Anna Houmann

Traditional Musics in Music Education – The Sound of (R)evolution?

This chapter describes a SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and later Linnaeus Palme project that in the years 2008–2016 aimed to start a Music Education Department at a Music Conservatoire in Vietnam derived from the renovation of curriculums for music in schools. It discusses the questions concerning traditional music in a school context by addressing how higher education is linked to the prerequisites in teaching traditional musics in schools and how government policies and renovation of curriculums plays an important role. Introducing traditions with a long history of aural transmission into conservatory and school environment is not without challenges. The Vietnam government is dedicated to preserving and developing traditional musics and the Conservatory has been teaching traditional instrumental music of the Viet majority for several decades. However, this does not address the plight of the 53 ethnic minorities, which all have distinct music, many of which are in danger. In a time when music is an essential part of society and in peoples’ everyday life, traditional musics also becomes a central element in the experience of your own identity, a way of telling the story of your life, “the soundtrack of your life”.

Creativity in Music Education? The wild card that got stuck in the deck

Working within the field of creativity can be difficult within a context of the arts. Just mentioning the word could get you into trouble. One thought is that in arts education we don’t talk about creativity in fear of loosing the “magic” about it. The arts are per se a creative context so why bother defining it, describing it, or even researching it? It just is. In this chapter, I discuss this tension and provide examples of work that gives creativity a voice in Music Teacher Education.