This section presents the findings from the teachers’ perspective. Following the template of the student perspective, the section is divided into the teachers’ reports on their own learning and on their students’ learning, followed by their thoughts on the curriculum. Although I myself was among the project’s teachers, I refer to the teachers as ‘they’ because only my colleagues’ utterances are quoted below. For a more thorough treatment of this issue, see the section The author’s role in the project.

The teachers reported that participating in the project had revitalised their teaching practice and contributed to increasing their competence. The project opened up new perspectives and contributed to the expansion of the pedagogical repertoire of tools and approaches available within teaching situations.

Oboe teacher: I didn’t know what [the AT] was; I thought it was something for other people, because I’m quite happy with my life and with my body … It’s really opened my view…. I’ve gained an important addition to my teaching repertoire, which I feel is very positive. I wish I’d received that earlier. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers’ participation, while not totally transforming their practices, did provide the opportunity to refine these practices. Echoing the student statements, teachers acknowledged the limits of their competence and appreciated the opportunities for learning together with their colleagues in order to gain new insights and to provide a richer learning environment for their students. Collaboration, rather than a demand for the teachers to become AT specialists, emerged as a way forward to developing teaching practices.

Revitalising teaching practice

Prior to participating in the project, two of the teachers had had several decades of teaching experience; the third teacher (the report’s author) had been in the profession for four years. Despite their differences in experience, all three teachers reported that their participation in the project had a positive effect in how they approached teaching. As illustrated by the following quote, the teachers felt a new energy that stemmed from the combination of teaching/learning in groups alongside the added AT perspective; they also experienced increased interaction with their colleagues.

Oboe teacher: It’s useful to discuss things with the AT teacher when he is present. In general, [the AT] seems like a vitamin injection for my practice. What’s been an eye-opener is that when we’ve had these group lessons and the students are working, the AT approach has opened a new avenue for me – with the little boost in competency I’ve gained, I can now teach in a more interesting way, not least for the students. (Translated from Norwegian)

Teacher competence and its boundaries

A common thread among the respondents was that their professional knowledge had limits, in particular their acknowledgement of the bodily aspect of playing an instrument and performing. The respondents seemed to agree that instrumental tuition has traditionally lacked a bodily perspective.

Harp teacher: [The bodily perspective] is something that hasn’t been spoken of before. When I was a student, there was no [awareness of this perspective].

The oboe teacher seconded this idea:

Oboe teacher: Our level of competency [in the bodily perspective] is lacking. We’ve been brought up learning to play without talking about [bodily] things. (Translated from Norwegian)

Speculating as to what might have caused this major oversight, the AT teacher observed the following:

AT teacher: I think that this [idea] touches on music education in general. Many of those I get to work with – whether orchestra musicians, or students, or younger people – when they first got started, they consistently paid attention to technical matters: getting through things quickly and effectively. These issues are not given much attention at all [in music education]. (Translated from Norwegian)

Increasing competence

While main-instrument teacher competence has limits, the teachers’ competence had clearly expanded and deepened through the teachers’ participation in the project. An important question to ask is what dimensions the teachers’ competence had expanded along. Compared to an exclusively one-to-one organisation of main-instrument tuition, the setup offered the teachers new possibilities in how to teach. Through engagement with these new possibilities (e.g. teaching in groups and using the AT), the teachers reported (1) becoming generally more reflective and aware of their teaching practice; (2) exploring and acquiring new ways of thinking about the discipline at the intersection with the AT; and, as a result, (3) discovering previously unseen interrelatedness within their own disciplines.

Oboe teacher: What the project has succeeded in is that, in general, we have become more reflective teachers…. Our discussions with the AT teacher when he’s here are useful…. We need to open the doors, not least to critically reflecting on our past skills. (Translated from Norwegian)

Harp teacher: With the AT, you see the whole person, and for me that’s helped me a lot – not just to look at the hands, the fingers, or even the arms and such, but the whole body. Much more than I did before. [The AT] has now taught me to see that ‘If this is going on with the body, then things can’t work well’. I’ve learned to read my students’ bodies in a much clearer way than before, and I think that’s very, very good. I think I can help them a lot more than before. (Translated from Norwegian)

As the teachers developed observational skills and a richer and more nuanced language and understanding, they reported becoming better able to convey to their students some of the more elusive aspects of disciplinary knowledge. The teachers and students seemed to have increased the shared references between them.

Oboe teacher: [The AT teacher] is educated in such a way that he can do more with the body. You could say that I can’t do exactly the same thing, and in a way he has magical hands. But when we’re in an individual lesson, I can remind my students of what they’ve learned in the AT with just the help of a few movements: ‘If you think like that, then …’

Interviewer: Because then the students have the same frame of reference, the same language as you?

Oboe teacher: Yes, I mean, I’ve said the same thing for many, many years, but in a slightly different way. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers shared a sense that they had tried various approaches before in order to explain certain aspects relating to the bodily perspective to their students but had not had much success. This failure strengthens the impression that Gaunt (2004) refers to about the lack of a strong disciplinary knowledge foundation, which often consists of conflicting understandings and a general lack of shared points of reference.

The aforementioned development of observational skills and more nuanced language and understanding, however, is only part of the picture. The teachers appreciated the ability to pass students on to another teacher to work out a few quirks and then later to be able to follow up and build on that experience. At this stage the importance of a sense of shared responsibility emerged. Rather than learning outcomes being dependent on a single guru-type figure, this approach created an environment of care where the collaboration created a support network for the students.

Oboe teacher: When it comes to following up with a student who’s relapsed [to the old habits], I don’t have the authority and expertise to guide the student back out of a bad habit. That’s what’s been so enriching with the duo-like teaching aspect: that I can send students to [the AT teacher], and then it’s easy for me to follow up afterwards. I also think that two of the students who are involved [in the project] wouldn’t have come as far as they have had they not been in the project. I am one hundred percent certain of this. (Translated from Norwegian)

Finally, in addition to the teachers reporting an increase in their own competence, they observed and reported development in the practices of their colleagues. A dialogical development of competence became visible within their teaching interactions.

Harp teacher: After a number of years of cooperation, I’ve undoubtedly learned a lot, but [the AT teacher] has also learned about the instrument. He’s become more and more knowledgeable about the harp and how players are to sit and so on. What he does when working with harpists has become more and more precise, because he now knows so much more about the instrument and can go more directly into what’s important. (Translated from Norwegian)

It is important to emphasise that the findings above unfolded over a period of several semesters; the time component is crucial.

Exploring and developing roles

Developing role awareness and flexibility seemed to be an important area for reflection in the project. The teachers felt that they had connected to their students in new ways, and new kinds of relationships developed as they saw both themselves and their students in a new light.

Oboe teacher: [The project] has helped me to establish an easier channel of communication with my students, so that I can get to know them in a new way… We’re more open towards each other [than before] …. I feel I’ve achieved closer and more personal relationships with each one of them…. Now we touch on these sensitive issues, talking about the body and so on…. It’s not that our [earlier] relationships were bad, but now we have an invisible thread that we both can trust and relate to. (Translated from Norwegian)

What became apparent was that the collaborative approach is more dynamic than its non-collaborative counterpart, which challenged the teachers to explore their roles but also gave them the opportunity to do so. The teachers indicated that complex and dynamic relationships had developed during the project. These relationships consisted of both interpersonal relationships (e.g. between the teachers and the students, and the teachers and their colleagues) and relationships between subjects (e.g. the main instrument and the AT). The active role of the students contributed to the dynamism, since the students themselves oscillated between teacher/learner roles in the group lessons. Flexibility and plasticity of the roles seemed to be important to adapt to the needs within the teaching situations. The network of these flexible roles with an ongoing renegotiation of their boundaries constituted a platform for learning to unfold upon.

Refining pedagogy through new tools

As a result of the teachers’ competence development, they refined their actual practice. Rather than completely changing their practice, however, the teachers thought of the changes as a sharpening and refining of their pedagogies.

Oboe teacher: For me as a teacher, I’ve adjusted part of the way I teach certain aspects, not least regarding breathing and articulation and in regard to posture and warming up and all sorts of things.… These things have become more refined: not directly changed, but with new ways of expressing the same things being added. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers reported expanding the repertoire of approaches to handle their students’ challenges, such as with their sound and technique. Once the teachers started to employ these tools in practice, they perceived an increase in the efficiency of their practice.

Oboe teacher: In the classes we’ve had with the AT teacher, you can hear a clear difference in how the students sound after the AT teacher has worked with them. It’s also easier to bring that [progress] back again when I’m working individually. I wouldn’t manage to reach these outcomes working by myself. I’m not fully educated in that regard, but the dialogue helps to move forward and support student development. I’m eager to find shortcuts. Well, not exactly shortcuts, but a way of preventing myself from having to take large detours in my teaching. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers reported gaining an increased ability to profile their students’ unique needs for the improved structuring of teaching, better management of focus areas in teaching situations, and a sense that certain typical challenges were more easily addressed from a collaborative, multi-perspective approach.

Profiling the students’ individual needs seemed to be an important part of teaching, as such profiling generally helps to structure teaching. The teachers reported that some aspects of that profiling might have been lacking before the project.

Oboe teacher: We can get to know the students more quickly [now], and I want to be able to see which areas need the most attention. And the AT is especially good for this; you can get a faster overview of the basic things in the playing, which you can then address more quickly. I think that the AT is a good catalyst for how we think…. I’d say that my teaching has become more structured – I’ve always found it enjoyable to teach, but it’s always been a little bit like, ‘What shall we do today?’ But now my teaching has become more structured and planned. And that’s a good thing. (Translated from Norwegian)

Managing focus seems to have been a challenge to everyday main-instrument teaching, since many topics and issues must be addressed in such teaching. Having a structure that allows for collaboration seemed to relieve that burden and ensured that important learning topics would be covered.

Harp teacher: When you see a student once a week for 60 to 75 minutes and you have to be thinking in terms of music, interpretation, technique, and all of that, there isn’t always a lot of time to focus on the body and the physical things. But when we have these group lessons, we can focus on just those aspects. Then, when you have these individual lessons, it goes much faster to say, ‘Remember this or that?’ This saves a lot of time, which we can then use on other important matters. (Translated from Norwegian)

A few standard topics seemed to be more easily addressed from the multi-discipline perspective. This perspective exposed the limits of standard narratives and approaches. The quote below from the oboe teacher illustrates how standard explanation methods might stand in the way of the teaching of breathing skills, and how the inclusion of the AT can help to overcome those difficulties.

Oboe teacher: [I used to be] working for a whole lesson, attempting to get the breathing down here [demonstrates on his body]. And I’ve struggled a lot with this, and I’ve partly wrongly informed the students. I first got to experience this [new approach] myself and had a new experience…. Once you gain the AT perspective, I feel that you can get a more efficient ‘feeling’, if I can use that word. We tend to harp on about ‘placing the air down there’, but the students don’t really get that feeling. But with someone who’s a good AT teacher, the teacher can manage this in simple ways to place the air there, with just simple things like encouraging more freedom here between the chin and chest…. I didn’t use that approach before, because I’ve learned that you have to do this, this, and this. That’s the way traditional teaching used to be done. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers seemed to be engaged with ways of developing ‘metaphors’ of practicing that would encompass more than simply accruing practice hours.

Harp teacher: It’s not that you [have to] spend hours practicing your sound; it’s just because you suddenly open your body a little … it feels and sounds so simple… it’s not always so important how many hours we practice, but how we’re practicing. (Translated from Norwegian)

This concludes the teachers’ reports on their own learning. The next section will illustrate what the teachers perceived their students to have learned.

Teacher views on student progress

In describing their students’ learning, the teachers (1) acknowledged the diversity of the students’ learning trajectories, which unfolded over time; (2) related the pertinence of the new learning outcomes to the core learning of the main instrument; (3) indicated the value of students becoming autonomous learners and observed students gaining the necessary tools towards those goals; and (4) mentioned the importance of students’ personal development to support their growth as musicians. As one teacher put it:

Harp teacher: We’re sowing a seed that will grow; sometimes this happens quickly, but sometimes it takes a little time.… It’s very important to have this understanding. (Translated from Norwegian)

Learning trajectories unfolding over time

As illustrated by the previous quote, teaching has an element of uncertainty and unpredictability. During the interviews and discussions, the teachers acknowledged that they had observed students’ learning unfold in differing ways. During Iteration 2, each teacher had each of his or her students involved in the project, which made it easier to see similarities and differences across students.

The teachers acknowledged that some of the students benefited from participating more than others. In general, the benefits seemed to be related to the number of both individual and group sessions the students attended. Some of the students attended fewer lessons than others for a number of reasons, including practical challenges (e.g. from busy and/or incompatible schedules), sceptical attitude towards the AT, or not knowing what the AT was about and thus not prioritising the lessons. In some cases, the students likely experienced learning challenges that they found difficult to overcome.

The teachers reported that the starting phase seemed to be very important, and that ideally this phase should be as short as possible and should occur early on in the teaching process. They felt that only after the completion of a successful starting phase can learning begin to unfold. By the starting phase we mean a phase in which a student has taken a couple of individual AT lessons and started engaging in reflection and sense-making process on how the AT is relevant to their playing. The aspects of continuity and immersion within this engagement also seemed to be an important factor. The following quote was expressed midway through the second semester following the project’s onset:

Oboe teacher: We came to a point at the end [of the project] where we should have been a few months ago. Now, the last few group lessons have been very interesting. Sometimes we’ve had a little too much time between lessons, so you’ve almost totally forgotten things [by the time of the next lesson]. (Translated from Norwegian)

The AT teacher provided some perspective from his teaching experience on how the learning trajectories might unfold:

AT teacher: [I have] over thirty years of teaching the AT [and it seems that] some people understand that this [kind of learning] is useful quite quickly, and some need a little more time, and some give up during that long introductory period. (Translated from Norwegian)

We should keep in mind that learning trajectories are not limited to the duration of a particular course or even a study programme; they also continue to unfold beyond graduation.

AT teacher: I have a former student … from an elective course from three or four years ago. She told me a number of weeks ago that she understood little from the elective course but that she was starting to get it now. And a number of students have said the same thing. I have [a student] from a number of years back who essentially said the same: eight years ago he was an elective-course student, and he turned up last year for some lessons and remarked that ‘Now I feel like I’m beginning to understand this’. (Translated from Norwegian)

Catalyst for attainment of the core outcomes of the main-instrument study

Despite the challenges that emerged from the students’ differences, the teachers shared a sense that the students’ participation in the project had significantly contributed to their attainment of the core outcomes of the main-instrument study.

Oboe teacher: I’m convinced that [the project] has been the reason that all three [of my students] have made big steps forward during the autumn … especially with the one student who’s taken the complete number of lessons. Something has happened that I feel I can claim wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t had this [project]…. It has to do with getting a sense of warmth in the playing and a free-flowing energy. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers reported that the setup functioned as a sort of catalyst for student learning: the students progressed more quickly, became more open and responsive to teaching, and developed more constructive attitudes towards their studies.

Oboe teacher: [The importance of this project] is not just in the specific sense of whether [the students] become a lot better at playing but also that they adopt a new attitude towards their approach to studying and playing…. We’ve spoken a lot about practicing and how to practice. (Translated from Norwegian)

In describing his students’ progress, the oboe teacher highlighted the importance of the AT and of collaboration:

Oboe teacher: One of the students has made a jump that I wouldn’t have managed without the AT teacher’s help, that’s for sure. [The student has] opened up, and major changes have happened … He has a completely different attitude. I would never have managed this alone. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers reported that some of the students had become more focussed and calm, which they saw as being a valuable development.

Harp teacher: That [focus] provides much better balance, which means you’re a lot more steady when you’re playing … there’s no hurry, and you’re calmer in your breathing, so you can follow the rhythm of the music much better as well. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers also mentioned increased well-being as an important precondition for quality and sustainability of the main-instrument study. Concerns about health and well-being were clearly prevalent in the main-instrument lessons and were intricately related to attaining the core learning outcomes.

Harp teacher: Many of [the students] turned up with either inflammation or back problems.… Some had pain issues and could no longer play. But after two to three months, those problems disappeared. They felt so much better in their bodies. And when you feel good and healthy in your body, then you have the desire to practice, so that you can give your best, instead of struggling. If the physical elements are in place, then the other things will become easier and simpler. (Translated from Norwegian)

Becoming their own teachers: Skills for autonomous learning

Developing student independence and the skills of self-teaching emerged as an important goal of teaching for the participating teachers. They saw three tools as being central to this development: acquiring observational skills, being able to reflect, and having adequate conceptual understandings. Adequate conceptual understanding is generally characterised by a view of the discipline that places inherent complexity and interrelatedness in the foreground and reflects integration. As an example, the activity of playing an instrument has affective, bodily, and cognitive components, and the body as a whole is involved when playing. The teachers highlighted group working settings as arenas where the students got to practice and explore their reflection and observation skills. As a result, the students’ seemed to increase their independence through working together with teachers and peers.

Harp teacher: I believe that the students and I have learned to read the body … to connect how we use the body and how we develop the way we play. [The students] can see that musicians don’t just play with their fingers, but that the whole body plays…. It was very exciting in the group lesson to see how they could also observe and see things.… Towards the end it was almost as if they didn’t need us; they also kept an eye out to see what was going on. I’ve always told my students that if they can observe others, if they can find solutions, then it’s much easier to do things themselves. And I think that this [advice] was so very important and successful in the course and in the project. (Translated from Norwegian)

The AT teacher reflected on how the students’ way of commenting on each other’s playing had evolved over the course of the project to use more integrated and nuanced language:

AT teacher: The students have become very good at commenting on things and seeing things, and in a way merging these things. Because when we began a number of years ago, the students might have first commented on someone’s playing, perhaps remarking that ‘When it comes to how you stand or sit, I can’t see anything in particular’, or ‘I saw this and that about your body, but I don’t know if it had any bearing on your playing’. Now everything’s much more bound together as one, so that commenting has become more of a kind of unified response. This is very positive. (Translated from Norwegian)

The teachers’ statements about the curriculum were largely related to the way they made sense of main-instrument tuition’s place within the curriculum. The teachers explored the notion of main-instrument tuition as a result of reflecting on their practices. A few questions emerged. What is the main instrument within a curriculum? How does it relate to the broader context of the curriculum? What are the boundaries of this kind of tuition, and how can it interface with other disciplines?

The teachers reported expanding how they thought about main-instrument tuition beyond the idea of ‘this note is too high or too low’ (Oboe teacher). The teachers became more aware of interfaces they could have with other disciplines (the AT in particular) and appreciated having the opportunity to expose their students to a richer learning environment where they could explore the full complexity of their given discipline.

Interestingly, the teachers shared a sense that integrating the AT into the main instrument was still within the scope of main-instrument studies and that the AT contributes something significant and foundational to the discipline of music performance itself. They broadly agreed that students should undertake this kind of work as early as possible in their studies.

Harp teacher: For me this [AT integration] is very, very important. I don’t know how we’re going to continue with it, but I’m all in. This [integration] isn’t a luxury; it’s something that should be obligatory for all first-year students, regardless of whether they’ve just begun, or are in subsequent stages, or are master’s students. They should be getting [an integrated AT teaching] in the first year when they arrive at the academy. (Translated from Norwegian)

This concludes the teachers’ perspective part of the two Findings sections. I will now proceed to discuss these findings in light of the literature review, and I will share personal reflections on the implications the project has had on teaching the main instrument in such a way.