Symposia & projects

Due to demographic changes and educational policy decisions, the current educational landscape is characterized by far-reaching change processes in music education, as there should be an increase in all-day school and care forms in the school system. Music educators at music schools are particularly affected by these changes, as these developments affect their fields of activity. The introduction of all-day school and care forms has, depending on the extent and form, more or less effects on music lessons in music schools, because the afternoons of the pupils are influenced here.

1. While in some federal states of Austria a close cooperation between schools and music schools is already taking place and will develop further, we in the federal music school structure of Styria - given by the municipalities as music school providers and without a controlling music school work - are very excited to see how Here the school types and school levels will open up to the design of a music-related learning location for networking with music schools, music educational projects and for the integration of social music practices. It can already be seen that musical educational offers in everyday school life in all-day schools - both in primary and secondary schools - will have to be generated in a complex interplay of legal provisions, guidelines of the State of Styria and the respective local conditions. So today we have deliberately brought together a wide variety of perspectives. These are educational policy, the school system (here the primary level, secondary level, music school), the freelance instrumental teachers and the Graz University of Art as a training location. We hope that this will create fruitful synergies, that the change processes of the central participants can be coordinated and that the music schools and their needs can be taken into account in the educational reform.

2. Every change means on the one hand uncertainty and possibly fear, on the other hand changes also harbor opportunities. The question will therefore be whether the music schools should fear these developments or whether these innovations in the school system will result in productive cooperation.

Instrumental and vocal pedagogy (IGP) is a sub-area of music pedagogy and still has little connection and relatively little recognition in the international scientific community. Both disciplines - school music education and IGP - are sciences without a long tradition and the research methods in the subject are not yet fully established and defined. It shows up at scientific congresses and conferences such as B. of the working group music pedagogical research (AMPF) that especially researchers of the IGP (i.e. a part of the extracurricular music pedagogy) are still little represented.

The IGP department at the KUG would like to face this problem and examine these questions and problems together in a joint research project made up of international specialist representatives.

International and interdisciplinary symposium

Musicians have to face the greatest demands on stage, at competitions and auditions. But music lovers throughout life also want healthy, efficient and motivated music-making. Instrumental and vocal teachers should be able to face these challenges professionally. For this reason, firstly, the latest scientific findings on musicians' health are presented and, secondly, the participants have the opportunity to collect and try out a wide range of experiences in practically oriented workshops on body techniques and mental training. Outstanding international experts were invited. The topics are structured in the areas of teaching and music-making practice, music didactics and scientific music education. It will also be about looking at fundamental problems of musicians 'health from an interdisciplinary perspective (neurosciences, musicians' medicine and psychology).

The target group were scientists, performing and teaching musicians, students, physiotherapists, physicians, psychologists and university professors of music. Keynotes: Heiner Gembris, Horst Hildebrandt, Wilfried Gruhn; Gary McPherson.

The workshops on body methods were held by experts from the Graz area, so that the students can continue the body techniques and mental training after the symposium.

International and interdisciplinary symposium

From June 28th to 29th, 2012, an international and cross-instrument symposium “Making music in groups. Variants of instrumental and vocal group lessons ”. The instrumental and vocal pedagogy department (IGP) was responsible for the content planning and the organizational implementation.

Experts from various forms of teaching and making music from Germany, the USA, Switzerland and Austria were invited to the University of Music and Performing Arts in order to convey and reflect on practical approaches to group-specific forms of music in workshops. The intensive professional exchange and open communication about the development of future-oriented perspectives for instrumental group music-making and cooperative learning were the main concerns of this event. It was also about the acceptance of cultural singularity and diversity, be it in relation to the personality, origin and gender of the musicians. In addition to technical aspects, organizational aspects of group lessons at music schools were also discussed.

International and interdisciplinary symposium

Musicians want to show excellent performance, and the audience also expects a musical performance to be perfect. The performance requirements are perceived as particularly high in our time - and with it the pressure to play without errors. Dealing with mistakes does not only play a central role in the performance, but also determines the quality of teaching and practice. The whole musical development is strongly influenced by dealing with mistakes. The explosive topic of errors was the subject of the symposium "Excellence through dealing with errors", which took place on November 11th and 12th, 2011 in Graz (Styria, Austria). The conceptual design and organizational management was carried out by Prof. Dr. Silke Kruse-Weber, who took over the department for instrumental and vocal pedagogy at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz since the winter semester 2010/2011.

In all disciplinary areas of instrumental and vocal pedagogy there are considerable desiderata with regard to the thematization and reflective examination of mistakes. The publication, which appeared in autumn 2012, considers how errors in practice and didactics can be countered and which research perspectives are conceivable. It could be shown that error situations perceived as negative can be traced back to, among other things, narrowed behaviorist perspectives, communication deficits in the feedback, lack of self-reflection as well as a lack of technical error competence and insufficient strategic knowledge. However, there are also numerous positive challenges in dealing with mistakes in instrumental and vocal pedagogy.

"The teacher-centered master-student model is gradually dissolving [... | and the pedagogical discourse shifts from the teacher to the learner and from the musical product to the musical process." (Kruse-Weber & Marin, 2016, p. 159 ). So far, this rethinking has rarely found its way into practice or into music schools and instrumental training: Traditional forms of teaching and learning such as the “master-student relationship” are probably still predominant in instrumental and vocal lessons. There is no corresponding knowledge transfer that makes it possible to bridge existing knowledge barriers. The instrumental and vocal pedagogy stands as "action science" (Busch 2016, p. 11) in a complex field of tension between theory and practice. While, on the one hand, a “close connection between theory and practice” is seen in the subject, a rather one-sided practice postulate has been observed since the 1980s (Kruse-Weber 2018, p. 117).

In the years 2016-2018, the knowledge transfer project Network IGP was carried out at the Institute for Music Education in the Department of Instrumental and Vocal Education (IGP). The 12 participants in this knowledge transfer project, teachers from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, oversee the teaching practice and instrumental and vocal didactics. In addition to their work as lecturers at the university, many of the participants work at Styrian music schools, teach children, young people and adults, lead choirs, various ensembles or musical early education groups; they pursue various club activities and, last but not least, are on stage with their own artistic projects. So they act on the one hand as multipliers by conveying instrumental and vocal pedagogical expertise and on the other hand as cultural workers in Styria and in Austria. The project participants and their respective subject, teaching practice, thus form an interface between theory and practice within the music-training institutions in Styria.

The aim of this knowledge transfer project in the years 2016-2018 was to strengthen the professionalization and knowledge transfer process in the professional group of instrumental and vocal teachers. With the help of the network, the diverse knowledge - for example, the experience of the project participants, which is an important resource in addition to the findings from instrumental and vocal pedagogy research - should be brought together, passed on and further developed and used to benefit the training of instrument teachers. The focus was on the sustainable optimization of learning and teaching in the broad educational landscape of musicians and music teachers in order to meet the complex challenges in the professional fields. The project was characterized by an intensive didactic exchange and the testing of innovative, cooperative reflection principles. The results of the project show that the field of action of instrumental and vocal pedagogy must be based on symmetrical communication, respect and appreciation in order to enable knowledge transfer.

The aim is to make the interface between theory and practice in the IGP more permeable. Since the beginning of 2020, the teachers of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz have been coming to the Music School Weiz to exchange experiences and reflect with the music school teachers on topics such as perception, interpretation and evaluation of lessons on the basis of videographed lesson sequences. By introducing innovative reflection tools inspired by the European university initiative The Innovative Conservatoire (ICON) for the further development of artistic education, the knowledge transfer between theory and practice is to be promoted in both directions. Another goal is to expand the teachers' scope for action and to gain new perspectives, as well as to strengthen their reflective skills. The experience of mutual appreciation is central here. Ultimately, we hope that the colleagues at the music school will experience even stronger team building, a differentiated sensitivity for the facets of communication and a higher level of job satisfaction. As a best practice model, this project could also gain importance for other collaborations. In the end, the music school teachers act as multipliers.

The IGP-Go network is a sub-project of a research cooperation of the Knowledge Transfer Center (WTZ) South, which is funded by the Austria Wirtschaftsservice Gesellschaft (aws) with funds from the National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development (Austria Fund). Both knowledge transfer projects are led by Prof. Silke Kruse-Weber. In the IGP-Go network, the two project employees Univ. Ass. Margareth Tumler and Sandra Macher.

Literature:

Busch, B. (2016). Basic knowledge of instrument pedagogy. A guide for studies and work. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel.

Kruse-Weber, S. (2018). Instrumental education in the field of tension between theory and practice. Collaborative reflection by teachers in the music (high) school context. In W. Rüdiger (Ed.), Instrumental Pedagogy - How and Why? State of development and perspectives (pp. 107-139). Mainz: Schott.