Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T12:30:08.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Writing about music: The selection and arrangement of notation in jazz students’ written texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2017

Jodie L. Martin
Jodie L. Martin*
Affiliation:
LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building, RC Mills Building (A26), University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australiajodie.martin.phd@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Music notation is intrinsic in the composition and performance of Western art music and also in its analysis and research. The process of writing about music remains underexplored, in particular how excerpts of music notation are selected and arranged in a written text, and how that text describes and contextualises the excerpts. This article applies ‘semantic gravity’ from Legitimation Code Theory to characterise notational excerpts and their integration in a written text, by focusing on how closely they are connected to a particular performance or generalised across performances. It illustrates these concepts with case studies of tertiary students’ research projects to reveal how different purposes drive different notational usage when writing about music. This provides insight for music educators on how to support writing about music and the use of notational quotes.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 73 - 89
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BENEDICT, C. L. (2012) Critical and transformative literacies: Music and general education. Theory Into Practice, 51 (3), 152–158. doi:10.1080/00405841.2012.690293CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GEORGIOU, H., MATON, K. & SHARMA, M. (2014) Recovering knowledge for science education research: Exploring the ‘Icarus Effect’ in student work. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 14 (3), 252–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GOULD, E. (2009) Music education desire(ing): Language, literacy and lieder. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 17 (1), 41–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HERBERT, T. & ASSOCIATED BOARD OF THE ROYAL SCHOOLS OF MUSIC (2001) Music in Words: A Guide to Researching and Writing about Music. London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.Google Scholar
INGOLD, R. & O'SULLIVAN, D. (2017) Riding the waves to academic success, Modern English Teacher Magazine, 26 (2), 39–43.Google Scholar
IRVINE, D. (1968) Writing about Music: A Style Book for Reports and Theses (2nd Edn.) Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
LAMONT, A. & MATON, K. (2008) Choosing music: Exploratory studies into the low uptake of music GCSE. British Journal of Music Education, 25 (3), 267–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LAMONT, A. & MATON, K. (2010) Unpopular music: Beliefs and behaviours towards music in education. In Wright, R. (Ed.), Sociology and music education, (pp. 63–80). Basingstoke: Ashgate.Google Scholar
LILLIEDAHL, J. (2013) Musik i (Ut)Bildning: Gränsdragningar och Inramningar i Läroplans(kon)texter för Gymnasieskolan [Music and the Pedagogic Discourse: Classifications and Framings of Relations to and within Curriculum for the Swedish Upper Secondary School]. PhD. Örebro University, Sweden.Google Scholar
MARTIN, J. L. (2012). Language verbalising notation: An intersemiotic analysis of musical notation in student texts. Multimodal Communication, 1 (2), 147–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MARTIN, J. L. (2013). On Notes and Knowers: the Representation, Evaluation and Legitimation of Jazz. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Adelaide.Google Scholar
MARTIN, J. L. (2014). Semiotic resources of music notation: Towards a multimodal analysis of musical notation in student texts. Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies/Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique, 2014 (200), 185–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MARTIN, J. L. (2016). Musicality and musicianship: Specialisation in jazz studies. In Maton, K., Hood, S. & Shay, S. (Eds.), Knowledge-Building: Educational Studies in Legitimation Code Theory (pp. 193–213). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
MATON, K. (2013) Making semantic waves: A key to cumulative knowledge-building. Linguistics and Education, 24 (1), 8–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MATON, K. (2014) Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
METHENY, P. (1989) Question and Answer. On Question and Answer. Germany: Geffen Records.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OWENS, T. (2002) Analysing jazz. In Cooke, M. & Horn, D. (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Jazz (pp. 286–297). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
PALTRIDGE, B., STARFIELD, S., RAVELLI, L. & NICHOLSON, S. (2012) Doctoral writing in the visual and performing arts: Two ends of a continuum. Studies in Higher Education, 37 (8), 989–1003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RAVELLI, L., PALTRIDGE, B. & STARFIELD, S. (Eds.) (2014) Doctoral Writing in the Creative and Performing Arts. Farringdon, UK: Libri Publishing.Google Scholar
RICHARDSON, S. (2015) Messing with the magic: Making the invisible visible by using LCT to analyse knowledge-building in jazz education. Seminar presented at LCT Roundtable, University of Sydney, August.Google Scholar
RODGERS, R. & HART, L. (2000) Bewitched. In Sher, C. (Ed.), The Standards Real Book (pp. 55). California: Sher Music Company.Google Scholar
STARFIELD, S., PALTRIDGE, B. & RAVELLI, L. J. (2012) ‘Why do we have to write?’: Practice-based theses in the visual and performing arts and the place of writing. In Bhatia, V. J. & Berkenkotter, C. (Eds.), Insights into academic genres (pp. 169–190). Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
SZENES, E., TILAKARATNA, N. & MATON, K. (2015) The Knowledge Practices of Critical Thinking. In Davies, M. & Barnett, R. (Eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Thinking (pp. 573–591). London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
WALLER, D. (2010) Language Literacy and Music Literacy: A Pedagogical Asymmetry. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 18 (1), 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WEEKES, T. (2014) From Dot Points to Disciplinarity: The Theory and Practice of Disciplinary Literacies in Secondary Schooling. Unpublished PhD. University of New England, Australia.Google Scholar
WEEKES, T. (2015a) Writing about the concepts of music for success in the HSC Aural Skills examination in NSW. Australian Journal of Music Education, 2015 (2), 204–215.Google Scholar
WEEKES, T. (2015b) Mastering musical meaning: Images as interpretive resources in multimodal music texts. Visual Communication, 15 (2), 221–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WOLFE, J. (2006) A musician's English: The challenge awaiting international students in tertiary music programs in Australia. TESOL in Context, 16 (1), 18–25.Google Scholar
WOLFE, J. (2007) ‘You'll Have to Start Early if You Want to be on Time for the F Sharp!’ Language and the Study of Music: Implications for International Students Studying In Tertiary Music Programs in Australia. In ISANA International Conference (pp. 1–7), Adelaide, Australia.Google Scholar