This section presents the findings pertinent to the student participants’ experiences and their interpretations of learning outcomes and implications for pedagogy. The section that follows reports on the findings on the teachers’ perspectives. Each perspective is further divided into three threads that run in parallel between the perspectives. Table 3 below provides an overview of how the main research question is clarified. These threads run in parallel between the perspectives, thus allowing intersections to emerge and producing a composite image of the learning.

Table 3: Student and teacher perspectives

The data indicates that the students who participated in the project experienced a wide range of learning outcomes. Gaining new perspectives and developing new tools are generally viewed as contributing to both personal development and growth as musicians. These contributions support the ongoing learning processes while also initiating new ones. Before illustrating the learning outcomes, however, a cursory mention of the context within which they unfolded is in order.

Time, confusion, and sustained effort: The context of learning

The students reported that the learning outcomes presented in this report depended on sustained effort over time. They often seemed to go through periods of confusion (and possibly discomfort) as they grappled with complex subject matter of the AT. In other words, achieving these outcomes seemed to require considerable investment on the part of the learners. A learning environment that is sensitive to these issues seems to be important in attaining the learning outcomes outlined in this report.

Horn student 1 (IT2 RS): One thing that I would mention: [this kind of learning] takes some time. [It’s] taken me three years to get to this point where I really … can get a lot out of it.

Further research is needed to better understand these processes and what might characterise a fertile learning environment. This will be dealt with in the Discussion part of this report. We now return to presenting the learning outcomes.

New perspectives and ways of thinking

The students felt that they gained new perspectives as a result of their participation in the project; they now saw their discipline from new angles and in different ways. As one student remarked:

Horn student 1 (IT2 RS): I’ve been playing the horn for many years now, and this [new approach] really added something new to my experience of practicing and playing.

More specifically, the students reported that they:

• gained insights into the extent and prevalence of habit(s) in playing their instruments;
• challenged their prior knowledge and preconceptions in light what they had learned in the individual AT lessons and through group-work peer observation;
• recognised the interrelated aspects of instrument playing and increasingly saw their discipline as being connected and complex; and
• realised that personal effort was necessary to figure out what they must learn, as indicated by one student’s quote that ‘I have to learn myself’.

Extent and impact of habits

The students reported being surprised about the extent to which habits shaped the way they performed their activities, which included playing their instruments. The nature of this finding is twofold. First, the students realised that the nature of any activity is habitual, i.e. that engaging in an activity essentially means performing a habit. Second, the students clearly had little awareness of these habits previously, regardless of the number of years they had been learning their instrument. Thus, even though habits play a major role in shaping how we perform our activities, they tend to become invisible. We may consider this a major finding, as most of the respondents talked about these habits.

The students described how habits had shaped their activities in a variety of ways. First, habits are small, unconscious reactions to stimuli that, once brought to our attention, seem unconstructive, ‘stupid’, and unnecessary. Second, it is impossible to separate between simple and complex activities. We are constantly engaged in activity and are never idle; playing an instrument, brushing our teeth, and waiting for a bus are all instances of activities. If we take the perspective that engaging in an activity means performing a habit, then the influence of habit is clearly ever-present and continuous. Third, it is often easier to notice habitual response patterns in others. Based on the students’ observations of their peers in group settings, the students agreed that we are all affected by our own habitual patterns. The students mentioned seeing the connection between everyday activities and playing their instruments.

Horn student 3 (IT1): The most important part for me was realising all the things I do with my body that I wasn’t aware of … not just while playing the horn but when brushing my teeth or doing anything. The tendencies are quite clear, and that for me was quite a discovery, because I couldn’t imagine [that these habits were that strong]. I also really realised that of course when playing the horn, my body actually works against me, sort of, or against the breathing, which I hadn’t realised before.

Another student noted:

Horn student 1 (IT1): It was these tiny tendencies that we all do.… I’ve never thought about that before, and then when I notice them in others … everyone’s doing [these things].

As a result of these new insights, the students reported that new, previously unavailable, possibilities had opened up to them.

Challenging and re-assessing prior knowledge and assumptions

Students reported having to challenge several preconceived notions in light of their experiences with the AT. One such notion was that practicing and playing were supposed to be painful. The ‘no pain, no gain’ thinking seemed to be prevalent among the students, yet as Harp student 1 (IT2 FG) reported approximately three months into her participation in the project, the idea that ‘you should have pain practising is gone’. Oboe student 1 (IT2 RS) elaborated on this idea:

I never [got to the point where] I couldn’t play. I was just fighting through; I just played until I could play the piece, not thinking about how I stood, how I sat, how I moved my legs ... And now, just after three or four sessions with [the AT teacher] and the group sessions, I’m starting to make a change, but I think … we have to continue at least for the spring semester…. It’s been a very revealing experience for me.

Many students problematised the oft-heard request to ‘stand straight’ after having experienced several individual and group AT lessons:

Horn student 1 (IT2 RS): What was new to me was to think what not to do … people always tell you to straighten up or do this and do that, but instead I have to concentrate on the habits, and what not to do. Just stop doing them instead of compensating with something else.

Harp student 2 (IT2 RS): When someone told me, ‘Just stay straight’, I was doing that, but that’s really wrong, so you know like it really changed my mind of thinking these kinds of things, and it helps a lot.

One of the students started to critically examine what on the surface might have appeared to be established truths of the discipline. By illustrating how expressions like ‘stand straight’ emerge, he illustrated a more general mechanism of knowledge formation within the discipline. Teaching methods and the underlying understandings are often based on little more than personal experience and anecdotal evidence, which the students saw as being problematic.

Horn student 2 (IT1): Sometimes we think that we do something with the body that helps us to accomplish a task, but in fact it’s not related at all with success. Maybe some people think if you have a rabbit’s tail in your pocket then you’re OK, like if you tense this muscle then it will help you play best, but it doesn’t work like that. For example, support is a big thing you hear about. ‘You have to activate the muscles, and the abdominal muscles, so they can support you’. Well, of course, I think in a way it’s not wrong; also … I would say that I’m playing more relaxed [now], and I don’t really care about activating big muscles in my body, which is less tiring. I don’t want to say one [approach] is better than the other – it’s just maybe two different approaches to horn playing.

Seeing things as being connected

Horn student 3 (IT 1) noted that:

I thought of breathing as one thing and the body as another, but now they are sort of combined.

The students reported that they had started to see connections they previously had not been aware of. They often mentioned the interrelatedness of breathing and posture as a new perspective, and several discussed the relations among posture, thinking, and perception, or what more broadly could be called ‘mind-body interrelatedness’. In exploring their playing from this interrelated perspective, the students reported changes in sound quality and of having a sense of increased ease while playing, to which we will return in a later section.

Horn student 5 (IT 1): I really learned a lot about the body and the processes and what’s connected, and also the way of thinking: not to just put yourself into the right position to stand in, but that it’s a dynamic thing … what I’ve learned is that even the legs are really important, because if you lock your knee, like this, then you create tension in your whole body…. I’ve learned about how things are connected.

‘I have to learn this myself’

Many students came to the realisation that a considerable investment on their part was necessary to internalise the ideas behind the AT. The following quote illustrates the importance of self-study:

Horn student 1 (IT1): For some people, they get the idea really [of the AT] quickly, and the more you get the idea, the easier it is to help yourself … it’s not difficult in, like, ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying’ or ‘I don’t get the idea’; it’s more like ‘I have to practice a lot’. I didn’t think [the AT] was something that needed to be practiced at all.

Other students also acknowledged that it was up to them to learn and develop their own understanding, but ultimately, the AT is a tool that brings a sense of self-sufficiency and independence.

Oboe student 2 (IT2 RS): You get a lot of information in the individual lessons, and then you also see [that learning] in others, and then the third step is where you actually process the lesson and apply it to yourself. But it really takes time, yeah.

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): It’s important to focus on us not being trained by a teacher. We must learn to teach ourselves, and it’s in this context where the AT is relevant. For me, the AT is a tool that makes me aware of what I’m doing and how I myself can solve problems. We get instructions in how an in-breath should be taken, but we have to figure out for ourselves how it works for us. (Translated from Norwegian)

New tools and perspectives for practicing

The students reported developing new skills and tools as a result of gaining new perspectives. The students mentioned acquiring observational skills, increasing their self-awareness, and adopting a non-judgmental (and non-normative) stance as they explored new approaches to practicing.

Harp student 1 (IT2 FG): You learn to find solutions. It takes time [to grasp the AT], and you start to discover new things. [The AT] gives you tools to deal with the things you experience while playing the harp. So, I think it’s amazing to have this opportunity to know that there’s a way to cope with things, also in the future. [The AT] will always guide you and be part of your music career and life.

Many students reported that their thinking during practicing had changed as their awareness increased.

Horn student 3 (IT1): My thoughts are definitely different in the practice room. I feel more focussed on the ways I can use my body in different ways, or all the ways I can use my body to breathe better, actually. I didn’t think about that before.

The students mentioned new approaches and strategies for practicing where practicing not to do something seemed particularly challenging to them:

Horn student 1 (IT1): It’s surprisingly difficult to learn how to not hold yourself in a locked position … [and] practicing not to do stuff. Which is super hard, because I mean I can think about the directions and I can think about how not to hold myself, but it’s really hard to practice not to do something.

The students aimed to be able to apply the new insights in their practice independently, and they viewed the opportunities to observe their peers as an important stepping stone towards that goal.

Horn student 3 (IT1): We all have roughly the same patterns, and to actually see someone else demonstrating just the same thing that I do [is useful]. I’ve been told for six months that I do this [pattern], but I didn’t know until I’d actually seen someone else actually doing [the same thing].

The students mentioned increased self-awareness as an important addition to their toolbox.

Oboe student 1 (IT2 FG): For me [the AT is] more about being aware of how I use my body: I was just focussing on how to play a piece and play it better; if I got hurt, I didn’t think much about how to avoid [getting hurt again]. Now I’m more aware.

Horn student 2 (IT2 RS): I think [the AT is] also just about raising awareness of what habits I actually have, and what I do with my body that isn’t necessary.

Adopting a non-judgemental (and non-normative) stance seemed to be an important insight as well:

Horn student 3 (IT1): [The AT teacher] has shown me some alternatives to what I do. It’s not that he says [‘This is how it’s supposed to be’]; he has alternatives, and I think that’s a positive way to see the world in general. Or for him to say, ‘You’re not doing anything wrong, but I have a few alternatives for you to improve’.

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): What I’ve learned through the various phases [is that it’s not about] right or wrong: you’re presented with some alternatives to breathing and standing. Someone might say, ‘Now you’re breathing like this; try doing that’. [You] get alternatives, and you can choose to relate to those or not. The most important thing is that you become aware of the choices you take. (Translated from Norwegian)

Language development

As a result of these new perspectives – in particular seeing things as being more connected – the students started to employ a language that reflected a more integrated understanding. This understanding was reflected in two parts of the data. In the interviews (Iteration 1), the students were asked to reflect upon how they would describe their understanding of their playing both before and after their participation in the project. The quotes to substantiate this aspect may be found under the heading ‘Seeing things as being connected’. The second part of the data included the teachers’ observations from the group sessions in which the students commented on their peers. The students often attempted to use more nuanced ways of expressing themselves, even though the resulting expressions often became cumbersome for them.

The students seemed to recognise the need for support for their conceptual and linguistic development; for example, horn student 2 (IT2 FG) said, ‘It’s unfortunate when the Alexander technique teacher isn’t present, because then we don’t have the necessary knowledge. We don’t have the conceptual toolbox’ (translated from Norwegian).

Development as a musician (artist)

The majority of the students reported that they had developed as musicians as a result of gaining new perspectives and applying new skills and tools. Some indications showed that the students were better able to deal with the challenges of engaging with their discipline on a professional level, as the following exchange reveals:

Interviewer (IT2 FG): Do you think you’ve become better musicians as an outcome of this project?

Harp student 1 (IT2 FG): I think at least we have more tools to work with.

One of the students described how these outcomes had helped to deal with the demands of the professional life of an orchestra musician. Applying the AT principles, he reported, helped to reduce the back pain that often results from long rehearsals and improper bodily reactions to the conductor’s instructions.

While some of the students commented on general improvements, others went into more detail by mentioning the increase of ease and efficiency in their playing and their improved sound, breathing, and intonation. Better balance and posture also seemed to be related to their improvement as musicians.

Horn student 5 (IT1): If you use your body in the wrong way, or not in a productive way, then what usually happens is that it strains your breathing. For instance, I used to stand like this, sort of leaning backwards. So once I managed to be more balanced, then I didn’t have as much tension [and] I was able to take in more air.

Continuing on the topic of breathing, another student said:

Horn student 2 (IT2 RS): I think the breathing is just such a big part of playing a wind instrument, and all [this tension] and stuff that most of us do doesn’t help us breathe better. So if we can get rid of [those negative things], then the playing will get better automatically, I think.

As a result of having better balance and posture and improved breathing, the students reported hearing improvements in their peers’ sound as well as in their own. They also reported having more tools with which they could work on their sound.

Horn student 2 (IT2 RS): For the horn … usually the sound gets bigger and rounder and better, because if the AT works, then everything gets more relaxed and you can breathe better, and breathing better is always a good thing for sound, and playing in general. I think we’ve often had this situation where the people listening have given us the kind of feedback where the sound got more relaxed, or rounder, or warmer.

Another student connected these improvements with the amount of effort musicians put into playing; these improvements challenged her preconceptions about what playing more loudly means.

Harp student 2 (IT2 FG): If you want to have a bigger sound, you put more energy into it. What we’ve experienced now is totally different from what you actually should do to enrich your sound, because if you think ‘I have to make this sound stronger’, you’ll put more energy into it, and then you become tenser. What we’ve learned is more about how we can find the right sound and at the same time lose the tension.

In general, addressing student’s preconceptions about playing loudly resulted in the students reporting more ease, efficiency, and freedom in their playing, which also contributed to the students’ well-being.

Personal development

In addition to the students developing as musicians, a related development also occurred on a personal level, although it was not easy to separate these processes. The students mentioned three related topics: (1) the development of autonomy, self-sufficiency, and independence; (2) an increase in self-confidence and improved stress management during performance situations; and (3) more open-mindedness. Even though these outcomes may be considered desirable for the students, they did require significant investment on their part. The students seemed to have learned something important about themselves. While many of these insights were often unproblematic, a few seemed to be troublesome and difficult for the students to either understand or accept.

We consider autonomy to be a general life skill for managing emergent challenges in both daily life and in the professional life of a musician and the project’s data suggests that the students saw themselves evolving into more autonomous, self-sufficient, and independent learners. In other words, they were becoming their own teachers.

Harp student 2 (IT2 FG): When you have habits like tension, you don’t feel [their influence]. If you do feel [tension], you don’t know why. It takes time to work with [raising awareness and acquiring tools to deal with the habits], but then you learn to take care of them yourself.

Another student alluded to an ethical dimension of personal development that went hand in hand with becoming autonomous and independent. The student saw that being aware of his habits and consciously making decisions was an important aspect of this development, even though doing so required an investment.

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): I have access to a tool that hasn’t just changed how I see my own playing and my own practicing, but also how I handle all the challenges I experience, from when I get up in the morning until I go to sleep…. It’s about being observant of your own habits – which I hadn’t had presented to me before in that way. Both physical and mental. Where are you going [with your attention] now? Why are you not present? Why did you disappear?

Interviewer: This must be very tiring then? To think about this from when you get up in the morning until you go to sleep?

Student: No, it isn’t.

Self-confidence and stress management in performance situations

It was evident from the interviews that the students perceived an increase in their self-confidence.

Interviewer: Have you noticed any changes in your confidence or the feeling ‘Yes, I can do this‘? And, if so, could you describe those things?

Horn student 3 (IT1): Yes, definitely … it’s more safe; it doesn’t feel like a disaster if something goes wrong, even in a performance situation. If I crack a note, it’s not a disaster…. I used to get a very dry mouth, and that’s stopped, and I used to shake, and that’s stopped, at least for now, and I think that’s because of having more confidence.

While it is difficult to pinpoint the reasons for this increased confidence, employing the principles of the AT seems to have contributed at least to some extent.

Horn student 1 (IT1): I don’t know if [my sense of self-confidence] is from standing better, or if it’s from standing a little better and then playing a little better, and then having the confidence from playing to stand even better. But I’d say it’s primarily from the Alexander technique.… It helped with taking up all the space that I can, and not holding yourself together and being too compact and tense and stuff like that.

It was also evident that many of the above findings also led to better stress management during performance situations.

Horn student 1 (IT1): I’ve learned to manage stress better when I’m playing in front of people, because for me the stress of being nervous affected my breathing, so I began breathing really shallowly, but as I learned … the basic principles about direction, about expansion into the performance situation, it helped me to breathe better, and that’s really helped with all the nerves and the stress.

Having experienced something that the students had not formerly felt comfortable with led to opening up new ways of seeing and generally becoming more open-minded.

Horn student 4 (IT1): I think I’m much more open-minded to new ideas and ways of doing things…. For example, [I learned that] letting [go of] a lot of the control could actually help. I think I would’ve been really sceptical of that [approach] before.

Capacity to let go and a detached attitude

The most troublesome aspect of personal development, as experienced by the participating students, was the need to let go of preconceptions about how to do certain things, a move required to grasp the AT. Some of the students perceived the new perspectives as threatening. New perspectives have to replace the old ones, and some students were unwilling to abandon their familiar positions. The data suggests that some of the students were deeply attached to their beliefs about themselves and their playing, making it difficult to let go. They reported a sense of loss once they saw that adopting the new perspective would require them to abandon their current certainties.

Horn student 4 (IT1): I was kind of sceptical, because I was a little bit unsure if I wanted to just think about this [new approach]. I felt like I suddenly didn’t play that well, or that I’d lost a little bit of control, and then of course I got a little bit sceptical. I think the times I learned most from [the AT] was when I tried to do it one hundred percent.… If that makes sense…

Interviewer: Yeah, so it basically was scary almost to [fully engage with the AT] because of the loss of control?

Student: Yeah, because you lose something.

Interviewer: How did you deal with that?

Student: I tried to think: ‘OK, I’ll try this for real, and just if I want to get down to learn something new, maybe I’ll have to try [the approach fully] and trust it’, and I remember that it was very interesting [embracing the approach]. I think my sound changed a little bit.

Some of the students seemed to realise that they would require sufficient support over time to get through the difficult parts of learning to apply the AT to their instrument playing; they seemed concerned that lacking such support would prevent the attainment of those learning outcomes as their letting go of pre-assumptions would leave them uncertain and vulnerable. Furthermore, they seemed concerned about the slowness of the learning processes, which exposed the affective side of learning:

Harp student 1 (IT2 FG): When you have to change anything, and you notice that it will take many years, it’s sad… [It’s sad] when you notice that something you’ve done for many years you have to change… When [the AT teacher] explains that this is something that will take you years, and it’s nothing that can be fixed tomorrow…

These findings raised the question of whether this approach to the instrument teaching/learning was suitable for everyone, and whether the attainment of these learning outcomes justifies the investment required of the learner. Furthermore, these findings raised the question of how the various degrees of attachment to one’s beliefs affect the student’s learning trajectory. We will return to these issues in the Discussion part of this report.

Well-being benefits

Students reported increased general well-being, not only while playing their instruments but also in general life, as a result of their increased awareness. They mentioned decreased back pain and strain in general, which illustrates the interrelatedness of aspects of the discipline and hints at the downsides of addressing things from isolated perspectives.

Horn student 1 (IT1): Well, the biggest and best change is that I have less back pain. I used to have really constant pain in my back, and I still have back pain, but it’s way less…. It was kind of this ‘wow’ experience when I learned how not to sit … but then it took some time before I got home and sat down to eat dinner: ‘Well, why don’t I do that now, too, just sit in a comfortable way that doesn’t hurt my back?’

Harp student 1 (IT2 FG): What’s interesting is that we’re all working hard, and we’re very tense, and sometimes when he just says ‘Relax’, you don’t know how to do that. The relaxing I used to do before was not a hundred percent relaxing.

This concludes the student reports on their own learning. We will now proceed with illustrating their perceptions of the teaching during the project.

This part of the findings addresses the students’ perceptions of teaching. While the focus is primarily on the main-instrument teachers of the interviewed students, the students emerged as both their own and each other’s teachers in this setup. This part begins by illustrating student perceptions of their main-instrument teachers’ competence and the limits of that competence before proceeding to show how the teachers’ competence developed in the course of the project. This section on teaching concludes with an investigation of the participants’ roles (as viewed by the students) within the teaching/learning environment, which illustrates how independent students can ultimately become their own teachers.

The competence boundaries of main-instrument teachers

The quote below bluntly sums up student perceptions of their teachers’ competence:

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): Most of those who teach us how we should stand are often lacking in competence – they just have their own experience.

Rather than pointing to shortcomings particular to specific teachers, this quote illustrates that despite main-instrument teachers being traditionally viewed as all-knowing gurus, their competence might have limits, although, this is more an observation than criticism. Another student elaborated on how the teachers might be lacking in specialisation rather in competence:

Harp student 2 (IT2 FG): The harp teachers look at how you sit and how you move, but they aren’t specialised. And I think that the AT is a very specialised way to look at things. It’s not about, ‘You have to sit straight and not move too much’. It’s more about a feeling you develop.

Harp student 1 (IT2 FG): You could have very good teachers, but … if you haven’t taken these important things into account from the beginning, then you really can have many bad habits that can influence your playing – your sound, your technique – everything.

Another student refined the picture:

Oboe student 1 (IT2 FG): I think maybe most of our teachers haven’t been aware of how to use the body in the best way, so you get into some habits when you play; it might seem to make the playing easier, but it’s not the best for your body. So when you [try a teacher’s suggestion it] might function well, but over time [that approach] will become a barrier to further development.

The students did, however, have a sense that their teachers were curious about and interested in the body-related topics in music performance and that the teachers deemed these topics relevant for the main-instrument study:

Harp student 1 (IT2 FG): She is very interested in [the body’s role in playing], and she knows a lot. And I also think that there are so many things that she can correct by herself. She’s also attending the group lessons and observes when the AT teacher works.

Teachers’ development of competence

The students then proceeded with observations on how they perceived the teachers to be developing their competence. Generally, they reported that the teachers had increased their competence, since they had become more observant and had developed a broader repertoire of pedagogical approaches and ways of explaining.

Oboe student 1 (IT2 FG): [The teacher] tries to use some of the things we’ve learned in the group lessons. He knows what to look for, and he can hear it in my sound: ‘Now you’re not breathing very well’. So I think it’s good that the teacher is joining us [in the lessons], because then he can remind me.

Harp student 2 (IT2 FG): [The teacher] observes more of the problems we have. Before she maybe didn’t notice…. she talks more about … it’s not about how you hold your hand, but more about how you feel inside, and your body and your mind.

To a large extent, this development of competence happened through the teachers’ interactions during the group lessons:

Horn student 1 (IT1): In the beginning [we had] a lot of group lessons, where [both teachers] were present and asked each other questions – say, I was playing, and [the AT teacher] was talking about my posture and then commenting on my playing and then asking [the horn teacher], ‘Well, was [her playing] better, or [did it only appear so] for me?’ and vice versa.

The teaching/learning environment and participants’ roles

As the teaching/learning environment changed, a range of new roles became available to the project participants. The students described their teachers as taking up new roles. Due to the inclusion of the AT in the project, the students described the main-instrument teacher as a translator of the new discipline into the language of the main instrument.

Harp student 3 (IT2 FG): The AT teacher is not a harpist, and we don’t always understand what he means, but when [the harp teacher] is with us, she translates [what the AT teacher is saying] into harp language.

Harp student 2 (IT2 FG): If the AT teacher notices something that isn’t functioning well, [the harp teacher] can translate. [When] the harp part and the AT are put together, it’s positive.

Because the teachers of both disciplines supported and followed up on each other’s work, the students felt that their instrument teachers could remind them of what the AT teacher had been teaching, and often vice versa.

Horn student 4 (IT1): I felt like we were learning a lot about the AT in the lessons with [the AT teacher], and then [the horn teacher] reminded us to put [what we had learned] into the horn playing in the lessons…

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): We get help from the main-instrument teacher, who has knowledge in that field, and from the AT teacher, who can see things from outside the main-instrument aspects. One teacher helps the other, and they both learn. (Translated from Norwegian)

The perspective of the AT was important, since the technique’s presence was even felt in situations where the AT teacher was not involved.

Horn student 1 (IT2 FG): If the AT teacher is present, then we also focus on how to use your body. The fact that we talk about the body means that we address these things even when the AT teacher isn’t there. (Translated from Norwegian)

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): [The AT] also gives us a different perspective. For example, the AT teacher doesn’t necessarily know that you’ve worked at achieving a better approach. And he isn’t interested in horn technique per se, so you get other kinds of input. The focus is different, more unified. It usually has the same goal – better playing, mastering the piece better – but you come at it more from a different angle. (Translated from Norwegian)

Through becoming more independent and gaining new tools, the students themselves started to participate in the teaching situations. They reported contributing to their peers’ learning through feedback during the group sessions, but also of becoming ‘their own teachers’. From the interviews, we can see a dialogical relationship developing where teaching others helps people to gain insights into how ‘to teach yourself’.

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): I feel that the group lessons have become a kind of self-help where we’re quite exposed. You have issues when you’re coming in, and then you get help from colleagues who can relate to the same issues. Then you also get help from the main-instrument teacher, who’s knowledgeable about the field, and from the AT teacher, who sees things from outside the instrument perspective. Each helps the other as we learn, and it’s not necessarily the one who’s playing who learns the most. The most important thing is that you have someone from the outside who contributes to generating a different kind of forum than the usual. (Translated from Norwegian)

Horn student 3 (IT2 FG): What’s important to me about the AT is that I can solve my own issues from within, rather than having someone else tell me. You observe others and work through things when you’re playing music yourself. (Translated from Norwegian)

The preceding quotes hint at how the learning environment contributed to generating the above-mentioned learning outcomes. Beyond what was mentioned in the Introduction, it is beyond the scope of this report to draw a complete picture of what characterised the learning environment in this project and how those characteristics are related to the learning outcomes. This topic requires further research and is addressed in the Discussion section. For the time being, we can simply say that the group lessons played a key role in the attainment of the learning outcomes.

This concludes the students’ perspective on teaching. We will now proceed with their reflections on the formal curriculum.

Student reflections on the curriculum

In the interviews, the students related their learning to their perceptions of a formal curriculum. They reported that what they had learned through participation in the project was distinct from what they perceived as being offered by the formal curriculum. The students also compared these offerings and discussed how each offering was relevant to their development as musicians.

The students reported on their interest in learning tools that would help them to go through their careers in a sustainable way. While they acknowledged that the current curriculum did offer some help towards these goals, they also pointed out that something was missing. As is evident from the following quote, the use of an integrated approach brought added value to the curriculum, largely through adding new perspectives and understandings in a way that was tightly interlinked with their playing.

Horn student 3 (IT2 RS): It’s very interesting to work on stuff that you don’t [normally] work on in a music school. We’re [typically] not introduced to work with our bodies or involve our bodies in that way. We always include our music abilities and our thinking within the music, but we’re missing out on this perspective of our bodies … in the musical environment. I think that’s really interesting, and it brings something new to the education. It’s also very interesting to have this idea of the AT that we don’t get in the physiotherapy or just training, exercising…. It’s more a changing of habits, developing our thoughts on a much higher level than training the muscle groups, training our embouchures [i.e. facial muscles] and fingers, you know. So, I mean … approaching the music and the instrument in that way is very interesting, and as I said, it brings something new to the education [that] I’m very fond of.

The findings in this section should be seen in the context of the rest of the curriculum offered at the Norwegian Academy of Music during the years in which the project took place. In particular, two offerings are relevant: a semester-long introductory course in work physiology (arbeidsfysiologi), which was offered to bachelor students during the first semester, and a general offering of physiotherapy that the students could sign up for individually when and if the need arose. The former course consisted mainly of an introduction to anatomy from a physiotherapy perspective, coupled with practical exercises.

Some of the students who were interviewed did not study at NMH for their first year and thus didn’t go through this course. The experiences the students shared bear many similarities, however, and a certain generalisability to other institutions might be possible. The students compared the integrated AT approach primarily with physiotherapy; this comparison helps to make a few important distinctions between the approaches. A primary distinction between physiotherapy and the AT, according to Horn student 3 (IT2 RS), was as follows:

[Physiotherapy] just approaches the muscles, and I’ve been doing sports and training regularly, so I know that you have to keep your body in shape, but … changing your habits, and being aware of what you’re doing with your body, [is] a good thing.

Another student elaborated on this idea:

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): [With physiotherapy] you control a muscle here or there, move that muscle here to tense or release…. You can become stiff and then do exercises to loosen up, but what you end up doing is releasing [this tension] once a week for half a year, and for the rest of your life you don’t have the tools to release muscle tension caused by hard work…. With the AT, you get a tool that addresses situations where you become tense…. What physiotherapy or medicine is about is fixing things…. We want to avoid becoming ill. (Translated from Norwegian)

In addition to discussing the different foci of these disciplines, the students commented on the differences in the way the courses were set up. The students reported that the introductory courses at the very beginning of their studies had only scratched the surface of what needed to be learned. The students seemed unable to relate what they had learned in these courses with their practice and development as instrumentalists reinforcing the view of separate disciplines.

Horn student 2 (IT2 FG): Stage awareness, working physiology – these are a very ‘quick fix’. They’re so concentrated and easy, but they don’t go to the heart of the problem. They don’t yield tools you can work with yourself. (Translated from Norwegian)

This concludes the presentation of findings from the students’ perspective. The next section presents what the teachers learned and experienced during the project.