FORMAL AND INFORMAL MUSIC

EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES
PHIL JENKINS
Marywood University
pjenkins@maryu.marywood.edu

Informal instructional approaches have long been an important component

of a complete education in general and of music education in particular. But
informal approaches have often been subject to bandwagon over-enthusiasm,
with proponents inflating their virtues beyond what the concept appears to
warrant. In this paper I will, first, examine the theoretical underpinnings of
informal learning practices, and compare them to those of more formal learn-
ing practices to clarify what might be distinctive and valuable about using
informal instructional practices in formal music educational settings; second,
take a critical look at one empirical study in which informal learning prac-
tices were brought into the formal setting, examining some of the favorable
and unfavorable aspects of the methods used; and third, briefly argue that
informal instructional practices in music education can, along with formal
practices, contribute to the formation of an individual learner’s identity and
agency through engagement with music.

INFORMALITY AND FORMALITY

Informal instructional approaches have long been an important component
of a complete education in general and of music education in particular. Perhaps

© Philosophy of Music Education Review, 19, no. 2 (Fall 2011)

180 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

even more than formal practices, informal practices, when intelligently applied,
foster the capacity of a student to develop a self-identity with a distinct perspective
on the world. But approaches that have fallen under the banner of “informal”
have often have been subject to bandwagon over-enthusiasm, with proponents
inflating their virtues beyond what the concept appears to warrant. This paper
will be in three parts. First, I examine the theoretical underpinnings of informal
learning practices, and compare them to those of more formal learning practices
to clarify what might be distinctive and valuable about using informal instruc-
tional practices in formal music educational settings, while also examining how
the concept can be too easily misused. Second, I will take a critical look at one
empirical study in which informal learning practices were brought into the for-
mal setting, examining some of the positive and negative aspects of the methods
used. Third, I will briefly argue that informal instructional practices in music
education can, along with formal practices, contribute to the formation of an
individual learner’s identity and agency through engagement with music.
During the course of the paper I will make certain assumptions about music
education philosophy. In light of this, it is only fair that I briefly outline the basic
educational philosophy, and especially the music educational philosophy, that I
espouse. A complete education should try, in my view, to contribute to an indi-
vidual’s ability to 1) exercise autonomous judgments in particular contexts, and
2) use that judgment-making ability to enhance the living experiences of oneself
and others. In this paper, my overall aim will be to lay some of the philosophical
groundwork upon which to justify the incorporation of informal learning prac-
tices into formal educational settings.
Four often conflated terms should be clarified. By learning I mean to indicate
the gradual acquisition of some skill or body of knowledge. By formal and infor-
mal instructional strategy I mean those methods used to bring about learning.
Formal or informal learning then would be that which occurs to an individual
when knowledge or know-how is acquired as a result of the use of a formal or in-
formal instructional approach. By formal and informal contexts or settings I mean
those environments where the given instructional strategy characteristically takes
place. By formal and informal education I mean the collection of those activities
in a particular environment that bring about formal and informal learning. Fi-
nally, I will use the terms practice, approach, method, and technique more or less
synonymously depending on the context.
Informal learning is nothing new; it is almost certainly older than formal learn-
ing. In fact, formal learning can be thought of as the attempt to refine, regulate,
and control certain aspects of informal learning. One ordinarily learns informally
how to use rudimentary language rules from one’s parents first, and then later
from others in the community, by struggling to make sense of one’s environment
 phil jenkins 181

and to get one’s needs met. Similarly, learning to walk, to use a spoon and bowl,
to tie one’s shoe, and to whistle, are ordinarily learned informally. Indeed, before
the age of about five, the learning all children do in Western cultures tends to
be informal.1 The term has been defined as “the lifelong process by which every
person acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills, attitudes, and insights from
daily experiences and exposure to the environment.”2
The following questions arise: If informal learning is so pervasive, why is there
a need for formal learning? Under what circumstances does a society need a
systematic approach to knowledge acquisition? No doubt, education is as old
as civilization. Societies in all times and all places must somehow impart col-
lective understandings to initiates.3 While much information and skill can be
delivered by family members and close associates on a case by case basis, in time,
efficiency would seem to dictate the need to develop more formal methods of
instruction. In addition, some skills would lend themselves to more informal ap-
proaches, for instance, stalking a tiger, building a fire, making a bed, and taking
part in religious ceremonies; while others seem more suited to formal methods,
for instance, advanced language use, cultural laws and customs, and guidelines
for settling disputes. Whenever the social good is perceived to be best served by
delivery of information in a systematic manner, formal instructional techniques
will be developed for the purpose.
Informal learning implies a self-motivated effort to reach competence in
some task or skill, using resources ready to hand in one’s everyday life. “The
emphasis is on the learner . . . the incentive for learning tends to be more imme-
diate and intrinsic to the activities themselves.”4 The contrasting concept would
of course be formal learning. In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, 11th Edi-
tion, “formal” is defined as “following or according with established form, cus-
tom, or rule.” “Informal,” by contrast, seems to imply a lack of constraints, where
one engages in an activity that is uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable. The
formal is safe; the informal dangerous. It is no wonder that formal instructional
approaches tend to be systematic and highly structured, conducted in more or
less rigidly controlled social institutions.
Formal learning is ordinarily implemented according to a plan or method
by a teacher who is generally associated with a socially sanctioned educational
institution, by means of which the student is to achieve certain planned goals
set by curricula devised by the teacher or institution overseeing the teacher’s
efforts.5 Of course, formal educational practices may be practiced in non-insti-
tutional settings. For instance, many young people today are home-schooled by
their parents or other family members, or a student might become both teacher
and student, formulating a curriculum for herself, and then implementing it. In
both cases the method is direct, and explicitly goal-oriented. However, formality
182 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

is most frequently found in institutions certified for the purpose. In the United
States for example, mathematics, biology, literature, and many other subjects are
almost always learned in formal educational settings, where the teacher presents
techniques for solving relatively simple problems, which the students are then
required to solve before proceeding to gradually more complex problems. This
leads to the mastery of a set group of skills and committing facts to memory as as-
sessed by passing tests, and in some cases can result in a deep understanding and
appreciation of a body of knowledge that can last a lifetime.
Two characteristics of informal learning that suggest themselves upon exami-
nation of some of the examples given earlier are whether the knowledge or skill is
context-sensitive and/or experience-dependent. For instance, the methods and pro-
cedures for building a fire will vary across contexts. What kind of wood should be
gathered, how to arrange it, what combustibles to use to get the flame going; all
will depend on where one is, what one has at hand, what time of year it is, and so
on. In addition, there is a difference between observing someone build a fire and
building a fire oneself. Hands-on experience in a variety of different situations is
crucial to acquiring proficiency at the task. Similarly, riding a bicycle, stalking a
tiger, and making a bed require one to have personal experience before one can
say one has gained the ability in question. This is not true, or at least, it is not so
obviously true, for learning language syntax or gaining historical information,
because these areas of knowledge are rule- and fact-based, and don’t depend on
particular circumstances. Another way to say this is that informal learning ap-
proaches are more appropriate in endeavors that necessarily involve the learner’s
body, whereas formal approaches are best used in situations where the material to
be learned has content that is largely conceptual. This is crude however, because
a strict dichotomy would appear to embrace a dualistic view of the mind; a strict
disconnect between mind and body. Be that as it may, we may nevertheless note
that informal approaches almost always utilize the learner’s body in ways that are
not the case with formal approaches. Of course, in music education, this is less
true than in other disciplines, but even formal piano instruction can be under-
stood in this way, since the relationship between instructor and student tends to
focus and be elaborations on conceptual and rule-governed behavior whereas
informal instructional approaches tend to focus and be elaborations on sense-
governed experiential behavior.
Another way to differentiate between informal and formal learning is to con-
sider the ends and means practitioners of each tend to utilize in teaching a skill.
The ends of formal learning tend to be clearly defined in advance of the means.
In fact, formalizing the instructional strategy no doubt evolved to ensure that a
particular set of ends were attained rather than some other. Tasks are often bro-
ken down into incremental, successive approximations of the target behavior,
 phil jenkins 183

the ends-in-view. For instance, suppose nine-year-old Emma is to be taught long

division, the common procedure used to divide one number by another. The
means the instructor employs to teach her might be to demonstrate, then have
Emma repeat, first, writing down the dividend and divisor; second, dividing the
leftmost digit(s) of the dividend by the divisor; third putting the quotient above
the line over the dividend; and so on. Similarly, six-year-old Joshua’s instructor
might teach him to play the piano by demonstrating and then having Joshua re-
peat, first, playing a C-scale; second, playing a simple melody on the right hand;
third, playing a simple bass line with his left hand; fourth, playing both hands to-
gether; and so on. The learning is formal, then, because the means were devised
to achieve predetermined ends.
What appears to be inculcated in approaches like this may be related to what
has been termed “technical rationality.”6 Since the Enlightenment in the West,
there has been a gradual ideological shift in society toward maximizing methods
leading to the human domination over nature. This dominance is achievable, it
is thought, through the use of rule-governed methods that give humans the abil-
ity to predict and control the future. To be sure, scientific methods have proven
to be overwhelmingly beneficial for many aspects of society, from health care to
food production. Critics, however, caution that such benefits often come at a
high price. Such words as “scientism” and “technicism” evoke the application of
precisely specifiable scientific methods to all human practices, including educa-
tion. The worry is that an over-reliance on formal educational methods might
lead to students lacking the ability to make decisions for themselves. The danger
may be overstated in the case of formal methods of music education, but a focus
on externally structured, incremental approaches certainly appears to reinforce
following rules and doing things the right way in pursuit of the ends chosen.
By contrast, the ends of informal learning tend not to be clearly defined or
even clearly separate from the means. For instance, six-year-old Joshua might
press the piano keys in such a way as to mimic sounds he has heard or according
to the way he feels at the moment. Such explorations may never amount to any
kind of recognizable ability being learned, but nevertheless, learning is certainly
taking place, insofar as his actions acquire a meaning for him; musical tones
have become part of his behavioral repertoire. Just as much informal learning
grows out of everyday life situations, many popular musicians have been initially
attracted to a musical career by experimenting with a guitar, or by beating on sofa
cushions to the rhythm of a favorite popular music recording. The purposes of
such forays into incidental play tend to be found in the experience itself; the ends
and means are not separate, yet the outcomes seem clear enough, for Joshua has
personalized his relationship with the activity of creating sound with a piano. He
has made the activity something he does in his own way.
184 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

In fact, formal learning might be seen as a perceived need to constrain the

range of ways a person can adopt. Perhaps the quest for uniformity, which is so
common in modern society, motivates social institutions to insist on shaping the
variety of individual expressive activities of its members. If true, there is a positive
side and a negative side to this. On the positive side, formal instruction enables
society to run smoothly, and affords its members the opportunity to more eas-
ily identify and relate to one another. On the negative side, formal instruction
restricts individual tendencies to seek their own voice, to express themselves in
unique ways.7
Thus, to oversimplify in terms of a strict dichotomy, in formal learning, the
teacher, with the end in mind, applies instructional strategies designed to effect
a change in the learner; in informal learning, the learner engages in some activ-
ity for the sake of that experience itself, the result of which may or may not be
desired in advance. A ten-year-old boy who taps his foot in time with the music
does this because it feels good, not because he is acquiring rudimentary skills in
percussion dynamics. In fact, formal learning almost always interweaves informal
learning, even in schools.8 Perhaps, then, we can get a truer picture of the ways
these two terms relate to each other by observing, not a strict dichotomy, but a
continuum with pure informal learning on one end and pure formal learning
on the other. Mixed informal and formal learning, falling in the middle of this
range, would be that which occurs in most school contexts.9
On the pure informal end of the continuum, informal learning is indistin-
guishable from play children engage in all the time. In fact, play is perhaps all
pure informal learning is. Throwing a ball against a wall, catching it, and throw-
ing it back over and over is an informal activity that results in learning about
force, angles, and physical coordination. Dressing up in the oversized clothes of
one’s parents could be considered informal practice at dressing and perceiving
differences between relative body sizes. Acting out make-believe stories rehearses
a plethora of useful practical creative skills. Jerome Bruner argues that the main
characteristics of play are flexibility, autonomy, and challenge.10 Children en-
gaged in informal learning experience a disconnecting of the means from the
ends when they are given the freedom to experiment freely. This freedom then
encourages autonomy to perform the actions as they choose, to make decisions
based on their own assessments of the situations in which they find themselves.
On the pure formal end of the same continuum one finds activities controlled
by strictly fitting the means to the ends desired. Rather than the exploratory and
apparently aimless activity of throwing a ball against the wall, formal instruction
would seem to require breaking down the target skill into steps of gradually in-
creasing difficulty. A formal instructional approach to ball-throwing for instance
might include diagrams or modeling of how to hold the ball, followed by locating
 phil jenkins 185

the spot on the wall best suited, by geometric calculation, to return the ball to
the place of origin. Demonstration of the optimal force to use might also play a
part. Given this description of the formal process, it is clear that formal instruc-
tion need not involve a teacher; one could use formal instructional strategies on
activities one performs oneself. The key element is that an end be in view, though
additional unexpected learning outcomes may result and be desirable. Formal
strategies need not be defined solely in terms of their ends. However, to be a
formal strategy, there must be a determinate structure, however loose, that serves
to make some result predictable and systematic.
Between the two poles just described is the mixed formal/informal range. Most
teachers employ informal strategies to complement formal approaches. Here, in
addition to the customary curriculum plan and execution, the means for achiev-
ing some of the those ends may be guided largely by the learner, and may even
occasionally encourage a sense of play in the pursuit of target goals. But informal
learning may involve more than a sense of play. If so, the question arises: What
are the parameters of informal learning approaches?
David Beckett and Paul Hager give six key features of informal learning in
work situations. For them, informal learning is:
1. Organic/holistic
2. Contextual
3. Activity- and experience-based
4. Arises in situations where learning is not the main aim
5. Activated by individual learners rather than by teachers/trainers
6. Often collaborative/collegial11
To make clearer how each of these features might operate in real-life situa-
tions, imagine two scenarios. Suppose Chloe is a 16–year-old drummer in a ga-
rage rock band (that performs mostly original material), and Daniel is a 16–year-
old piano player in a high school music program. First, Chloe’s learning in the
band would tend to be holistic, integrating several elements at the same time. For
instance, while Chloe and her fellow group members would engage in musical
projects like composing new material, practicing instruments, and rehearsing
previously learned material, they would also learn managerial skills, gain linguis-
tic training, and form personal identities.12 In contrast, these activities would tend
to be separate activities for Daniel as determined either by his teacher-directed
program of instruction or by taking place outside of the musical setting entirely.
The advantage of Chloe’s holistic learning is that each skill is interwoven with
other related skills in a way similar to the manner in which everyday learning oc-
curs. The disadvantage is that Chloe will not have the opportunity to focus atten-
tion on those aspects of each skill with which she needs the most help, the result
186 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

being that she could end up settling into a pattern of familiar actions rather than
stretching her abilities by working on her weaknesses. The advantage for Daniel
will be that his focus can be on shoring up his weakest aspects, since he will be
able to attend solely on those aspects without interference, but the disadvantage
will be that the skill he acquires will be isolated from the connections those skills
have to his life as a musician.
Second, Chloe’s learning would tend to be contextual, in that composition
and instrument practice would tend to be in one particular style of music and for
the specific purpose of performing that music live with her band mates, with all
musical activities designed to express the collective musical vision of the band.
Significantly, her learning will tend to be centered on those styles she already
likes; there will be little or no compelling reason for her to explore new musical
territory. In addition, her musical tastes will be swept up with those of the group
and may therefore be less personal. Say for instance she acquired an interest in
a style of music that the others in the group were not interested in, and perhaps
they even considered “uncool.” Chloe would of course be free to explore this
interest on her own, but her inclination to do so might be dampened. Daniel’s
learning, by contrast, would be apt to have a more abstract and general purpose,
in that he would be learning how to read music, how to play scales, and perhaps
how to play several different kinds of music, with the more wide-ranging function
of allowing him to engage with many different musical styles in diverse environ-
ments both in the present and in the future. However, his interests may lack the
kind of focus a collective vision would enhance and, if he continues to study
alone, he might not experience the public dimension of music, whereby music
can function as a link between individual and society.
Third, Chloe’s learning of her instrument is activity and experience based, in
that she acquires facility on the drums from experimentation and from rehears-
ing original compositions with her band. Experimentation forces her to learn
how to make intuitive musical choices in ways that may serve her well in future
musical collaborations. The downside to this is that learning can be haphazard
and limited to the influences that just happen to be present in her immediate
surroundings. Daniel, on the other hand, learns the piano mainly by practicing
scales and rehearsing music composed by others. An advantage to this would be
that Daniel can experientially follow in the footsteps of the recognized creative
masters of the past, which extends his experience beyond what he could produce
on his own. However, the danger to this dimension is that Daniel may not experi-
ence the music in as immediate a way as Chloe, and his relationship to the music
could become more distant, eventuating in his losing interest over time in favor
of activities offering him more personal rewards.
Fourth, Chloe’s learning arises in situations where learning is not the main
 phil jenkins 187

aim, in that she learns by performing, in other words, by doing something not
ordinarily considered an act of learning. Göran Folkestad quotes Bob Dylan, “I
could never sit in a room and just play all by myself. I needed to play for people
all the time. You can say I practiced in public and my whole life was becoming
what I practiced.”13 Such situated learning is characteristic of informal practices
like playing in a garage band where group members are focused primarily on live
performance and not on learning per se. The downside here is that Chloe may
focus her energies so much on the instrumental value of music that she fails to
appreciate its intrinsic value. Performing live may become an end in itself, with
the result that music becomes a secondary concern. One may well ask whether
some popular musicians sometimes evolve more into performance artists than
musicians, with the thrill of the crowd taking precedence over musical integrity.
Daniel, by contrast, would more likely learn in the more traditional way, working
through the musical notation through focused practice, gradually internalizing
the tonal and structural relationships, affording opportunities for a deep personal
connection with the music.14 The advantage would be that musical skills would
become more easily transferable to many situations. Many musicians who infor-
mally learn their craft do not know how to read music, and so other styles may
become less easy to play. One who knows how to read music, on the other hand,
will at least be able to learn how to play many different styles by reading the nota-
tion, thereby picking up the basics of that style relatively quickly.
The fifth and sixth features of informal learning suggested by Beckett and
Hager go hand in hand with one another.15 These two, perhaps most of all, have
to do with the setting or environment in which learning takes place. Chloe’s
learning in the band will tend to be activated by individual learners in an atmo-
sphere of collaboration and collegiality. Garage bands are almost always formed
by individuals who meet by chance or through peer associates, with authority
more or less shared equally among group members.16 Chloe will have become
a member of her band, more than likely, through word of mouth exchange of
mutual interests rather than by enrolling in an educational institution. Daniel’s
learning, on the contrary, occurs as a result of being affiliated with a school.
While much learning at school is certainly informal, the character of institu-
tional settings tends to be determined by curriculum-driven plans.
As the preceding examples have suggested, there are benefits and disadvan-
tages to both informal and formal education. On the plus side, with formal ed-
ucation, the methods can be more reliably assessed, measurable against their
success in reaching the goal. The predictability of the results makes the process
more controllable and standardized, due to its systematicity. What works and
what does not can be easily determined through the technical nature of more
formal approaches. The less efficient and effective methods can be discarded and
188 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

new things tried. On the negative side, one might criticize formal methods by
pointing to their rigidity, which tend to fit students into pre-formed molds, where
the ends justify the means, regardless of previous student experience and learning
style. In fact, this might very well be a result of the measurability of formal tech-
niques, in that the need to measure itself might be responsible for the widespread
use of formal educational practices. After all, institution-affiliated instructional
strategies are constrained by the ability of practitioners to assess learner perfor-
mance. One might also object that the rigidity of formal education is insensitive
to a rapidly changing world. Who would deny that there are traditional peda-
gogical techniques whose only educational merit is that it’s the way things have
always been done? Another downside for formal music education is that students
may be unable to understand, and hence appreciate, the music ordinarily taught
in such contexts due both to unfamiliarity and with the perception that classical
music, the predominant form of music taught in formal contexts, is irrelevant
to the contemporary world in which students find themselves.17 The ability to
appreciate any music presumably begins to develop when listeners view it as
being in some way relevant to their lives, and unfortunately, such styles very often
incorporated into formal settings–such as classical, folk, or even world music–do
not hold their relevancy on their face in the contemporary society within which
young potential music students find themselves.
One of the advantages of informal learning comes from its tendency to arise
from a relaxed, almost playful attitude. Similarly, the absence of definable goals
can lead to the learner being more in control. Moreover, the mood of explora-
tion and discovery may empower learners, putting them in charge of their own
destinies. One of the disadvantages of informal learning might be that the lack
of structure can lead to a shrinking of the educational journey, with no one to
prompt learners to explore music outside of their already existing domain of com-
fort. Formal approaches allow an instructor to suggest new musical styles and
methods to try, and can many times act as a first-person model for those styles
and methods, whereas informally trained musicians may surround themselves
with others with like-minded interests only. In addition, many important con-
cepts and techniques, abstracted from any one specific musical context, may not
lend themselves to informal educational methods. For example, it is difficult to
conceive of how Western music theory or composition could be learned from a
pure informal approach.
Informal learning has been examined by music educators, though not exten-
sively.18 Recently there has been renewed interest in informal learning practices,
and music educators have been especially concerned with finding better ways to
spark student interest in classical and other types of music traditionally taught in
schools; interest which tends to flag shortly after any school music requirements
 phil jenkins 189

are satisfied. In particular, Lucy Green has studied how popular musicians learn
their craft in order to find out if some of their methods might suggest new ways of
teaching music in schools.19 In what follows, I will discuss how Green introduced
informal teaching strategies into formal educational settings in order to examine
some of the ways these strategies might be beneficial, as well as some of the
ways they could be detrimental. While informal techniques have been utilized
in many small ways in formal settings for perhaps as long as there has been edu-
cation, Green’s study is a particularly expansive and systematic treatment of the
topic, and is thus a good starting point for considering how these methods can be
developed in practice by music educators.
GREEN’S INFORMAL MUSIC LEARNING PROJECT
In How Popular Musicians Learn, Green observes that though many students
drop music-making after leaving school, an enormous number listen to music
after that time. And what they are listening to is, by and large, popular music.
This disparity between the small fraction of people making music and the large
percentage of people listening to music was one of the factors that led Green to
ask whether the methods through which popular musicians learn could be uti-
lized in formal teaching contexts. Toward this end, she extensively interviewed
fourteen popular musicians in the UK of various ages ranging from fifteen to
fifty. Her research revealed characteristic ways popular musicians learn that are
different from the formal educational means typically offered in schools. Music,
Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy traces the intro-
duction of some of these informal strategies into a number of music classrooms
in the UK. Her goal was to find out if informal teaching methods could be ben-
eficially integrated into formal school settings, and if so, which of those methods
worked best.20
Green identified five characteristics of informal learning engaged in by pop-
ular musicians that she subsequently employed in her study: (1) learner initi-
ated choice of music; (2) copying recordings by ear; (3) collaborative work in
“friendship groups”; (4) holistic immersion in projects rather than sequential,
step-by-step approaches; and (5) simultaneous involvement in creating, perform-
ing, improvising, and listening from the start, rather than a progression from
basic technique to broader musical concerns. Throughout the process teachers
played a background role; they would observe and be ready to answer questions
and model musical riffs for the students.21 Most teachers reported being skepti-
cal in the beginning, but during the study almost all of them agreed that student
participation, enthusiasm, and educational benefit were high.
Green took these characteristics and crafted methods which she employed
in twenty-one UK schools from 2002 to 2006. The project had seven stages.22 In
190 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

stage one, after an initial class discussion, students were told to bring in a CD of
any song they chose.23 The students were then allowed to pick out any one of the
available instruments they wanted, even if it was not an instrument with which
they were previously familiar.24 They then formed friendship groups of generally
three to five students and emulated popular musicians by copying the chosen
song on their instrument. Four of the five informal music learning principles
were active during this stage, as the pupils chose their own music, copied the
music by listening to recordings, and worked with peers in relatively haphazard
unstructured ways. In stage two, students were given a CD with a pre-selected
popular music track on it, along with fifteen tracks of riffs from the song broken
up for ease of copying. The students were then to teach themselves the song by
picking one of the riffs, and then putting together the whole piece with their
group. The third stage was a repeat of the first stage. Informal composing was
the theme of the fourth stage as students synthesized what they learned to make
up their own compositions. In the fifth stage an experienced band came into the
classroom to give the students an opportunity to become more familiar with how
popular musicians compose a song. The sixth and seventh stages consisted of
copying and then performing classical music chosen for them by teachers.25
Informal approaches have been gaining in popularity in many educational
disciplines in general, and in music education in particular, in recent years, but
informal learning approaches are rarely assessed critically; they tend to be uni-
versally accepted as positive. Let us now take some time to examine some of
the positive and negative attributes of each method Green derived from popular
musicians.
First, it appears from Green’s study that when students are allowed to bring in
their own music, they are more motivated to learn how to play it. If a student likes
a song or instrumental piece of music, it seems to follow that they would be more
interested in learning how to play that music themselves, as opposed to learning
some music with which the student is unfamiliar. This of course could only be
a beginning, as this approach would tend to limit one’s educational experiences
to previously familiar domains, leaving out types of music that may take time for
which to acquire a taste. This point necessarily brings up questions about what
is important in a musical education: Is learning just one or two styles of music
enough, or should a wider range of musical styles be taught? The implication in
studies like Green’s is that learning one’s own favorite music is a start to a more
complete music educational experience, but some may be concerned that such
a method might limit students’ musical horizons.
Second, copying recordings affords students many benefits, for instance, the
opportunity to a) take control of their own learning process (see Beckett and
Hager’s key feature #3 above), b) learn music they most enjoyed and were most
 phil jenkins 191

familiar with, c) learn music they found most relevant to their lives outside of the
classroom (see #2 above), and d) to develop aural acuity by practicing focused
and attentive listening. Still, here again, self-directed learning carries the danger
of constraining the learner’s educational experiences. It seems a likely character-
istic of human nature to do what one already knows how to do; to stay in one’s
comfort zone. Granted, it is perhaps helpful to have a beginner copy a recording
of a favorite piece of music, especially for the purpose of training aural focus, but
at some point the student should be encouraged to expand that nascent musical
skill into an exploration of styles of music with which she is unfamiliar. This
would presumably entail careful direction from an experienced music teacher.
Otherwise, I would question whether the learner is really being educated in
music rather than learning a superficial skill with little to no connection to what
makes music important and valuable.
The question arises: If a skilled teacher is required for informal learning ses-
sions, what kind of skill is needed? Would a typical formal music teacher training
suffice, or would there need to be special training? The natural answer would be
that teachers trained in both formal and informal methods would best suit this
situation, because, on the one hand, informal methods require a special sensi-
tivity, including a sense of when it is appropriate to stand back and let events
unfold according to the motivations and direction of the student. On the other
hand, formal methods (that is, incremental approaches to acquiring a skill) can
be employed to great advantage alongside informal methodologies. For instance,
in most classrooms where informal techniques are employed, even when stu-
dents break up into small groups the teacher will ordinarily circulate among the
groups to offer help to those who have questions or need clarifications. Similarly,
teachers in informal music educational settings could benefit from training in
how to gauge when to stand back and when to intervene in groups copying from
records.
The third method significant in studies like Green’s is the formation of the
students into groups. As a long time rock musician I can attest to the benefits of
collaboration with peers (see Beckett and Hager’s #6 above). It is true that one
learns many things while being part of a rock band, both holistically and self-
directedly (see #1 and #4 above). However, unless the goal is to get students to
become more aware of how popular music is produced, it is unclear whether the
students would be able to transfer the understandings gained to other types of
music. There are times when in-depth learning will be desirable and other times
when educational objectives will require more breadth. It seems plausible to sug-
gest that breadth would tend to be more desirable for younger students, in lower
grades as it were, and depth more desirable for older students, for example, in the
upper grades and at the college level.
192 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

Some evidence for doubt about the transferability of rock musical skills to
skills in other forms of music can be seen in Green’s study itself. Many students
copied and then performed classical music that was presented to them in the
form of music from commercials on television, and so presumably familiar to
them. However, student responses were not as positive as they were for the stages
involving playing from their own chosen recordings, and some of the students
stated that even after the study, they “still hated” classical music.26 No doubt
some general skills in one domain probably do tend to transfer into other do-
mains, for instance, rudimentary listening skills, competency at playing an instru-
ment, playing in unison, and so on. But without direct contact with a particular
style of music, there may never be any interest in that music. After all, many
rock musicians have in-depth expert skill in rock music, but rarely or never play
or listen to other kinds of music. The point is that without some directed formal
education the incentive to study other styles of music may be missing.
Fourth, holistic immersion in musical projects allows students the benefit of
being able to play and listen to music in terms of its multiple structures right from
the start, not just in terms of the parts that go into comprising those structures.
In other words the holistic method stresses the relations between the notes and
between groups of notes from the very beginning of a student’s encounter with
some music. The downside to holistic immersion is that it is largely a misnomer,
since music must always be put together piece by piece, chord by chord, note by
note. Perhaps though what is meant by holistic immersion in studies like Green’s
is that students must break the whole musical piece down themselves and then
build it back up themselves, without the instructor doing this for them. In that
sense it could be valuable for relatively simple works, but will be impractical for
more complex works. This technique then could presumably only work for music
that is simple enough for the students to be able to figure out how to break it
down for themselves and gradually master it, a little at a time.
The fifth informal method, student composition, can be a very good tech-
nique for engendering musicality. Composing one’s own music allows students
to synthesize what they have learned. Nevertheless, like any other creative ac-
tivity, the quality of what one creates greatly depends on the quality of one’s
experiences, and here, perhaps more than in other informal techniques, skill
obtained from formal instruction will affect quality as well. For instance, to write
good fiction, presumably one must know quite a bit about life; one must have a
good number of experiences to draw from. The truism, “write what you know”
comes to mind here, implying that diverse life experiences may afford a creative
advantage to a writer. It seems reasonable to assume that the analogous case of
creativity in musical composition will be enhanced by acquiring diverse musical
experiences. Music composed by those with a too narrow musical background
 phil jenkins 193

will lack depth, richness, and maturity, and will tend to be derivative of whatever
popular music that person has listened to. It may instead merely reflect the mass
tastes to which he or she has been previously exposed.
These criticisms are not meant to detract from the value of utilizing informal
methods, and are certainly not meant as criticisms of Green’s studies, which,
after all, utilized both formal and informal approaches. The best blend needs
to be deployed in light of the context, the student’s interests, available time, and
resources available, as well as many other variables. Music educators would do
well to shy away from considering either formal or informal methods alone as
the best and instead use their own critical reflective judgment to choose the best
combination that fits the situation at hand. My intention in this section has been
to point to some of the possible shortcomings of informal practices, and to under-
line the need for educators to carefully think through how they are to be imple-
mented in a particular learning environment.
A maximally beneficial education that is musical should be alert to how peo-
ple learn in everyday life, because that is where every music student will eventu-
ally have to live. Music education should certainly pass on knowledge of music’s
past and present as well as foster teaching and performing skills. But along with a
love of learning and teaching music, students should also come away with a love
of learning about life. One reason for this is that music should be a reflection and
enhancement of life; to learn about music is to learn about life.
In what follows I will briefly propose one conception of how a sense of self
is partially formed through engagement with music, and will then expand on
how this conception relates to what I take to be important and valuable about a
musical education.

THE CREATION OF IDENTITY AND AGENCY THROUGH

MUSICAL ENGAGEMENT
Now that we have perhaps gotten clearer on how informal learning may dif-
fer from formal learning, we can ask this question: How valuable are informal
learning practices in music education? In order to respond it seems appropriate
to return to the brief sketch of a music education philosophy made earlier. It
is as simple as it is brief: a good music education should bring about a funda-
mental change in the student’s self-identity and foster the ability to make critical
decisions both about music and about life. An educated person is one who is
not merely superficially changed, but rather is fundamentally changed.27 Such
change occurs as a result of a process, an evolving dynamic series of activities,
goals, and motivations, rather than merely passively rehearsing a collection of
actions.
Admittedly, this is a normative claim. Why should the aim of education not
194 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

be to pass along knowledge or to acquire a skill? Let me give two responses to

this question. First, it seems reasonable to suppose that the most general pur-
pose of education is to prepare motivated yet autonomous citizens for the task of
inheriting their culture, and improving it. What I have in mind is an education
that would engender in students the desire and ability to promote the interests
of both, the society of which they are members and the interests of those in the
wider world community. I take this idea to be uncontroversial (even if the argu-
ments for it may not be so), and so I will not argue for it here.28 Second, as Im-
manuel Kant famously argues, gifts of fortune (for example, power, riches, and
honor) and gifts of nature (for instance, wit, courage, and resolution) will not
make one good because one could have these things and yet still choose to do
wrong.29 Similarly, the possession of knowledge and skill alone will not suffice to
make the world a better place. What one still needs is confidence in one’s ability
to discern responsible and constructive courses of action and to have the desire to
enhance the living experiences of oneself and others. In what follows I will give a
sketch as to how music education might nurture these qualities.
For George Herbert Mead, the self is constructed through interactions with
the social group in which one is a member. “The self . . . is essentially a social
structure, and it arises in social experience. . . . It is impossible to conceive of a
self arising outside of social experience.”30 Similarly, in my view, the sense of self
is formed as we move about our world, interacting with others. Simply put, we
become what we do.
Theodore Gracyk suggests that many adolescents take an interest in music,
in part, because it helps them “to anchor the integration of self-identity” during
a very important period in their lives when “even the physical body is in flux.”31
Gracyk argues that music’s power may derive from its ability to serve “as an exter-
nal model for the very process of identity formation.”32 There are, after all, many
similarities between the process of perceiving music and perceiving self-identity.
Significantly, even very small children can recognize the unity and self-sameness
of a musical work, while at the same time being able to identify multiple instances
of that same work when they hear it.33 “So listening involves an easily repeatable
but generally successful exercise of the mental processes that are needed to con-
struct a sense of self.”34 In this way, adolescents take so readily to music because
it affords them an opportunity to practice the very mental operations appropri-
ate for their current stage of maturity. Gracyk’s point, if correct, shows that even
just careful and close listening to music can have some transformative effects on
growing minds. Could the expression of one’s musical voice through composi-
tion and performance have an even greater effect on one’s development?
If the primary aim of music education is to help foster creation of the student’s
self-identity, then informal learning is not only a good way to learn, it is the ideal
 phil jenkins 195

way to learn. To make one’s way in life is to make the connections with the world
oneself. While formal learning strategies supply much needed information and
guidance, it is informal techniques that tend to compel students to make ongoing
decisions in constructing simulations of real-life contexts. Participants in Green’s
study were put in a position to do what popular musicians have been doing since
the advent of musical instruments. And it is this kind of active participation in
the construction of one’s own musical identity that makes the informal method
so valuable. Certainly concepts must be presented, history passed from teacher to
student, and technique must be modeled. But it is in the activity of making music
oneself that one finds a musical identity. Formal learning approaches also bring
about formations of self-identities, but in keeping with the nature of these more
rule-adhering instructional tactics, the self-identities produced would more likely
be structured, rigid, and less autonomous than the identities formed by informal
learning approaches. In contrast, when one of Green’s students is engaging in an
informal learning technique, say of picking out songs from a recording, or trying
to figure out with others in a friendship group who will play what and in what
order, and then facing a crowd of people in order to play something the group
worked hard to commit to memory, this is when music ceases to become merely
remembered, and becomes embodied.
Many treatments of informal learning strategies emphasize, like Green, pop-
ular music as being the prime example of informal learning, but these strategies
have long been central to the mastering of many other kinds of music, particu-
larly jazz. It could be said that the jazz tradition underwent a change for the
worse when it became a subject formally studied in schools. This is an important
issue the details of which the present study must unfortunately pass over. But the
point perhaps further demonstrates both the delicate balance between formal
and informal learning approaches, and how each method alone may be educa-
tionally insufficient.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to Philip Alperson and Wayne Bowman for reading and com-
menting on earlier drafts of this paper.

NOTES
1
Thomas La Belle, “Formal, Nonformal and Informal Education: A Holistic Perspec-
tive on Lifelong Learning,” International Review of Education 28, no. 2, (1982): 164.
2
P. H. Coombs and M. Ahmed, Attacking Rural Poverty: How Non-Formal Education
Can Help (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1974).
3
John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Educa-
tion (New York: Free Press, 1916).
196 Philosophy of music education review, 19:2

4
J. Madison Seymour, “Contrasts Between Formal and Informal Education among the
Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia,” Review of Educational Research 42, no 4 (1972): 477.
5
Thomas La Belle, “Formal, Nonformal and Informal Education.”
6
Joseph Dunne, “An Intricate Fabric: Understanding the Rationality of Practice,”
Pedagogy, Culture and Society 13, no. 3 (2005): 367–389.
7
Thanks to Wayne Bowman for suggesting this point.
8
Göran Folkestad, “Formal and Informal Learning Situations or Practices vs. For-
mal and Informal Ways of Learning,” British Journal of Music Education 23, no. 2
(2006): 143.
9
Lucy Green, How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education (Bur-
lington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002), 5–6.
10
Jerome Bruner, “Play as a Mode of Construing the Real,” in Jerome Bruner, In
Search of Pedagogy, Volume 2: The Selected Works of Jerome S. Bruner (Abingdon and
New York: Routledge, 2006), 57–64.
11
D. Beckett and P. Hager, Life, Work and Learning: Practice in Postmodernity (Lon-
don: Routledge, 2002).
12
See Göran Folkestad, “Formal and Informal Learning Situations or Practices vs.
Formal and Informal Ways of Learning,” British Journal of Music Education 23, no. 2
(2006): 135–145, and Johan Fornäs, Ulf Lindberg, and Ove Sernhede, In Garageland:
Rock, Youth and Modernity (New York: Routledge, 1995).
13
Folkestad, “Formal and Informal Learning Situations or Practices vs. Formal and
Informal Ways of Learning,” 138.
14
I remind the reader that I am painting a more or less dichotomous picture in this
section. In truth, I would suppose that few music teachers will teach in such a strictly
formal manner.
15
Beckett and Hager, Life, Work and Learning.
16
Here I speak from personal experience, as a drummer in rock bands for roughly
twenty years.
17
Green, How Popular Musicians Learn, 177.
18
For recent journal articles see Randall Allsup, “Mutual Learning and Democratic
Action in Instrumental Music Education,” Journal of Research in Music Education 51,
no. 1 (2003): 24–37; Folkestad, “Formal and Informal Learning Situations or Practices
vs. Formal and Informal Ways of Learning,” (2006), 135–145; and Sheri Jaffurs, “The
Impact of Informal Music Learning Practices in the Classroom, or How I Learned How to
Teach From a Garage Band,” International Journal of Music Education 22, no. 3 (2004):
189–200. Also see Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, Bridging the Gap: Popular Music and Music
Education (Reston, VA: The National Association for Music Education, 2004) for a book
length treatment of the relationship between popular music and music education.
19
Green, How Popular Musicians Learn, and Music, Informal Learning and the School:
A New Classroom Pedagogy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008).
20
Green, Music, Informal Learning and the School, 23.
21
Some teachers had a more relaxed approach than others. Green discusses the role
 phil jenkins 197

of teachers and their views on the process at several places in the book, for instance see
Ibid., 27–30, and 34–7.
22
For various practical reasons, only a few of the schools participated in all seven
stages. In addition, note that the focus of the book is on seven classes in seven ‘main-study’
schools. See Ibid., 14.
23
The initial discussion was partly to find out if students knew how popular musicians
went about acquiring their skills and knowledge of music. Though the students came up
with many interesting ideas, none of the students knew how popular musicians became
musicians with any precision. See Ibid., 21.
24
Ibid., 98.
25
Ibid., 23–27.
26
Ibid., 168–172. To be fair, many students had more positive reactions to classical
music after the study than might have been expected.
27
Similar points are made in Wayne Bowman, “Educating Musically,” in Richard
Colwell and Carol Richardson, ed., The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching
and Learning: A Project of the Music Educators National Conference (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 63–84.
28
Phil Jenkins, “Group Membership and Collective Obligation,” in Michel Weber
and Pierfrancesco Basile, eds., Chromatikon IV: Yearbook of Philosophy in Process (Presses
Universitaires de Louvain, 2009).
29
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Mary
Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, [1785] 1998). For Kant, the essential
element is the will.
30
George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, ed. Charles W. Morris (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1934), 140.
31
Theodore Gracyk, “Does Everyone Have a Musical Identity?” Action, Criticism, and
Theory for Music Education 3, no. 1 (2004), 13. See also Robert H. Woody and Kimberly J.
Burns, “Predicting Music Appreciation with Past Emotional Responses to Music,” Journal
of Research in Music Education 49, no. 1 (2001): 59.
32
Gracyk, “Does Everyone Have a Musical Identity?” 13.
33
Ibid., 14.
34
Ibid., 15.