515818

earch-article2014
IJM0010.1177/0255761413515818International Journal of Music Educationde Vries

Research Article

International Journal of

Music without a music specialist:

Music Education
2015, Vol. 33(2) 210­–221
© The Author(s) 2014
A primary school story Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0255761413515818
ijm.sagepub.com

Peter A. de Vries
Monash University, Australia

Abstract
This case study focuses on generalist primary (elementary) school teachers teaching music in an
Australian school. With the onus for teaching music moving away from the specialist music teacher
to the generalist classroom teacher, this case study adds to a growing body of literature focusing
on generalist primary school teachers and music teaching. Previous literature largely focuses on
these teachers self-reporting regarding their teaching of music. This case study aimed to identify
what factors facilitate the teaching of music and the kinds of music teaching occurring in the school
through interviews and observations of generalist teachers teaching music. Singing was core to
the teaching of music by the generalist teachers, who valued a sequential and developmental
approach to music teaching. The role of the school principal was key in supporting this music
teaching, both financially and personally, as was music professional development attended by the
teachers. Working as members of a community of practice, these teachers were able to articulate
a shared vision of music education in their school.

Keywords
Generalist primary teacher, school principal, professional development, singing

The focus of this article is the provision of music education in one primary (elementary) school
where a music specialist is not employed to teach music. Rather, music is taught by (some) general-
ist classroom teachers. The issue of generalist teachers teaching music in the primary school is a
significant contemporary issue for music education, as the onus for teaching music is moving in
many cases from the specialist music teacher to the generalist classroom teacher (Holden & Button,
2006; Russell-Bowie, 2009; Wiggins & Wiggins, 2008). The case study school in this article is a
public school located in Australia, a country where there have been inconsistent approaches to the
teaching of music in primary schools. Independent schools often employ specialist music teachers,
yet many public schools do not (Russell-Bowie, 2010; Walker, 2009). Even within the public

Corresponding author:
Peter A. de Vries, Monash University, McMahons road, Frankston, VIC 3199, Australia.
Email: Peter.devries@monash.edu

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de Vries 211

school sector in Australia there is significant variation from state to state. In the state of Queensland,
for example, nearly 90% of public primary schools employ a music specialist (DETA, 2009–2012),
yet in other states generalist teachers generally have responsibility for teaching music (Letts, 2007).
Reviews into the provision of music education in Australian schools have called for music in the
primary school to be taught by music specialists due to their specialist skills (Bartle, 1968; Pascoe
et al., 2005). However, there have been significant barriers to this occurring, namely decreasing
funding of arts-related programs in schools (Russell-Bowie, 2009) and a shortage of suitably quali-
fied primary school music specialists (Jeanneret, 2006; Pascoe et al., 2005). With this in mind, the
responsibility for teaching music in the primary school will often lie with the generalist teacher.
Research focusing on generalists teaching music in the primary school has predominantly focused
on what impedes generalists from teaching quality music lessons (Bresler, 1993; de Vries, 2011;
Garvis & Pendergast, 2010; Holden & Button, 2006; Mills, 1989; Pascoe et al., 2005; Russell-
Bowie, 2009; Stake, Bresler, & Mabry, 1991; Wiggins & Wiggins, 2008). What are lacking in the
literature are examples of generalist teachers embracing the teaching of quality music in their
classrooms. This is the focus of the current case study, which aims to identify what factors facilitate
the teaching of music by generalist teachers and the kinds of music teaching occurring in the
school.

Literature review
As previously indicated, Australian reviews of school music education (Bartle, 1968; Pascoe et al.,
2005) have recommended that specialist music teachers are best placed to teach music in primary
schools, rather than generalist primary teachers. This mirrors the general consensus of research
both nationally and internationally that generalist primary teachers are not as capable of teaching
music as specialists. Research has revealed the substandard teaching of music by generalist pri-
mary teachers where music is frequently little more than an afterthought to be added to other areas
of the curriculum or as part of an assembly or concert item (e.g. Bresler, 1993; Wiggins & Wiggins,
2008), generalist teachers indicating they lack the confidence and skills to teach music (e.g. Alter
et al., 2009; de Vries, 2011; Garvis & Pendergast, 2010; Holden & Button, 2006; Wiggins &
Wiggins, 2008), and generalist primary teachers believing that music should be taught by a music
specialist (de Vries, 2011; Hash, 2009; Saunders & Baker, 1991).
Those who do advocate for generalist primary school teachers to be teaching music do so
because they believe this demonstrates to children that music is an important and core part of
schooling. In addition, the generalist has multiple opportunities for teaching music throughout
the week, as the generalist teacher works with their class daily (Glover & Ward, 1993; Mills,
1989). This also means the generalist teacher is in a position to ensure that music is integrated
across the curriculum. Russell-Bowie (2012) points to the benefits of an integrated approach to
curriculum involving music, leading to enhanced meaningful and holistic learning experiences
for students.
However, generalist teachers need to have the skills, knowledge, and confidence to teach music
if they are to do so in an authentic way. To date, research focusing on preservice generalist teachers
and practicing generalist teachers reveals that the teaching of music is problematic. These teachers
see themselves as not being musical—that is, not having a musical background and the skills
required to teach music (Hennessy, 2000; Holden & Button, 2006; Russell-Bowie, 2002; Seddon
& Biasutti, 2008; Wiggins & Wiggins, 2008). Such issues should be addressed in preservice teacher
education courses, but the problem is that there is a lack of adequate time devoted to music educa-
tion in generalist preservice teacher education courses (Alter et al., 2009; de Vries, 2011; Hallam
et al., 2009; Holden & Button, 2006; Russell-Bowie, 2009). Therefore, when these teachers

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212 International Journal of Music Education 33(2)

graduate, they do not feel ready to teach music. In addition to this major setback, research also
reveals further obstacles to generalist primary teachers teaching music, such as lack of available
time to teach music (de Vries 2011; Pascoe et al., 2005; Russell-Bowie, 2009, 2002), inadequate
resources (de Vries, 2011; Garvis & Pendergast, 2010; Power & Klopper, 2011; Russell-Bowie,
2009), and lack of music education-related professional development opportunities (de Vries,
2011; Garvis & Pendergast, 2010; Holden & Button, 2006; Power & Klopper, 2011).
The fact that so many of these studies come from Australia (Alter et al., 2009; de Vries, 2011;
Garvis & Pendergast, 2010; Pascoe et al., 2005; Power & Klopper, 2011; Russell-Bowie, 2002,
2009) suggests that the issues surrounding generalist teachers teaching music are not only prob-
lematic, but of sufficient importance to require addressing at a national level. Interestingly, Russell-
Bowie’s (2009) study of preservice teacher perceptions about teaching music across five
countries—Australia, Namibia, South Africa, USA, Ireland—revealed that Australia had the low-
est percentage of respondents “who felt that elementary schools both should, and actually do, give
a high priority to music education” (p. 32). Australian studies focusing on practicing generalist
primary teachers also revealed teachers experienced a general lack of support for music and the
arts, with a greater focus on English and mathematics (Alter et al., 2009; de Vries, 2011; Garvis &
Pendergast, 2010). Yet music is a discipline within the arts that is part of mandated curriculum both
at the state level and the national level (the latter as evidenced in the draft Australian Curriculum:
The Arts Foundation to Year 10, 2012). Therefore if a school does not employ a specialist teacher
to teach music, the generalist teacher should be teaching music. While the literature cited reveals
the many obstacles to this happening, there is a need for research to begin to uncover ways that
schools that do not employ a specialist music teacher are delivering music education successfully
and how they are overcoming the obstacles identified in previous research. This case study is an
example of one school endeavoring to do this.

Research design
Research focusing on generalist primary school music teaching has largely been self-reported,
through surveys or interviews (see de Vries, 2011; Holden & Button, 2006; Power & Klopper,
2011; Garvis & Pendergast, 2010). Power and Klopper (2011) and Wiggins and Wiggins (2008)
have called for more research that actually focuses on generalist classroom teachers teaching
music, through researcher observations of this teaching. Wiggins and Wiggins (2008) did this
through observing 21 teachers teaching 25 classes that featured music teaching. Nearly two dec-
ades earlier Stake, Bresler, and Mabry (1991) conducted eight case studies of arts education in
eight American schools, utilizing not only interview data but observational data to determine what
actual teaching was occurring in classrooms.
This instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) continues in this tradition. The phenomenon being
explored is the teaching of music by generalist primary school teachers, which is observed over
time and documented. The case study takes a phenomenological approach, focusing on the lived
experiences (van Manen, 1990) of the teachers teaching music in the school. That is, the research
focuses on how the teachers understand their teaching of music.
The case study site was identified by a preservice teacher in an arts education class I was teach-
ing at university. This preservice teacher had just returned from a two-week practicum at the school
and indicated the school had a strong music program despite not having a musical specialist. The
school principal was contacted (following university ethics approval) and I was invited to a school
staff meeting to explain what the research would entail, namely observations of music teaching and
interviews with the teachers teaching music. Of the nine teachers at the school, five agreed to par-
ticipate in the project. The school principal also agreed to be interviewed.

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de Vries 213

I spent one day a week in the school throughout one term of the school year (ten weeks). Each
day consisted of observations of music teaching and interviews with teachers. In the first week
individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with all five teachers and the school princi-
pal. These interviews focused on teachers describing the music teaching being done in their class-
rooms, why they taught music, and what facilitated their teaching of music. In subsequent weeks
interviews were less formal and were frequently done immediately after observations so I could
capture teachers’ responses to their music teaching. All interviews were audio recorded. The obser-
vations of music teaching ranged from 15 minute sessions in the prep class through to the weekly
1.5 hour sessions that occurred weekly with the grade 5 and 6 classes. Interview transcripts and
written lesson observations were given to the teachers for verification. The data underwent con-
stant comparative analysis as it was collected (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). This inductive approach
to analysis resulted in the emergence of themes that were refined as additional data was collected.
To begin with a case description of the music teaching occurring in the school will be presented.
Following this analysed data will be presented as a series of themes. All names of participants are
pseudonyms.

Teachers teaching music

The case study primary school is located in an outer suburb of an Australian city. The principal,
Bill, describes the school as “being rural ten years ago,” but says with recent urban sprawl “we’ve
become one of the ’burbs [suburbs].” There are 193 students enrolled at the school. There are nine
classes, from prep to grade 6, with nine teaching staff and 16 staff members in total. The school
principal indicated that the school does not employ any specialist teachers due to the financial
burden this would place on such a small school. Recently the school had a multi-purpose room
built on the school site. This building is used by the grade 5 and grade 6 teachers on Wednesday
afternoons for teaching music to their classes.
The five teachers who volunteered to be part of the case study are the five teachers that the
school principal identified as teachers in his school who “regularly teach music.” These teachers
are the two prep teachers, the grade 4 teacher, the grade 5 teacher, and the grade 6 teacher. The
grade 1 teacher, a grade 2 teacher, grade 2/3 teacher, and grade 3 teacher did not wish to participate
in the study.
The two prep teachers have classrooms next to each other. Caroline has been teaching for seven
years and Lisa for three years. Both have a similar approach to music in their classrooms. Whole-
class singing features at the beginning of the school day. Children sit in a circle with their respec-
tive teachers. Although in different classes, the repertoire across both classes is similar, featuring a
range of mainly traditional children’s songs such as See Saw, Bounce High, Teddy Bear, Bingo,
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and This Old Man. Songs are sung a capella and with actions, and both
teachers have the children not only singing songs but also keeping the beat and clapping the rhyth-
mic patterns of songs, with the simpler songs focusing on solfa names and hand signs (i.e., soh-mi-
lah songs). Lisa, although not having experienced “Kodaly” during her teacher training, came to
teaching having experienced music classes in her own primary and lower secondary schooling
using Kodaly-based teaching. As Caroline was already teaching music in this way, when Lisa
began teaching at the school she “started doing it too and I’ve never looked back.” As well as
beginning each day with a 10–15-minute music session, both teachers frequently ended the school
day with singing as well, often featuring songs with games, such as Lucy Lockett, Kangaroo and
Alison’s Camel. Lisa commented, “Ending the day with some music games is always a good way
to finish in a positive, fun way.” Along with singing, the teachers were also observed providing
opportunities for listening to and responding to recorded music through movement. The teachers

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214 International Journal of Music Education 33(2)

used sound recordings of The Carnival of the Animals and some contemporary children’s popular
music (i.e., the song Walk the Dinosaur). Caroline also used music on two occasions when reading
picture books to her class.
The grade 4 teacher, Theresa, has been teaching for 11 years. She teaches her class music in
the third and fourth terms only (the school year having four terms), “so we can really get into
music intensively.” Theresa has a 20–30 minute singing session each week. This generally cent-
ers on children singing songs from “my collection of ABC Sing books.” The ABC (Australian
Broadcasting Corporation) annually releases a songbook for primary school-aged students.
Featuring approximately 50 songs, the annual songbooks have a range of repertoire, spanning
traditional children’s songs, Aboriginal/Torres Strait Island songs, songs from other cultures,
folk, jazz, showtunes, raps written for children, and contemporary popular songs. The songbooks
can also be purchased with accompanying CDs, featuring sound recordings of all songs per-
formed for a primary school audience (i.e. recordings frequently feature primary school-aged
children singing). Singing sessions featured children singing songs they had learnt from these
books as well as being introduced to new repertoire. Children learnt the songs through repeated
listening to the CDs while following the musical score in the songbooks. Once songs were learnt,
Theresa would often suddenly turn the volume down on the CD player and the children would
have to continue singing, unaccompanied. She would then turn up the volume at a later point, “to
see if they had been singing in time.” The singing sessions would also feature Theresa asking
questions about the music notation used in the songbooks, such as letter names of notes, rhyth-
mic value of notes, and the meaning of time signatures. She did this “to support the notation
reading” children did when learning the recorder.
All children owned a recorder, which Theresa had been teaching in class. She taught two
20–30-minute recorder sessions per week using a recorder tutor book. Children were also given
“recorder homework” each week from the tutor book. Theresa employed not only whole-class
teaching but also small-group and peer-to-peer teaching, acknowledging that children came to the
recorder with “different ability levels.” The children learnt a repertoire of songs, “some of which
they go on to play in grade 5 and 6 on guitar and keyboard.” Theresa also had the children compose
their own music on recorder and notate it.
The grade 5 and grade 6 teachers team-teach music once a week on Wednesday afternoons for
an hour and a half. Gina, the grade 5 teacher, has been teaching for 16 years. Tom, the grade 6
teacher, has been teaching for five years. The school principal described them as “the dynamic
music duo.” He went on to say that “what they do is amazing, I’ve never seen music done so well
in all my years as a principal.” The music sessions begin with both classes together, where they
sing for 20–25 minutes. Gina plays piano and Tom guitar during this singing, with both teachers
teaching the songs, generally phrase by phrase. Some songs are taught with the aid of sheet music
provided to children, others just with song lyrics provided to the children. Song repertoire was
mainly popular music—both contemporary (Coldplay’s Clocks, Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to
Know) and older (Chubby Checker’s Let’s Twist Again, The Beatles’ Let it Be)—along with music
written specifically for older primary school-aged children (Hey You by Susie Davis-Splitter) and
Schubert’s Ave Maria. Sessions always began with vocal warm-ups and singing simple rounds
such as Frere Jacques and Kookaburra.
Following this, children pursued a range of musical activities over the term. These activities
were led not only by the two teachers, but also by parents (each week there were between two and
four parents) and on occasion the school principal. These activities included learning the guitar, the
ukulele, the electronic keyboard, and percussion instruments, and choreographing songs. In the
final two weeks of term the two classes came together and worked on instrumental and vocal
arrangements of two songs, Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over and the Christmas song Jingle

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de Vries 215

Bell Rock, featuring class members performing on guitars, ukuleles, keyboards, and percussion,
with some students also dancing and singing.
During the music sessions, children were also engaged in music composition, beginning with
improvisation activities. This occurred over a 12-bar blues and other chord sequences taken from
songs that had been learnt in class. This led to children then composing music on the software
GarageBand. Tom led the teaching of how to use this software over a two-week period before
children, in groups, worked on a group composition project in which they had to take the melody
of a known song or piece of music and rework it with at least four different musical instruments on
GarageBand.

Singing is central to music education

Singing is a core component of music education for all those teachers teaching music in the school.
This stems from staff beliefs about the value of singing. Caroline and Lisa both agreed that singing
is something that all prep children can do. “Playing a musical instrument is not something you
could teach every Preppie,” commented Lisa, “but singing is—all children have a voice and they
all have done singing before coming to us.” Caroline spoke of the Kodaly philosophy about singing
being the basis for all music making, “so that’s what we do, we focus on the voice.”
Although the grade 4 teacher, Theresa, spoke frequently in interviews about the value of teach-
ing children the recorder, she also believed in the value of singing: “It’s something that stays with
children for life if they’re given the opportunity to learn songs at school … I still remember and
sing songs I learnt in primary school. And everyone has a voice and you’ve got it for life.” Gina
and Tom (grades 5 and 6) mirrored the latter sentiment. Gina added: “Singing sets the children up
for all the other music we do, it develops their ear so they can then go on and hear a song and play
it on whatever instrument they might be learning.” Tom also pointed to the current value of singing
in popular culture: “All of my class are into the singing [TV] shows, The X Factor, The Voice …
they want to sing because of these shows, because it’s cool. So we play off that.”
Although the prep teachers predominantly focused on traditional children’s songs, the other
teachers also stressed the importance of having children sing a range of different repertoire.
Theresa commented that using the ABC Sing books helped with this, as each songbook spanned
a wide variety of musical genres. Tom admitted that with singing “we do a lot of pop songs, old
and new … but we do sneak in some other music. I mean we’re doing Ave Maria which is clas-
sical but the kids love it because they did it on [the TV program] Glee.” He spoke of feeling
responsible for exposing children to a wider range of songs than they might be exposed to at
home: “It’s broadening their musical experience, hopefully getting them excited and into all
sorts of music.”
All five teachers not only had children singing songs, but also focused on what Theresa described
as “good singing practice.” When asked what this is, she explained that all five teachers teaching
music in the school had attended a professional development session on teaching singing that
focused on good singing practice, which included warming up the voice prior to singing, posture,
breathing, improving pitch accuracy, and enunciation. Observations of each of the teachers teach-
ing singing revealed a focus on each of these areas. Lisa commented that she had not focused on
these aspects of singing prior to attending the professional development session.

Music education is sequential and developmental

The teachers view music education as an ongoing endeavor in their classrooms rather than a series
of ad hoc music experiences. Theresa commented, “I plan what I do in music just as I plan in

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216 International Journal of Music Education 33(2)

literacy or any other subject area. Each learning experience builds on previous experiences.”
Caroline added, “It would be easy to just play music games—which can be great fun—and sing the
occasional song but that’s not a music program.” Caroline identified her music program as being
“sequential and developmental.” The other teachers mirrored this thinking. Gina said, “It’s about
building on a range of music experiences and building up skills to play and listen and create music.
It can’t be random activities.”
In both prep classrooms I witnessed the teachers teach children new songs to introduce the solfa
syllable “lah” into the children’s musical vocabulary. Previously, when singing songs in solfa, they
had only done so with “soh” and “mi” songs. Caroline explained, “Next up we introduce ‘doh’ …
and with the rhythmic time names they already know ta and ti, but we’ll focus on sah [one beat rest]
in songs soon.” She went on to say that it was a “crying shame” that all this work would not be
continued when the children go into grade 1 because the grade 1 teacher “doesn’t do music, at least
not like we do.”
Over a ten-week period this focus on sequential and developmental music teaching was also
apparent in the grades 4, 5, and 6 classrooms. It was particularly prevalent in Theresa’s teaching of
the recorder, where she aimed to cover “one page in the [tutor] book each week.” She explained
that she liked this particular book because it “logically introduced new notes, new rhythms.” Gina
and Tom, although having less structured music sessions than Theresa, still demonstrated a com-
mitment to sequential, developmental music teaching. This was witnessed in the way instrumental
teaching occurred from week to week, where children gradually built on a range of skills to play
the ukulele, guitar, and keyboard. Similarly in composition, children began with simple improvisa-
tions which built in complexity from week to week.

Performing is valued but is not the sole focus of music education

Music was celebrated in the school through a range of performances. These included school assem-
bly performances and a music afternoon where parents were invited to attend an hour-long concert
that some of the grade 6 children had programmed and organized. Tom in particular was looking
forward to the end-of-year performance of Jingle Bell Rock in the school’s annual Christmas con-
cert because it would have the preps, as well as grade 5 and 6 children, performing. He said it
should be “a showcase for what we do—the parents are going to love it.”
Although the school principal indicated that he believed music performances were good for the
school’s image, he valued what went on “behind the scenes, in the classrooms” just as much:
“Parents tell me how much their children enjoy their music, the day-to-day music.” Lisa and
Caroline both stressed this as well. Lisa said, “For our children it’s not about ‘performing’, it’s
about doing and enjoying music every day, it’s a part of their lives.” Caroline indicated that if the
preps performed their singing in public more often than they did (once during the 10 weeks), it
would be likely to stress some of the children: “I had one little one in my class who loves to sing,
but when she stood up [on assembly] she just froze, she was so scared.” Theresa also indicated that
performing was something that not all children enjoy: “It’s just not for some children, yet I know
of a couple in mine [my class] who enjoy their singing and recorder, but you couldn’t get them up
and performing to an audience—at least not without some kind of incentive … so for me perform-
ing music is not something I worry about.”

School principal support for music education

Bill, the school principal, was viewed by all five teachers as playing a key role in ensuring music
education occurred in their classrooms. “He’s been incredibly supportive of music and of us

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de Vries 217

teaching music,” commented Tom. The teachers identified his support for music education in terms
of financial support and his personal support. In terms of financial support, teachers identified him
providing money to purchase a range of musical instruments, including 12 guitars, 12 ukuleles, and
eight electronic keyboards, as being a key driver for the grade 5/6 music program. “We wouldn’t
be doing what we do without those instruments, and they aren’t cheap,” Gina commented. All
teachers also indicated that Bill had agreed to pay for the music professional development they had
undertaken. “I know that money for PD is limited, so to spend some on music, rather than other
higher priorities, was something special,” said Theresa.
As valuable as this financial support was, it was Bill’s personal support for music education
which the teachers particularly valued. Tom commented, “He [Bill] comes to our music [class] a
lot, and doesn’t just pop his head in. He gets involved, he works with the kids. He’s not a bad little
guitar player and the kids love it when he shows them something new [on the guitar].” The teachers
also indicated that Bill frequently wrote about what was happening in the school’s music programs
in the school newsletter. Gina commented that this was an excellent way to help parents see the
value in music, because “[the parents] respect him so will listen to what he says.”

Professional development
Music education professional development was viewed as being crucial to the teachers’ teaching
of music. “I don’t think we’d be doing what we are doing now if it wasn’t for those first two PDs
we [Gina and Tom] did together,” commented Gina. “[Tom and I] both had taught music and
believed it should be taught, but those PDs helped to really, I don’t know, frame or structure what
we should be doing.” Both Gina and Tom spoke of approaching the teaching of music prior to
attending these PDs as being heavily influenced by their own respective music backgrounds. Gina
had learnt classical piano in a studio-based setting as a teenager. Tom, however, had never “for-
mally learnt music,” but had learnt the guitar and drums from peers and had played in two amateur
rock bands in his late teens. “So we were coming from different ends of the music spectrum,” Gina
commented. “What the PDs did was put us on the same page. We both changed what we had been
doing [teaching music].” Gina described the PDs as being heavily influenced by the Orff philoso-
phy of music education: “They got us focusing on children singing, moving to music, and using
instruments. We’ve gone our own way with the types of instruments we use, but we’ve followed
the principles we learnt from the PD.”
Tom and Gina reported back to the rest of the staff about these two PDs. This is common prac-
tice in the school when staff members attend a PD; they are expected to share with others what they
have learnt. As a result of this sharing with staff, Theresa, Caroline, and Lisa expressed an interest
in attending a music PD. They, along with Tom and Gina, attended a PD session focusing on sing-
ing in the primary school. Caroline commented: “Having all of us going to that [PD] was really
good, we did it together and then back at school we were able to support each other because we’d
all experienced it.” Tom said, “That got us all doing music from a similar mindset, the focus on
singing.”
All five teachers also spoke of the importance of doing their own research about music educa-
tion. “Reading a journal article is considered PD these days, it’s another way of learning and
improving what we do,” said Tom, who had read a number of articles about music technology, and
in particular GarageBand, prior to using the program with his students. Theresa spoke of using the
internet to research background information about songs she taught her class from the ABC Sing
books: “This is really good in backgrounding the songs and also can lead to other curriculum
links.” She spoke of learning more about the song Java Jive (which her class had enjoyed singing)
on the internet: “I’d never heard of the group the Ink Spots who sang the song back in the 1940s.”

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218 International Journal of Music Education 33(2)

This resulted in a class exploration of popular music in the 1940s, “which got us then researching
the Second World War, which had a real influence on music at that time.”

Working together
Undertaking professional development together led to the five teachers working together to imple-
ment music education for their children. “We bonded on that day [the PD] by singing together,”
Tom commented, smiling. “So we help each other out whenever we can.” For Tom this meant
going to Theresa’s recorder lessons twice during the school term, where he would play his guitar
while the children played recorder. Bill, the school principal, again demonstrated his support for
music by remaining with Tom’s class while he went to Theresa’s classroom. Theresa commented,
“The children love having the guitar playing, so they look forward to Tom coming, they are that
much more motivated to be ready to play.” Caroline and Lisa were also enthusiastic about their
classes being involved with the grade 5 and 6 classes to perform Jingle Bell Rock. Caroline said,
“We’ve started learning the song and the children are really looking forward to being with the older
children and singing with them. We’ll all learn a lot doing that together.”
Working together also meant that the teachers engaged in, or were intending to engage in, peer
learning that focuses on music. Theresa indicated that she was going to work with Tom to learn
how to use GarageBand: “I’d like to use it next year now that I’ve seen what Tom has been getting
his kids to do with it—it’s amazing.” In turn, Theresa had provided Tom with some repertoire sug-
gestions for his class: “These were songs that were too hard for the grade 4s, but I thought they
would be good for his [grade] sixers.” Gina had been helping Tom over the past two years with
reading music notation. Tom said, “It’s not formal or anything, but when we do singing with the
children and they’ve got sheet music I’m learning as the children are learning, and that’s all led by
Gina.” Lisa also spoke of the ongoing help she had from Caroline when it came to learning new
songs that she would then teach to her children: “She’d give me the words and I’d listen to her sing
with her children and then go and try it myself with my class.” Caroline indicated that she also got
music teaching ideas from Lisa: “She finds lots of really good kids’ pop songs for movement and
games, songs I don’t always know.” Lisa stressed that she and Caroline “plan together—not just
music, but music too. We’ve got a pretty clear vision about what we want to achieve in music by
the end of the year.” Gina and Tom also plan their music sessions together. “We’ve got to,|” com-
mented Gina, “because there’s so much going on, particularly when parents come in and help. We
need to be really clear about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. So each week
we sit down and nut that out.”

A shared vision for music education

The five teachers and the school principal shared a vision for music education. That is, they viewed
music as being a core part of the curriculum and that all children should have access to music edu-
cation. Gina commented, “Personally, I don’t think it should be something that only some teachers
teach. Everyone can teach music and should teach music. I think that we’ve come to a point now
in this school when we’ve got a lot of teachers now teaching music and who are willing to work
with others [teachers] who might not have that experience.” I asked Gina if approaches about
music education had been made to the other teachers in the school. She replied, “Yes, we’ve made
offers but so far they haven’t been taken up.” When I asked Bill, the school principal, about this,
he agreed with what Gina had said. He explained, “I’ve got some teachers who aren’t prepared to
teach music, at least not to the level that the others do. I’m not pushing it this year because we’ve
had some other issues to deal with, but next year it will be addressed at a whole level.” One of the

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de Vries 219

strategies that he intends to employ to get this whole-school involvement in teaching music is to
schedule a music professional development session at the school, which all teachers would be
expected to attend.
Tom was positive that other teachers would “come around” to teaching music: “When they see
what music does for their children I think they’ll be sold. The children are engaged, they really look
forward to music.” Others agreed, saying that the issue of student engagement was a real benefit of
music education. “That’s why we believe that all children should have music,” said Theresa, “not
just some, like in so many schools where you only get music if you pay for lessons. That’s just
wrong, inequitable.” Bill indicated that the staff had recently discussed the possibility of introduc-
ing paid instrumental music lessons at the school, but the majority had indicated they did not want
this as it would be inequitable. “That push came from Theresa, Tom and Gina,” he said. Gina
admitted this was true: “Sure, because I guess I felt that if we did this then those teachers not teach-
ing music now would think they had music covered, even though I know you wouldn’t get all
children paying for music lessons. This way, if we all teach music, all children get music.”

Conclusion
This case study sought to identify the kinds of music teaching occurring in one school and the fac-
tors that facilitated the teaching of music. Music teaching in the school was occurring in some
classrooms. Singing was central to this music teaching, but there were a range of other ways in
which children engaged with music making beyond singing. Singing was privileged because of
teachers’ beliefs about the value of singing, and because it uses the voice, an instrument all children
have. This is not surprising, as singing is acknowledged as being an integral part of general primary
music teaching (Abril, 2007; Heyning, 2011), and in Australia classroom music education has
historically been dominated by singing (Temmerman, 1991). The music teaching occurring in the
classrooms was sequential and developmental, defying the trend of music in generalist classrooms
which is frequently ad hoc, often with a sole focus on preparing for school concerts and assemblies
(Bresler, 1993; Stake, Bresler, & Mabry, 1991; Wiggins & Wiggins, 2008). Although performance
was valued in music education, the teachers and school principal placed equal value on the music
learning occurring in the day-to-day classroom.
The five teachers teaching music had a commitment to music education in their classrooms.
However, the role of the school principal in supporting music education was key to ensuring music
education occurred, both through financial support for music education and through his own per-
sonal support. The pivotal role that principals have in the provision of music education in primary
schools, particularly in terms of financial support for music education, has been noted elsewhere
(de Vries 2011; Garvis & Pendergast, 2010). The teachers identified professional development in
music education as being key to the success of their music teaching, and something that they felt
they needed to access to teach music successfully. Unfortunately research reveals that generalist
teachers frequently do not have access to professional development in music (Garvis & Pendergast,
2010; Holden & Button, 2006; Power & Klopper, 2011), or if they do they have to finance it them-
selves (Conway et al., 2005). Of particular interest was that teachers identified doing PD together
as being beneficial. This led to the teachers working together in what can be viewed as a commu-
nity of practice. A community of practice involves a group of people with a shared domain of inter-
est (Wenger, 2007), in this case music education, pursuing a common interest—that is, teaching
music, helping each other, sharing information as a group of practitioners. In a community of
practice members make meaning through participation, in this case participation in music profes-
sional development, and then working together to support each other in their music teaching. As is
common in communities of practice, members have varying degrees of expertise (Lave & Wenger,

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220 International Journal of Music Education 33(2)

1991), but rather than learning in a master–novice dyad involving just two people, the community
works as a whole where members learn from each other as they work together. This was clearly the
case with the five teachers, where there was no one “master” music educator. Rather, participants
brought quite different levels of expertise in music teaching that was shared. In working together
in a community of practice, the teachers had a shared vision for music education which they could
articulate.
The five teachers demonstrate that generalist primary school teachers can and are willing to
teach music if provided with an environment that facilitates this teaching. The challenge for the
case study school now is moving forward so that all teachers in the school are prepared to teach
music like the five teachers currently doing so. With a shared vision for music education in the
school in place, with the current expertise of those teachers teaching music and their willingness to
work with other teachers, and with the support for music education by the school principal, the
climate is right to engage other teachers in the school in teaching music—that is, inviting these
teachers to be part of a community of practice that is teaching music. These teachers may well start
as peripheral participants in this community (Lave & Wenger, 1991), as they will be new to the
practice of music teaching, but through participation in the community they will have the opportu-
nity to move to full participation when engaging actively in the community (Wenger, 1998).
Although this is a single case, there are possible implications for primary schools where there is
no specialist music teacher. First, the role of the school principal in ensuring that generalist teach-
ers teach music is paramount, through supporting music education both financially and personally.
Second, professional development in music is also key in ensuring that generalist teachers teach
music, particularly, as in this case, where teachers attend professional development together. This
resulted in teachers continuing to share and support each other in their music education and music
teaching as members of a community of practice, with a shared vision of music education for the
school. Although there are likely to be a range of factors that impact on whether generalist teachers
in other schools teach music or not, these two key factors have the potential to overcome generalist
primary school teachers’ reluctance to teach music.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.

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