This book advocates for a radical change in music teaching and learning methods, allowing for a break from the traditional conservatory model still in use in many classrooms. The product of twenty years of interdisciplinary work by musicians, music teachers, and psychologists, the book proposes to place the focus of music education on the students themselves and on their mental and physical activity, with the aim of helping them to manage their own goals and emotions. This alternative is based on a new theoretical framework, as well as numerous real, concrete examples of how to put it into practice with students of different ages and in different environments. This book focuses primarily on teaching instrumental music, but its content will be useful for any teacher, student, musician, or researcher interested in improving music education in any environment, whether formal or informal, in which it takes place
Chapters 3, 4, 6 and 18 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Juan Ignacio Pozo is Professor of Basic Psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he teaches subjects relating to the psychology of learning. He has researched learning in very different areas (geography, history, physics, chemistry, grammar, philosophy, sport, etc.), and particularly in music, for projects developed over 20 years by the Autonomous University of Madrid Musical Knowledge Acquisition Group, which he has coordinated by directing research projects. Among them were several doctoral theses, part of the results of which have served as the basis for the creation of this book.
María Puy Pérez Echeverría is Associate Professor in basic psychology department at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where she teaches subjects related to the psychology of thinking and learning and teaching processes. Her research is related to learning processes and in particular with external systems of representation. She has worked on music learning within the Autonomous University of Madrid Musical Knowledge Acquisition Group, directing different projects and doctoral theses aimed at improving learning and teaching music, which have been extremely useful for the making of this book.
Guadalupe López-Íñiguez has a Doctorate in Psychology from the Autonomous University of Madrid and is a cellist specialized in historical performance practice. She is Associate Professor of Music Education at the Sibelius Academy and works as Researcher in the Centre for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts (CERADA) of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her research includes the study of psychological processes inherent in music learning and teaching, the optimisation of interpretation, life-long learning and employability, musical identities and learner identities, giftedness and talent, and the theories of emotion. Guadalupe is Co-Editor of Revista Internacional de Educación Musical and Vice-President of the Spanish Society for Music Psychology and Musical Performance. She regularly gives concerts as a soloist and has recorded the complete works of Gabrielli, Scarlatti and Mendelssohn for cello.
José Antonio Torrado del Puerto is Professor of Violin at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Malaga, Guest Lecturer for the Master’s degree in Psychology of Education at the Autonomous University of Madrid and Lecturer in the Master’s degree course on Creation and Interpretation at the Rey Juan Carlos University. He researches into the area of management of emotions through sounds, the implicit conceptions of teachers and students on learning and its purpose: music and its relationship with the strategies used in the classrooms for study and management of its interpretation.
