Helena GauntRoyal Welsh College of Music and Drama · Executive
Helena Gaunt
Doctor of Education
About
33
Publications
11,464
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Introduction
I'm currently working on a volume for OUP that rethinks a vision for professional higher music education. It connects with changing professional landscapes in the arts, and responds to a contemporary zeitgeist that calls for the arts to come more centrally into the fabric of our societies. It also draws on the long history of craft apprenticeship in music and presents a critical appraisal of contemporary professional education and areas of innovation over the last thirty years.
Publications
Publications (33)
This paper considers the purpose, values and principles underpinning higher music education (HME) as one of the performing arts in a context of turbulent global change. Recognising complex challenges and opportunities in this field, HME is addressed from dual perspectives: educating the next generations of professional musicians, and higher music i...
Ensemble practices have been essential to the performing and visual fine arts over centuries. The skills of working in ensembles, including team work and collaborative learning, are increasingly understood to be critical and transferable professional attributes. However, much teaching of ensembles is practical and embodied, relying on tacit knowled...
Although there is now an accepted need for initiatives that support older people’s well-being, little attention has been paid to the role of those facilitating such activities. This research explored the benefits and challenges for those working in facilitating musical activities with older people. The research was undertaken at three UK case study...
The purpose of this study was to explore how highly trained performing musicians, currently working in higher education conservatoires or universities, understand, categorize, and reflect on their identification as a studio music teacher. Using an online survey involving participants (N = 173) across nine western countries, respondents identified h...
This article examines the professional culture of a UK symphony orchestra and the ways the musicians perceive themselves as a Community of Practice (CoP). The study draws on data from semi-structured interviews. Findings illuminated aspects of a CoP among the musicians, including having a shared purpose, valuing their collective endeavor, and exper...
Historically, in the professional training of musicians, the master-apprentice model has played a central role in instilling the methods and values of the discipline, contributing to the rigorous formation of talent. Expert professional musicians advocate that certain thinking skills can be modelled through the master-apprentice model, yet its crit...
Background: There is considerable evidence that participating in music making can have benefits for children and young people. This research explored how participation in making music might support the social, emotional and cognitive well-being of older people. Methods: Comparisons were made between older people participating in a wide range of mus...
The research reported here focuses on the organizational structure and facilitator strategies observed in musical activities with older people. The observations formed one part of the Music for Life Project, funded by the ESRC New Dynamics of Ageing Programme (http://www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/), which investigated the social, emotional and c...
There is now an accepted need for initiatives that support older people's well-being. There is increasing evidence that active engagement with music has the potential to contribute to this. This paper explores the relationship between musical possible selves and subjective well-being in later life. The research reported here formed part of a larger...
Aims:
This research explored the relationship between active music making and subjective well-being, in older people's lives. The research focused on how participation in making music might enhance older people's social, emotional and cognitive well-being, through meeting the basic psychological needs identified in earlier research.
Method:
The...
In higher music education, learning in social settings (orchestras, choirs, bands, chamber music and so on) is prevalent, yet understanding of such learning rests heavily on the transmission of knowledge and skill from master to apprentice. This narrow view of learning trajectories pervades in both one-to-one and one-to-many contexts. This is surpr...
Research on orchestral musicians has predominantly used survey methods to measure stress and/or work satisfaction; studies have seldom used in-depth interviews to ask orchestral musicians to reflect on their own practice and have neglected to elicit musicians' perceptions of the processes involved in expert orchestral performance. Using semi-struct...
It has been said that participation in master classes provides an initiation into a community of practice (Hanken, 2008; Creech et al., 2009) and that contemporary practices in higher music education are strongly informed by those of the past (Froehlich, 2002, cf. Heikinheimo, 2009). This is certainly true of public master classes which provide stu...
This paper reports on qualitative research undertaken at a conservatoire in the United Kingdom, exploring students' perceptions of how they were supported in realising their aspirations as professional musicians and making the transition to professional life. In particular, the research explored students' perceptions of the role played by their ins...
The cyclic process of self-regulated learning has been identified as a predictor of achievement in musical skill acquisition and musical performance. Meta-cognition, intrinsic to the self-regulation process, develops as the student takes greater responsibility for their own learning. From this perspective we consider music students' responses to a...
The power of one-to-one tuition in Higher Music Education is evidenced by its continuing place at the heart of conservatoire education. The need to examine this student–teacher relationship more closely has been emphasised in the last decades by increasing understanding of processes of student learning in Higher Education as a whole, and in particu...
This paper analyses the perceptions of 20 students in a conservatoire in the UK about one-to-one tuition, and forms part of research also investigating the perceptions of the students' teachers. Findings suggested that these students had significantly different experiences of one-to-one tuition in terms of frequency and length of lessons. Neverthel...
POLIFONIA RESEARCH WORKING GROUP, 2010
All authors were members of the Research Working Group of the second cycle of the ERASMUS Network for Music Polifonia. The Polifonia network, a partnership of more than 60 organisations in professional music training and the music profession in 30 European countries, was coordinated jointly by the Royal Colleg...
The aim of this research was to investigate the value and purpose of Master Classes, from the perspective of Conservatoire students. Thirty-seven UK Conservatoire students responded to a questionnaire, providing information about their prior experiences of Master Classes, the factors that they considered to be important in a successful Master Class...
This article outlines what we know about the way that individual characteristics-including sex differences, physiological characteristics, age, personality, and cognitive and learning styles-impact on engagement with and approaches to learning music. It presents theoretical frameworks that may serve to guide future research in elucidating the way i...
One-to-one instrumental/vocal tuition forms a core part of the professional education offered to undergraduate and postgraduate music students in a conservatoire. However, whilst anecdotal evidence is plentiful, there is little existing research underpinning its practices. This article provides an analysis of the perceptions of 20 principal study t...
This paper presents findings from action research in a conservatoire (the Guildhall School of Music & Drama) which focused on teaching and learning effective breathing in playing the oboe. A range of approaches and techniques emerged from a literature review. These were implemented in practice with oboe students at the Guildhall School, and changes...
Breathing and breath control are central to playing the oboe, yet few detailed educational resources are available to support their teaching and learning. This paper presents a review of existing knowledge and expertise in the field. It highlights common ground and points of controversy, and indicates some key areas for consideration. It points to...
Projects
Projects (2)
Employability as metacognition is a strategic program of change across higher education. Current funding is equipping and enabling educators at 19 institutions to embed employability development across their programs.
The Creative Workforce Initiative seeks to understand creative workers and their practice. The initiative is hosted at Curtin University in Perth, Wester Australia. Associates are located in Europe, the US, Canada, Malaysia and Australia. Current projects include an ARC with Griffith University, an international study of women composers, and career profile development for higher education students.
