ISME Day 3

08/06/2026Natalie Morgenstern

Keynote: Huib Schippers

  • Fearless convictions towards change

  • Everyone is inevitably flawed, but worthy of respect

  • Virtually every human being has the capacity to process musical sound, give meaning to it, and use it from birth to death

  • Music is the most practised activity that is not life or death-dependent

  • Music brings people together like nothing else

  • See article: an imaginary conversation between Carl Orff and Kodaly (2006). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02557614261443628#core-collateral-purchase-access

  • Three critical interrelated junctures before us now:

  • Learners have specific music practices they want to invest in: agency, creativity, and ways of learning

  • Decolonise ways of learning. Eurocentric is not the only way.

  • Music learning doesn't die without formal learning structures

  • Check Ken Robinson on this

  • Most music learning takes place informally

  • Students are not a blank musical canvas—meet them from where they come/are

  • Most music is learned aurally

  • Because of access, the role of the teacher has changed

  • What happens to the music when you institutionalise it?

  • Experiencing music is not objective

  • The way we learn music determines to a large extent the way we experience it

  • Cultural diversity is not an option; it's a reflection of the world

  • 1. Institutions change slowly

  • 2. Music styles and ways of learning change quickly

  • 3. Technology changes at breakneck speed

  • Teachers are also learners

  • Our job as teachers is not only to teach musical content, but to understand dynamic cultural ecosystems. We are not living in a static world

  • We are not victims of our surroundings; we are actors with a capacity and a duty to bring about change

  • If we disappear (teachers), music does not disappear

  • Music education is so important—people are losing touch with what it means to be human

  • All musics are equal. Western music is not bad Indian music. And vice versa. Mozart was shit at ragas and talas!

  • Music is not only used for good, but also for torture as well—it does not always elevate us

aimee.atkinson@boiseschools.org for student leadership

Project-based Learning

  • Projects begin with questions worth pursuing

  • Can add found sounds to projects—include rests

  • The role of music teachers—participants in shared learning, facilitators of curiosity and exploration, etc.

  • Success can be found in the questions students ask—which is not always measurable

  • Though it is meaningfully experienced together

  • Book: Project-Based Teaching and Learning in Music Education

  • Projects are not replicable. They can have similar starting points (start with the students)

  • An invitation to the students to work out what skills are needed

  • Projects are run in chunks through sessions (possibly)

  • What happens when we include it in what we do?

Positionality in Improvisation

  • Start with a listening activity

  • By imagining music, it is much like time-travelling and returning to emotions

  • Academic wheel of privilege

  • Privilege can change through your life

  • Positionality and pedagogic visions in improvisation

Kodaly and Vigotsky

  • Vigotsky—everyday concepts (spontaneous)—learn through real things and experimentation. Not necessary to have vocabulary

  • —scientific concepts; formal instruction needs to be embedded into 'everyday' practical experience to make for a unified concept

  • Kodaly—knowledge is grounded in lived experience. Work from the known to the unknown. Sound before sight

  • Pedagogical sequence: preparation (learn a song—'everyday'), presentation (make conscious—scientific), and practice (using in familiar context—making unified)

  • Through collaborative activity (teachers and learners)

  • There is a place in teaching for 'make conscious'—explicit instruction

  • This does tend to be prioritised

  • The preparation stage is very important

  • Need to get the students wanting to do the activity (that's the preparation)

  • Move away from immediately starting with the scientific concept

  • Create exploration activities that relate to the new concepts about to be taught

Towards a Pedagogical Framework for a Sound-Centered Approach to Music Education during Childhood

  • Music Education in the Western context has a limited understanding of skill

  • What children can teach us about what music can be...

  • Conceptual lens

  • Sound as artistic matter—sound-based music in the classroom

  • 4 domains: soundscapes, invented musical instruments, sound microscopy (needs to be amplified), and post-digital media

  • Sononauts—searching the world through sound

  • Listening and creating sonic practice: collaborative, tool-mediated, exploratory, embodied/relational

  • Expanded sonic awareness

  • Expanded ideas—music and musicianship

  • Sense of belonging

  • Sound is an event, not an object

  • Listeners inhabit different sonic worlds

Activities

Musical Soccer with Questions and Answers:

  • Sing a 'question' to the person next to you

  • They sing and answer and sing a follow-up question to the next person, etc

  • Pass it around...

  • Can be done with a tune that the students know first if they need scaffolding

Drone and Melody:

  • In a group of 3, 2 players sustain a drone on any long note and 1 makes a melody

  • Drone notes can clash

  • When the melody person changes to play a drone note, the furthest drone person stops

  • The next person in the circle makes a melody

  • This moves around the circle

  • The only thing that needs to be agreed on is that everyone stays in the game

  • Can use Youtube cello drones as a warm-up

Ostinato and Rotating Solos

  • Start with mindfulness warm-up: Breathe in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8... 4 times

  • Ostinato (all)—it can change (each player makes up their own contribution)

  • Select a soloist to play on top

Harmony with Building Dissonance

  • Start all together but can also try dividing the group in 3

  • Start on Bb concert

  • Hand sign for going up (move up a half step, or a full step, or a scale degree—choose)

  • Hand sign down, same movement

  • Can move all three groups at the same time, or separately

  • Now, try up or down (conducted) as any interval

  • If sung, can be any vocalisation

  • Add dynamics

Mindfulness

  • Listen to the furthest to closest sound

  • Focus on breath

  • Eyes closed, vowel exploration, drop off one at a time until no one is left

Read: Mindfulness and Free Improv: a Holistic Approach to Cultivating Creativity and Awareness

Find 'Orff Rhythm Round'. Play and include improvisations.

Improvisation as Learning

  • Systematic literature review 2015-2025

  • 5 components

  • 1. Forms and Techniques (collective, free, bounded)

  • 2. Tools and Media (instrument, voice, percussion)

  • 3. Learning and Creating (scaffolding, model, exploring)

  • 4. Movement and Cross Arts (body, dance, visual)

  • 5. Games and Narratives (stories, play)

Constructivism, Pedagogy, and Democracy

  • Freedom must be exercised, or it might atrophy

  • SIA: strategic informal approach

  • Treats tension as productive

  • Teacher guidance, student autonomy (to be negotiated againa nd again)

  • Imagine, create, play, peer reflection, play peer-to-peer, share, reflect, etc.

  • Democracy is not an additional goal for constructivist education; it is fundamental

  • Teacher and students change in this democratic approach

Meditation in Class

  • A few minutes of connection at the start of class

  • Qigong—breathing and movement together

  • Routine

  • Building relationality with everyone moving together

  • Wack both opposite ankles in front, then in behind

  • Finish with a self-hug: arms stretched out in front, L over R. Enlace fingers together, twist in and under. Hold and breathe

  • Move focus away from stress and anxiety

  • Do a meditation before assessment

  • jcable@richmond.edu