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4 - What I Used to Think about Creativity in Schools
- from PART I - VOICES FROM THE FIELD
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- By Tim Patston, Geelong Grammar School
- Edited by Ronald A. Beghetto, University of Connecticut, James C. Kaufman, University of Connecticut
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- Book:
- Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom
- Published online:
- 24 November 2016
- Print publication:
- 07 November 2016, pp 17-20
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- Chapter
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Summary
Life can take you on strange and interesting journeys. When I was at an all-boys state school in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, life seemed predetermined. The smart kids went to a place called university to be smart, and the dumb kids (there were only two types of child at my school) went and did a trade. Knowing now how much it costs to get an electrician or plumber these days, I wonder about this system…
Creativity happened in the Art Department, where a very exotic woman, with long hair and flowing robes, smelling of an exotic substance called patchouli oil, entranced those who were “gifted” with her ability to make pictures or pots out of thin air. As I had no aptitude for pottery or drawing, I accepted that this would always be so. There seemed to be a correlation between art and surfing at my school, or perhaps between art and long hair, I was not certain. My form of expression at school was to be in the school musical. This was not seen as being creative, unless you painted the sets. Learning dialogue and songs was hard, dedicated work, as was learning choreography. I never thought of this as a creative activity, merely a process from learning to performance which was a lot of fun.
Upon leaving school I began to participate in amateur musicals, meeting, for the first time, the “creative types.” These highly idiosyncratic individuals seemed to spend their days as accountants or public servants, only to transform twice a week, in the evening, into what seemed to me to be parodies of the characters we were portraying – flamboyant and exotic, with extravagant hand gestures, and highly affected voices with an indeterminate accent which was part Royal Shakespeare, part working-class Australian with pinched vowels. Creativity seemed to belong in the local halls of Australian suburbia, an outlet from the banality of the workplace, unchanged from the industrial revolution in its conformity to the norm.
18 - Mindfulness in Music
- from IV - MINDFULNESS AND THE PERFORMING ARTS
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- By Tim Patston, Geelong Grammar School and University of Melbourne, Australia
- Edited by Amy L. Baltzell, Boston University
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- Book:
- Mindfulness and Performance
- Published online:
- 05 January 2016
- Print publication:
- 19 January 2016, pp 412-436
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- Chapter
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Summary
Research about the integration of mindfulness into music teaching and learning is still in its infancy. Much of the writing on music and mindfulness relates to the use of music listening as an external entry point to support focus and facilitate mindfulness (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Diaz and Silveira, 2013). People listen to music, in part, to help them to enter a mindfulness state, with mindfulness defined as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). It is somewhat ironic, however, that an art form that can lead to mindfulness and aid flow of listeners, in those who receive the music, is often a source of great stress and anxiety for those who create the music (Patston, 2014).
This chapter will consider the role of mindfulness in the act of music making itself, from both the perspective of the music teacher and music student. Studio music teachers (instrument and vocal) are not part of traditional, formal student education, with little specific education for studio music teachers within higher education. Music Instruction Non-Deficit (MIND), a new model of musical pedagogy designed for studio teachers, will be presented. My thirty years of professional experience working as a researcher, performer, and educator with studio teachers in a range of fields, from pop to music theater, jazz, and classical, across a broad range of instruments, from schools to universities and professional private studios, has led to the conceptualization of this model. In this chapter, I will present the conceptual support for the model and an overview of the MIND model for studio music teachers. The MIND model is designed to extend the joy of music for both the music studio teacher and music studio students. Mindfulness of what is good and right throughout the teaching and practice of studio music is core to the MIND model.
Music is important to the human experience. There is no human culture on the planet without music, and there is evidence of musical instruments existing for over thirty-five thousand years (Conard, Malina, & Munzel, 2009). The role of music in ritual and storytelling is embedded in our collective consciousness. Recent advances in neuroscience reveal that language and music evolved simultaneously in the human brain (Harvey, 2012) and that music involves virtually all of the cognitive processes (Levitin, 2009).
Teaching stage fright? – Implications for music educators
- Tim Patston
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- Journal:
- British Journal of Music Education / Volume 31 / Issue 1 / March 2014
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 03 July 2013, pp. 85-98
- Print publication:
- March 2014
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- Article
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Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a widely acknowledged condition in the field of music performance. However, MPA is rarely discussed in the field of music education. Classroom, studio and conservatoire teachers observe their students experiencing MPA related to performances, examinations or auditions, but few have the prerequisite skills to manage the condition. It is therefore essential for music educators to gain an understanding of MPA in order to assist their students. This paper discusses the nature of MPA and its prevalence in the various populations which have been reported in the literature, including children and adolescents, undergraduates, amateur and professional musicians, and music educators. The paper argues that music educators have a critical role in the developmental trajectory of the condition and provides music educators with advice on how teaching practice can ameliorate developing or extant MPA in their students.