Projects
Teaching Practices of Musical Theory and Aural Skills in Higher Education: Why, What, How and By Whom
Coordination
Jorge Alexandre Costa (PI)
Jorge Alexandre Costa (PI)
Reference
UIDB/00472/2020
Period
01.11.2022-31.12.2023
Abstract
Music Theory and Aural Skills, with this or any other designation, is a disciplinary domain that, although it is a constant curricular element in the formal construction of higher music education, registers an irregular evaluative presence in the field of music training. A presence that I call volatile in view of the variable recognition that is assigned to it, in terms of programmatic autonomy, training identity and curricular dimension, in the multiple existing higher education courses.
In my opinion, there are several factors that contribute to this almost disciplinary subalternity, namely, i - the central role of learning individual or collective instrumental practice in music teaching curricula; ii - the historical and pedagogical curricular configuration of this subject as a unit of knowledge attached to another main course; iii - the strong component of a task and training character that the teaching of the subject uses systematically; iv - the absence of research on theory and practices in this field; v - or the (co)existence of a plurality of training profiles that teach and approach the subject in a specific way, which is in itself interesting and an benefit, despite being unknown to other teachers in this field.
It is precisely this last factor, the lack of knowledge of the work carried out by the numerous professors who teach this curricular unit in higher education, both in Portugal and abroad, that motivated me to carry out this academic and professional project.
In this sense, I can say that the present project has the fundamental objective of observing, knowing, and interpreting the teaching practices that are developed in the teaching of Music Theory and Aural Skills within the scope of the different music higher education courses, both in Portugal and in Europe (particularly in European countries whose training tradition is anchored in so-called conservatories, as is the case of Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium or Italy).
An objective that seeks to distance itself from any work of critical evaluation of the different teaching practices observed, or from any ranking of their values, and is closer to a study that seeks to apprehend, interpret and highlight the multiple pedagogical approaches to which several teachers resort to their practices in order to achieve the same supposed goal for the discipline: learning to internalize and externalize music with understanding and mastery.
In my opinion, there are several factors that contribute to this almost disciplinary subalternity, namely, i - the central role of learning individual or collective instrumental practice in music teaching curricula; ii - the historical and pedagogical curricular configuration of this subject as a unit of knowledge attached to another main course; iii - the strong component of a task and training character that the teaching of the subject uses systematically; iv - the absence of research on theory and practices in this field; v - or the (co)existence of a plurality of training profiles that teach and approach the subject in a specific way, which is in itself interesting and an benefit, despite being unknown to other teachers in this field.
It is precisely this last factor, the lack of knowledge of the work carried out by the numerous professors who teach this curricular unit in higher education, both in Portugal and abroad, that motivated me to carry out this academic and professional project.
In this sense, I can say that the present project has the fundamental objective of observing, knowing, and interpreting the teaching practices that are developed in the teaching of Music Theory and Aural Skills within the scope of the different music higher education courses, both in Portugal and in Europe (particularly in European countries whose training tradition is anchored in so-called conservatories, as is the case of Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium or Italy).
An objective that seeks to distance itself from any work of critical evaluation of the different teaching practices observed, or from any ranking of their values, and is closer to a study that seeks to apprehend, interpret and highlight the multiple pedagogical approaches to which several teachers resort to their practices in order to achieve the same supposed goal for the discipline: learning to internalize and externalize music with understanding and mastery.
