategy: An instrumental masterclass case study

“…Masterclasses engender intense and highly focused learning environments (Atkinson et al, 2013) in which, in the presence of an audience, a student performer is observed, coached, and given spontaneous critical feedback on their musical performance by someone deemed "expert" in a specific skill area. In a particularly successful masterclass, learning occurs both for the student, for whom a certain, often very high, level of competence in their specialization is expected to have already been achieved, and for members of the audience (Haddon, 2014;Hanken, 2010Hanken, , 2015Hanken, , 2017, many of whom are also likely to be musicians at various stages of their development.…”

Current State and Future Directions of Technologies for Music Instrument Pedagogy

“…Musical pedagogy for learning traditional Western musical instruments is currently most often delivered in one-on-one or group contexts through a master-apprentice model, typically one time per week for 30–60 min per session (Hanken, 2017 ). Between those meetings, students practice on their own the assigned exercises and, attempting to apply the suggestions received in class, try to reach the learning goals set out by the instructor.…”