Hear, Listen, Play!: How to Free Your Students' Aural, Improvisation, and Performance Skills

Hear, Listen, Play! is a book for all music teachers who are curious about the worlds of ear-playing, informal learning, improvisation, and vernacular music. Starting with a discussion of how popular musicians learn in the informal realm, the book then applies many aspects of their learning practices to three main areas within music education. It first tackles one-to-one specialist instrumental lessons before turning to ensemble work such as band and orchestra and finally to the generalist or specialist classroom. The methods within each section have been systematically tried and tested in research projects spanning more than a decade, and delivered here in a book written in straightforward and direct language which teachers will quickly find applicable to their working lives. Vignettes from the research participants provide depth throughout the book, and give illustrations of how both teachers and learners have experienced the methods themselves. This book is not a prescription for one particular way of teaching or learning, and it does not aim to critique, replace or change the excellent practices that are already on-going in the diverse world of music education and pedagogy. Rather, it offers something which is likely to be new to many teachers, and which they can add in to the mix.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements ; NOTE ON THE TEXT ; NOTE ON THE COMPANION WEBSITE ; Introduction ; How could informal learning practices relate to formal music education? ; The organisation and use of the Handbook ; The audio materials: an overview ; Why informal learning? ; Why popular music? ; How do popular musicians learn? ; PART I: HeLP in instrumental settings ; Introduction ; HeLP in instrumental settings: preliminary practicalities ; HeLP in instrumental settings: the basic steps ; Some possible combinations and orders of stages: instrumental tuition ; How are students likely to respond? ; Teaching strategies: the role of the teacher in instrumental settings ; What were the overall views of the participants? ; PART II: HeLP in ensemble settings: bands, orchestras and other groups ; Introduction ; HeLP in ensemble settings: preliminary practicalities ; HeLP in ensemble settings: the basic steps ; How are students likely to respond? ; Teaching strategies: the role of the teacher in HeLP ensemble settings ; What were the overall views of the participants? ; PART III: HeLP in classroom settings ; Introduction ; HeLP in classroom settings: preliminary practicalities ; HeLP in classroom settings: the basic steps ; Some possible combinations and orders of stages: the classroom context ; How are students likely to respond? ; Teaching strategies: the role of the teacher in HeLP classroom settings ; What were the overall views of the participants? ; Appendices ; Appendix A: Findings from an aural test experiment ; Appendix B: The research lying behind this Handbook ; Appendix C: Related work on informal music learning and formal music education ; Appendix D: Websites ; Appendix E: Audio track list ; Appendix F: Recording credits