Up until 2005 Peter Mak was involved as pedagogy teacher in the instrumental teacher education of the Bachelor of Music of the Prince Claus Conservatoire. The programme’s pedagogy section consisted of modules developed by Peter including ‘Didactics’, ‘Learning processes’, ‘Study skills’, and ‘Exceptional learners.’ These modules, all thoroughly developed and described by Peter, formed a neatly rolled-out set of tuition for the students in the programme. The content and set-up of the modules were based on the latest developments and insights in education. All modules were underpinned by authentic sources from the field and were easy to read. During the past decade Peter’s influence and ideas for the instrumental teacher education remained of great importance. As a committed colleague he was always interested to look into issues and ideas related to the curriculum and stayed an important critical friend. But possibly most distinguished was his between-the-lines plea for all present and future teachers to approach each individual learner with respect and dignity.
DOCUMENT
In this article the work of power through discourse in music education in primary schools in the Netherlands is examined. After introducing the central concepts of culture, practice, discourse, and power, the current dominant musical discourse in the Netherlands is presented as expressed in three nested perspectives: the perspective of music as a specialist domain, the perspective of music as (essentially instrumental) performance, and the perspective of music as Art. Then, a central document in current music educational developments in Dutch primary schools is analyzed. It is demonstrated that specifically the perspectives of music as a specialist domain and (partly) music as (instrumental) performance have a strong presence in the document. The article finishes with calling for more attention to the workings of dominant musical discourse in music pedagogical debates.
LINK
Music interventions are used for stress reduction in a variety of settings because of the positive effects of music listening on both physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, and hormonal levels) and psychological stress experiences (e.g., restlessness, anxiety, and nervousness). To summarize the growing body of empirical research, two multilevel meta-analyses of 104 RCTs, containing 327 effect sizes and 9,617 participants, were performed to assess the strength of the effects of music interventions on both physiological and psychological stress-related outcomes, and to test the potential moderators of the intervention effects. Results showed that music interventions had an overall significant effect on stress reduction in both physiological (d = .380) and psychological (d = .545) outcomes. Further, moderator analyses showed that the type of outcome assessment moderated the effects of music interventions on stress-related outcomes. Larger effects were found on heart rate (d = .456), compared to blood pressure (d = .343) and hormone levels (d = .349). Implications for stress-reducing music interventions are discussed.
DOCUMENT
