This section presents an ongoing laboratory project at the Malmö Academy of Music, designed by Tullberg to help students explore and develop their practice. The laboratory has two overarching aims. First, it creates an ‘emergent’ or ‘open-ended’ space for students to explore such a core activity in their studies through critical reflection and self-regulated learning—approaches that complement their other study activities. Second, it functions as a laboratory project that explores curriculum development through collaboration between teacher and students. This part of the project is not framed by budget or deadlines and may grow over the course of some years. This exposition provides an overview of the structure of the lab and presents some preliminary results.
The lab presentation is organised into four sections:
i) My way into artist-resercher laboratories
ii) Initiating The Practice-Lab Project
iii) The three segments of a lab cycle
iv) Experiences so far
i) MY WAY INTO ARTIST–RESEARCHER LABORATORIES
The project described here is the result of a series of central experiences from my own artistic journey, experiences which have contributed to shape my own artistic thinking. The first of these experiences is my long-standing career as a folk music flute player and pedagogue. The second is my research journey that started with a PhD project which brought me into close contact with professional flute players from different genres. Thirdly, a two-year course in literary composition made me rethink what practising an instrument could mean.
I am a folk music flute player, and I have been part of the process of re-establishing the simple-system flute in Swedish traditional music. Hence, I have been deeply engaged in the different ways in which tradition can be revived, and re-interpreted by individual musicians in the present day. I have previously observed how a musician may create “a foundation for positioning oneself inside the tradition while keeping agency of personal expression. This strategy could be described as creating a personal tradition, or rather a personal branch of the tradition” (Tullberg, 2018, p. 136). As a musician and teacher of folk music in HME, I have had an increasing interest in exploring the relationship between musician and musical instrument, and how the instrument can be understood as a tool for musical thinking and acting. Repeatedly, I have been struck by how differently the students approach their instrument and how the material aspects of music making inform their artistic growth in individually varying ways. I am interested in how it is possible to develop a wider and more articulated range of strategies for the learning of instrumental skills, in particular with regard to folk and world music traditions.
As part of my PhD project (Tullberg, 2021), I had the opportunity to meet and interview some exceptional musicians. I sought out musicians who, beyond being performers of the wooden conical multiple-keyed transverse flute—the instrument I also play—were rooted in different musical traditions and had been important to the stylistic development of the instrument within their respective musical contexts. For some of them, it meant that they had been part of the revival of the use of the instrument, others had been central in a revitalisation movement, whereas others had pioneered the adaptation of the instrument in their genre. Applying the concept of affordances (Gibson, 2014) as analytical lens, the study focused on the interviewees’ approach to their instruments with regards to playing technique and choice of instrument. This 'material entry point' opened ways into more evasive topics such as tradition, creativity, and aesthetic visions.
One thread that did not find its way into the thesis, but nonetheless caught my interest during moments of analysis, was the close link between the musicians’ artistic vision and their practical approach to music-making. These aspects fitted together in a unity. As such, their musical careers can be understood as ongoing, continuous, explorative musical laboratories. There was a sense of solid curiosity that made an impression on me, both as a teacher and musician. I started to think of my own practising habits, and the meetings with the students, as laboratories. Initially, this was rather intuitive and not clearly articulated, but the idea stuck with me.
Another central experience came when I had the opportunity to attend a two-year course in literary composition. I have always been a passionate fiction writer, but until then I had not engaged in discussions with other writers about the craft and art of writing. Interestingly, a significant part of the education was spent on assisting the students in their striving to find and refine their writing processes. This ‘guided exploration’ can be conceptualised as creative laboratories. It seemed to me that in this field, there was no divide between the formation of an aesthetic vision and the practicalities of producing text. Finding your way of working would result in literary production. These experiences can be articulated as a statement: ‘The way you go about things cannot be separated from what you artistically want to achieve.'
This statement served as my starting point for further examining musical practice and my role as teacher in higher music education. I had the impression too little effort and time are spent on guiding the students towards reflection upon their way of practising. It is generally taken for granted that practice is needed to make progress. But this awareness of the centrality of practising is not reflected in the landscape of ideas in HME. Too often, the way practising is instructed does not reflect the complexity of the process or stimulate critical thinking about it. This was my impetus for investigating the topic further and eventually floating a project set to directly engage with this issue. Starting locally, I found a way to introduce research on practice to the students while critically engaging with the same extended investigation from a research perspective.
ii) INITIATING THE PRACTICE-LAB PROJECT
The Practice-Lab Project (PLP) is based on an assignment given to students at the Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University. The idea is to create a fusion between teaching and research with a twofold aim. With the students in mind, the first aim is to develop the participating students’ awareness about – and ability to develop – their own way of practising and honing their musical craft. By encouraging and facilitating metacognitive and critical thinking, such processes are also aimed at strengthening their ability to guide their own future students with their practice. The second aim is to contribute to research about musical practice and skill acquisition, in particular the challenges that young musicians face within HME. However, the research flows both ways in this project since (i) the written assignments are taken as empirical data for the PLP and (ii) existing research about practice is shared with the students during the laboratory segments.
The reason behind initiating the project is a noted lack of communal knowledge about practice (Vellacott & Ballantyne, 2022). In entrance tests, students are assessed by their performance skills, but their preparation regarding resilient practice routines remains uncertain (Jørgensen, 2002). While some students are well prepared through earlier instructions and articulated strategies, others are less ready to take on the responsibility for this core aspect of their education. Furthermore, there exists a growing, although still limited, research corpus on musical practice, which certainly provides valuable resources for students, both during their time in HME, but perhaps even more during the years after graduation as they are expected to guide themselves. While the PLP as a research project has no fixed timeline, it is structured around three segments, forming a cycle (see Figure. 1). For each cycle, a group of students conducts individual autoethnographic studies on their own practice.
Although the laboratory was an assignment, consent forms were distributed and collected before any of the essays became research data. These forms were handed out after the assignments were graded. PLP has been reviewed by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority, which assessed that the research did not need approval to be conducted.
iii) THE THREE SEGMENTS OF A LAB CYCLE
FIRST SEGMENT: THREE PERSPECTIVES ON PRACTICE
Each cycle starts with a seminar which presents relevant research and explores the current state of practice habits among the students (including from where they find instructions, inspiration and motivations to undertake the activities that form their practice routines). In the seminar, practice is broadly defined as systematic activities that develop musical skills. In order to differentiate between relevant aspects of practice, three perspectives are outlined: (i) sensorimotor skills, (ii) systematised practice, and (iii) the socio-musical context of practice (see Figure. 2).
(i) The perspective of sensorimotor skills focuses on skill acquisition. Given that music performance in essence is structured by physical gestures (Godøy & Leman, 2010; Kvifte, 2016), refinement of these gestures is central to musical learning (i.e. development of technique). In order to ground this perspective in science, the model builds upon principles from enactive theory, sensorimotor contingency theory (Di Paolo et al., 2017; Froese & González-Grandón, 2020; O’Regan & Noë, 2001) and ecological dynamics (Gray, 2021). This research corpus provides a counter movement against a traditional cognitivist perspective on movement coordination, which sees movement coordination as a top-down process. Movement coordination in a cognitivist perspective can basically be described as a process starting in the cerebral cortex, which sends signals to the motor cortex and further to executing muscles via brain stem and spinal cord. Sensory stimuli then feed the cerebral cortex with information and a new motor coordination process is set in motion. An ecological dynamics perspective, however, sees the body and environment as one distributed dynamical system. Movement emerges as a function of this relation in order to achieve a goal. From this perspective, the brain is but one part in a decentralised system and musical learning can be seen as a musician’s development of the sensorimotor relationship with the instrument (Tullberg, 2022).
Based on the principles from such a framework, technique development can be approached from new angles. One such pedagogical path that has found its way into music is the ‘constraints-led approach’ (CLA) (Gill, 2023; Slater, 2020). The basic idea of CLA is a shift away from a descriptive kind of teaching focused on movement precision, towards processes of development facilitated through boundaries of the framework. Such boundaries encourage the learner to find solutions based on their own abilities, interests, and creative thinking.
(ii) The perspective of systematised practice includes aspects of goal setting, time management, and the use of tools and equipment (metronome, recording devices, journals, etc.). Students commonly discuss these aspects of their practice habits since they directly relate to hands-on strategies. During the seminar, ideas connected to ‘deliberate practice’ (Ericsson et al., 1993) popularised by (Gladwell, 2011) are presented and usually resonate with students’ previous knowledge about practice. Among these statements are the commonly held view that 10.000 hours distributed over the course of ten years is needed to develop expertise. Beyond the sheer amount of time, deliberate practice also includes well-articulated goals, expert guidance and precision in choice of activities. This view can be contrasted with ideas about practice as an autotelic, self-fulfilling activity as popularised by (Nachmanovitch, 1991). Furthermore, this perspective also includes environmental aspects and the use of tools. In line with the enactive–ecological underpinnings of the first perspective, instruments and other tools are understood as components of the extended mind (Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Principles drawn from this perspective give students a framework through which they can articulate their own views and test new ideas.
(iii) The third perspective—the socio-musical context of practice—builds upon theories on situated cognition (Lave, 1988) and communities of practice (Kenny, 2017; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Tullberg & Sæther, 2022; Wenger 1998), which highlight the situated nature of learning, a perspective that is rarely discussed in research on practice (Jørgensen & Hallam, 2014). The purpose of this perspective is twofold: (a) to highlight the fact that even individual progression stands in relation to a community of practice (the musical field in which they are thought to be professionally engaged), which in turn defines what competencies are of value (including the fact that this relation may change over time), and (b) to promote collaborative learning by framing musical situations involving others, inside and outside of the academy, as instances of musical practice. Appreciating being part of a community of practice may have positive consequences for a sustainable career in music (Goodwin 2019).
This perspective runs contrary to a great portion of research on practice, which often relies on ideas that practice is something undertaken alone. As Jørgensen (2002) states: “The use of ‘practice alone’ as the type of practice behavior that is most important to study is probably self-evident” (p. 110). Perhaps this was self-evident more than twenty years ago, at least in the limited setting of a music conservatoire. The reason why publications on research take the individual practice as the self-evident norm may be because they do not address the problem-setting phase (Schön, 1992). What is important, and why, is taken for granted, as values and norms related to the Western Art Music tradition are integral to HME. This is likely due to the fact that the main concern for HME institutions has been to train classical musicians for future roles as soloists or orchestra musicians (Georgii-Hemming & Johansson, 2020). By shaping an analytical perspective about the student’s individual development of competencies in relation to the present and future professional field, chances are that he or she can more easily adapt to changes and also see career potentials by acquiring skills that are rare and valuable (Newport, 2012).
In many genres, the co-operative nature of music is essential to musical learning (Schippers, 2009). Going back to the broad definition of what practising an instrument entails, systematised activities are not always, and not necessarily, conducted in isolation. In fact, there are several musical skills that are most effectively developed in collaboration with others, timing, improvisation, expression, communication, to name a few. Performance situations and jam sessions outside of the institutional setting fill a crucial role, especially for those students who are not destined to spend both their learning years and their professional roles within the confines of institutions.
SECOND SEGMENT: THE SELF-STUDY
In the second step of the cycle, the students carry out an autoethnographic study (Tarisayi, 2023). They focus on an area of development within one of the three perspectives and then spend some time (at least a month) conducting their experiment. They are encouraged to discuss their topic and approach with their instrumental teacher. In some cases, this segment also includes a workshop in which the students discuss their takeaways from the first segment, including any additional readings. The students are divided into groups of 3-5. As a catalyst for the discussion, they are asked to jointly produce a poster (see Figure 3 for an example). The instruction is: “Construct a poster with some key ideas about practice, such as you would like to have it hanging on the wall in your teaching study, ready to hand if you would like to give one of your own students a tip or two about practice.” The purpose behind this is that the groups are encouraged to exchange ideas about what they hold as important about practising, and at the same time stepping away from ideas about their own preconceived or habitual ways of doing things.
THIRD SEGMENT: ANALYSIS AND FEEDBACK
As a third step, the students hand in their report in the form of a short essay, in which they state the background, the activities undertaken, results and the implications for further personal development. I conduct an analysis of this data through a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006) within the NVivo software and report the findings to the students in a follow-up seminar. For this seminar, I prepare themes and questions based on the results of the essays produced by the group. With this, one cycle of the project is completed. With given consent from the participating students, findings from the previous cycles feed into the knowledge base of the project.
All practice must settle into the body, and I have found that I do it best alone in my own space. [However,] discovering new exercises or strategies together with another person works well. Starting the practice together makes it in some way easier to create your own path. The individual practice thus becomes less tough and boring.
[Student B27]
Using video recording was something completely new to me, which made it quite difficult at first to watch myself on the screen. However, it made me more aware of both the ergonomic aspect of the exercise and the technical part.
[Student A20]
I have not only experienced improvements during my self-study, but I have also had practice sessions where my phone has taken my focus, and my attention has been elsewhere.
[Student A11]
I recognise myself in “enduring” my practice to achieve results that come later, but I am more drawn to the idea that practice should be enough in itself, more like a meditation and self-fulfilling for me in the moment.
[Student B14]
I started by looking up videos on YouTube where the left hand was clearly visible to study how others do it [positioning the left hand], and also some instructional videos for beginners. In a beginner’s video, the instructor showed that the fingers should be curved like an arch to achieve the strongest possible shape. Of course, I thought, that’s how I’ve been taught and always done it. But I decided to take a look at how I actually do it […]. My fingers look like nice arches, but where my little finger meets the hand at the knuckle, I bent it the wrong way! The only way I could correct this was to turn my wrist slightly counterclockwise and direct the thumb more towards the scroll, rather than straight towards the neck. The result is a much more natural hand position than I am used to.
[Student A18]
iv) EXPERIENCES SO FAR
The PLP cycles generate empirical data in the form of student essays. As mentioned, an initial analysis of each cycle is conducted through a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). The continuous meta-analysis is based on self-regulation theory (SRT), which provides “an overarching framework for studying how instrumental students acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes [in order] to take control of their own learning” (McPherson & Zimmerman, 2011, p. 166). Such a structured meta-analysis has yet to be completed as I await a broader empirical basis. As of writing, four cycles have been completed and 87 essays have been collected.
The material covers a wide range of topics and examples include specific technical problems, time management, goal setting, and documentation – in short various aspects of critical thinking about the practice. As teacher and recipient, I am impressed by the detailed descriptions expressed in the texts. The texts are examples of verbalised output or translation of artistic thinking, which otherwise is predominantly embodied and pre-linguistic. The process of verbalising experiences is most evident in segment 3.
When presented by the overview of the content of the essays, the students are usually impressed by the diversity of topics covered and surprised by the multifaceted nature of practice (as am I). There is a value, I believe, in showing how much accumulated experience is present among the students in the room itself.
The students are prompted by questions that I find in the material. In some cases, these are explicit questions posed by a student in a text and in other cases it is questions underlying a reflection. The questions presented to the group are broad enough to be relevant, disregarding genre or instrument. The students are grouped into pairs and trios. The discussions are engaged and informed by both the information from segment 1 and their new experiences. Hopefully, these discussions are valuable in themselves because of the exchange of ideas and experiences, but also as a starting point for a continuous dialogue among the students, through which they can seek support and advice from each other.
One aspect that I find to be missing is a stronger link between the students’ practice labs and the instrumental tuition and guidance of their main teacher. I had expected (and indeed I encourage) the students to involve their instrumental teacher in deciding on a topic for their self-study. I believe this could be a way to make their practice laboratory as relevant as possible. However, there are only a few existing examples where the students relate what they chose to explore to what they are working on together with their instrumental teachers.
For me, the project teaches me about essential aspects of what practice means for students within HME today. This dynamic between individual and common knowledge is one the aspects of music education that drove me to pursue a PhD. In my doctoral thesis, I wrote that:
I believe this to be one of the main possibilities of Music Education research: to highlight and elevate experiences of the individual level to a space of collective and shared knowledge. This is one way that we, as musicians and educators, can transcend the confines of our own perspective and gain new inspiration, insights, and ideas. (Tullberg, 2021, p. 243)
Needless to say, I hold this learning process very dearly and I look forward to present results from the meta-analysis in the future.