Explores how music can promote mental health and functioning in diverse settings, from supporting cognitive development in premature babies to establishing identity and emotional well-being in adolescents, to enhancing brain function in adults and challenging cognitive decline in dementia patients.

This book examines contemporary issues in music teaching and learning throughout the lifespan, illuminating an emerging nexus of trends shaping modern research in music education. In the past, most music learning opportunities and research were focused upon the pre-adult population. Yet, music education occurs throughout the lifespan, from birth until death, emerging not only through traditional formal ensembles and courses, but increasingly through informal settings as well. This book challenges previous assumptions in music education and offers theoretical perspectives that can guide contemporary research and practice. Exploring music teaching and learning practices through the lens of human development, sections highlight recent research on topics that shape music learning trajectories. Themes uniting the book include human development, assessment strategies, technological applications, professional practices, and cultural understanding. The volume deconstructs and reformulates performance ensembles to foster mutually rewarding collaborations across miles and generations. It develops new measures and strategies for assessment practices for professionals as well as frameworks for guiding students to employ effective strategies for self-assessment. Supplemental critical thinking questions focus the reader on research applications and provide insight into future research topics. This volume joining established experts and emerging scholars at the forefront of this multifaceted frontier is essential reading for educators, researchers, and scholars, who will make the promises of the 21st century a reality in music education. It will be of interest to a range of fields including music therapy, lifelong learning, adult learning, human development, community music, psychology of music, and research design.

The new edition of The Child as Musician: A Handbook of Musical Development celebrates the richness and diversity of the many different ways in which children can engage in and interact with music. It presents theory - both cutting edge and classic - in an accessible way for readers by surveying research concerned with the development and acquisition of musical skills. The focus is on musical development from conception to late adolescences, although the bulk of the coverage concentrates on the period when children are able to begin formal music instruction (from around age 3) until the final year of formal schooling (around age 18). There are many conceptions of how musical development might take place, just as there are for other disciplines and areas of human potential. Consequently, the publication highlights the diversity in current literature dealing with how we think about and conceptualise children's musical development. Each of the authors has searched for a better and more effective way to explain in their own words and according to their own perspective, the remarkable ways in which children engage with music. In the field of educational psychology there are a number of publications that survey the issues surrounding child and adolescent development. Some of the more innovative present research and theories, and their educational implications, in a style that stresses the fundamental interplay among the biological, environmental, social and cultural influences at each stage of a child's development. Until now, no similar overview has existed for child and adolescent development in the field of music. The Child as Musician addresses this imbalance, and is essential for those in the fields of child development, music education, and music cognition.

The Journey from Music Student to Teacher: A Professional Approach, Second Edition helps prospective educators transition from music student to professional music teacher. This textbook acknowledges that students must first reconcile their assumptions about learning and teaching before they can make thoughtful, informed decisions about their own professional education. Building upon personal experience is essential to an enhanced approach to the profession, and the topics and activities presented here guide readers to think not as students but as professionals, addressing the primary stages of teacher development. In three parts—Discovery of Self, Discovery of Teaching, and Discovery of Student Learning—the authors connect readers to theoretical foundations and the processes of becoming an insider to the profession. This updated Second Edition includes: Integration of the 2014 National Core Arts Standards Discussion of NAfMEs Model Cornerstone Assessments Explorations of issues of equity, access, and inclusion for marginalized populations and new examples of culturally responsive pedagogy Added coverage of innovative practices including popular music, technology for autonomous music-making, songwriting, and composition Streamlined discussion of learning theory, focusing on the basic foundations of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism The accompanying companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/raiber provides revised and updated "Connecting to the Profession" features that help enhance students’ understanding of the ideas presented in the text, links to videos of K-12 music teaching and interviews with teachers, and additional resources for instructors. Featuring networking activities to aid in self-reflection, a glossary of terms, and a wealth of online resources and tools, The Journey from Music Student to Teacher is the culmination of more than 25 years of experience in secondary music classrooms, providing a framework for establishing professional role identity among preservice music educators during their introduction to the field.

Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching promotes inquiry and reflection to facilitate teacher growth, lifelong learning and a disposition toward educational change. Strongly grounded in current theories and research in teacher education, the text engages readers in analyzing their own experiences in order to conceptualize the complexity of teaching; involves them in clarifying their reasons for seeking a career in teaching; supports their insights, questions, and reflections about their work; and promotes a reflective, critical attitude about schools in general as teachers are urged to think of themselves as change agents in school settings.

The Psychology of Teaching and Learning Music introduces readers to the key theoretical principles, concepts, and research findings about learning and how these concepts and principles can be applied in the music classroom. Beginning with an overview of the study of teaching and learning, and moving through applying theory to practice, and reflective practice in the process of personal growth, this text focuses on music learning theories, behavioral approaches, cognitive, social-cognitive development, and constructive views of learning. It includes culture and community, learning differences, motivation, effective curricular design, assessment, and how to create learning environments, illustrated by practical case studies, projects, exercises, and photos. Showing students how to apply the psychology theory and research in practice as music educators, this book provides a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate music education students and faculty.

Music Learning and Teaching in Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence explores a comprehensive array of key issues, concepts, and debates related to music learning and teaching in three phases of a child's development. It provides a broad framework for understanding the distinct needs and perspectives of infants, children, and adolescents as they relate to music.

Musical identity raises complex, multifarious, and fascinating questions. Discussions in this new study consider how individuals construct their musical identities in relation to their experiences of formal and informal music teaching and learning. Each chapter features a different case study situated in a specific national or local socio-musical context, spanning 20 regions across the world. Subjects range from Ghanaian or Balinese villagers, festival-goers in Lapland, and children in a South African township to North American and British students, adults and children in a Cretan brass band, and Gujerati barbers in the Indian diaspora.

Music Learning as Youth Development explores how music education programs can contribute to young people’s social, emotional, cognitive, and artistic capacities in the context of life-long musical development. International scholars argue that MLYD programs should focus in particular on the curiosity, energy and views of young people affecting the teachers, musicians, pedagogy, programs, and music with which young people interact. From fields of progressive music education, authors share their perspectives on approaches that can lead to new ways of enabling youth learners as they transition to adulthood. A vast range of possible outcomes arising from in-school, afterschool, and community-based music programs are examined in order to highlight the aspects of youth development that music learning is particularly well-suited to support. Following an introductory essay that provides new perspectives on pursuing lifelong musical development, the volume is features two primary sections. The first focuses on case studies exploring several programs through the lens of the transitional stages of music learning as youth development, helping the reader understand key concepts and explore challenges for creating music learning as youth development programs. The second section addresses the broad implications and policy issues of programs described, including discussing why music learning should be conceived of as critical to formative stages of youth development that can lead to a productive and fulfilling life. The conclusion synthesizes the range of perspectives provided by eight contributors and offers implications for life-long human development through music in the 21st century.

The Handbook of Musical Identities explores three features of psychological approaches to musical identities and four real-life contexts in which musical identities have been investigated. The multidisciplinary breadth of the Handbook reflects the changes that are taking place in music, in digital technology, and in their role in society.