Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Literature Review

Michael Canon

Oregon State University

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In the most broad sense, technology has been permeating the human world ever since the

first ancestors to humans used a sharpened stick. While this stick may not have the type of

advancement we think of when considering technology, this is a tool used to help maximize

efficiency. Fast forward to today, the modern human living in a modern city wakes up by alarm

to get out of their house to drive a motorized vehicle to their job that wouldn’t even exist if it

weren’t for the rapid advancement of technology brought on by the industrial revolution. Human

lives are improved because of new technology. Technological advancement to this degree also

includes settings like our school system.

Schools have steadily been increasing usage of technology in the classroom. Not only are

classes being taught that address computer usage, there are also advancements in classroom tech.

Chalkboards progress to whiteboards, wheeled projectors progress to static computer projectors.

Instead of using thick and expensive texts, many courses have begun offering online resources

whose only requirement is an internet connection. Technology has made an efficient general

classroom, but the music classroom has comparatively fallen behind. Math classrooms use online

computational software to make graphs, plot points and create charts, but the most use that the

music classroom gets out of technology in most cases is daily access to sight reading material.

This has created a vacuum; how exactly could the music classroom use technology in a modern

approach? One of these ideas is to increase the use of technology in new classes entirely.

Multiple authors have suggested the idea of creating general classrooms that focus on

music technology. Tobias (2012) suggests that a songwriting course using computer software is a

viable option. In his study, six groups formed in a “Songwriting & Technology” class were

observed and interviewed to assess their engagement with music through compositional
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software, which showed a strong motivation for students to grapple with compositional tools

through this medium. The courses that allow students to express musical creativity through a

new medium suggest that the fundamental principle of music education today-- to instill a

lifelong positive relationship with music-- can be practiced through newer mediums. Students

have access to music software containing thousands of songs that can be played for them

individually anywhere they go. Crow (2006) believes that the use of looping software in musical

settings garners musical expression. Crow writes that when students use loop-based sequencers

“[t]heir choices engage them in rhythmic structures (beats), instrumental and vocal timbres, the

musical role and function of instruments, the expressive nature of sound and its placement,

repetition and dynamic contrast, form and texture.” These ideas converge on the concept that

students critically engage while utilizing music software in ways that might be more in-depth

compositionally than that of standard notation.

There is disagreement when dealing with the levels of each learning environment to be

used between in-person and online learning. Partti & Karlsen (2010) suggest that students use

online forum interactivity to grow skills associated with the building of a music brand, but

doesn’t specify how much of the physical classroom should be used in this format. This is in

contrast to Renée Crawford (2017), who writes that there must be an equal amount of

online-learning and in-person learning in order to make this transition. I think there needs to be a

connecting point from technological music to contemporary classroom music, and one of the

ways to accomplish this might be using a shared space in order to bring the classes and

methodologies physically closer. This might encourage student cooperation between these

classes.
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Researchers are careful to tow the line between developing new skills and economizing

education. Jonathan Savage (2005) writes that the modern curricula for music in education does

not set up students for commercial success in his study focusing on an electronic music artist

named Alex. Savage interviews Alex about his time in school music, to which Alex responds

that his music education went horribly. Even still, Alex is a commercially successful musician,

which implies that there is a severe disconnect between what we teach and what music

consumers want out of public musicians. In a study by Partti and Karlsen (2010), a Finnish

online music forum was observed in order to assess the educational value that any one user can

attain solely from an online space. This forum allowed users to create profiles, submit music

files, chat, and build communities surrounding different musical concepts and practices (Partti &

Karlsen 2010).There are extra-musical skills that are being examined in the modern music

market. There is a place for the creation of professional identities for use with music marketing

that can be implemented in the classroom in a manner similar to interacting with online forums.

Overall, there is general agreement with little exact direction over the concept of

technological implementation. Each researcher seemed to have an idea of their own music

classroom, but there is no real consensus on the specifications of room usage, online usage, or

even structural format of the class. The future of music education and technology is uncertain,

but there seems to be a strong will to implement more modern musical approaches in some way.
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Sources:

Tobias, E.S. (2012). Hybrid spaces and hyphenated musicians: secondary students’ musical
engagement in a songwriting and technology course. Music Education Research, 14(3),
329-346.

Crow, B. (2006). Musical creativity and the new technology. Music Education Research, 8(1),
121-130.

Savage, J. (2005, March 31). Information communication technologies as a tool for re-imagining
music education in the 21st century. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 6(2).

Crawford, R. (2017). Rethinking teaching and learning pedagogy for education in the
twenty-first century: blended learning in music education. Music Education Research,
19(2), 195-213.

Partti, H., Karlsen, S. (2010). Reconceptualising musical learning: new media, identity and
community in music education. Music Education Research. 12(4), 369-382.