CEMPE's aim has been to advance music performance learning, teaching and practising by exploring and developing collaborative models involving teachers and students.
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Impact - Performance learning and teaching
Exploring practice
The second strand of projects evolved around instrumental and vocal practising. While main instrument lessons is the core arena where students meet their teachers, practicing is the core activity of music students. We knew from previous research that music students spend a significant amount of time daily on individual practice and ensemble practice. We also knew that practice is an often private matter, that could benefit from being more openly discussed, shared and explored. Thus, one strand of projects invited students and teachers to workshops where they met regularly to explore and discuss practice with peers and colleagues. In one of these projects, teachers from different genres were brought together to discuss and exchange their perspectives on practice and get inspiration from how musicians with other genre backgrounds approached practice. The other strand of projects invited performance teachers to explore practice with their students and find ways to improve students' knowledge of or practice routines.
The teacher as coach
The master-apprenticeship model is sometimes critizised for being too hierarchical, leaving little room for students' autonomy, and therefore being a reproducing social practice. However, in these projects on performance learning and teaching, exploring and widening the master role has been a vital part. When teachers enabled for group learning experiences, more floor space were given to students while the teacher took a step back. Teachers were also offered courses in coaching and feedback, to gain confidence in a new role. The impact of this can hardly be underestimated for the students who went from experiencing an instructive teaching approach to a more explorative coaching approach.
In the booklet «Learning together» (Hanken, 2015), students tell of more varied and rich learning opportunities through this, as well as a stronger feeling of belonging to a community as a result of the projects. A later project called the Core Portfolio Project, described in the chapter of Students’ artistic development, coaching and mentoring competence were again the focus area.