A Theoretical Model of the Musical Problem Solving and Decision Making of Performers, Arrangers, Conductors, and Composers

Abstract

This study is part of a continuing inquiry into the of experienced and novice musicians. Musical involvement in educative settings occurs in a variety of forms: performance, conducting, arranging, moving, reading and writing, and creating. Musical experience thus moves beyond the duality of creator and appreciator: the conductor/composer/arranger/performer brings a rich fund of practice-based experience to the immediate experience of evaluating a score for a rehearsal, performing in a particular concert hall, or creating a middle school choral arrangement. One of the problems that has emerged from research studies of music education practice is that much of what music teachers do is uncritical unconsidered imitation. This has been the conservatory model: play or sing or teach it like imitate exactly, and you will experience success. This model is alive and in many teacher-training institutions as well as in conservatories and it affects not only the individual music lesson but conducting and methods courses as well. A history of imitation does not bode well for fostering the disposition to create independent musical thinkers. The research base for musical includes audiation, perception, aptitude, and attitude, but contains relatively little research into the process of making sense of musical experiences. It is no wonder that music educators uncritically adopt any thinking skills instructional package or consider the current emphasis on merely a variation on the higher order or scientific of past staff development opportunities. Concurrent protocol analysis, the analysis of think aloud verbal protocols, is one lens we can use to gain insight into the layers and convolutions of the process used by musicians. Protocol analysis provides a rich source of data that can be analyzed using a theoretical model. John Dewey's description of reflective as found in his How We Think (1933) has been used as a theoretical model in several recent studies of musical and will guide the qualitative examination of the transcripts in this study.