Papers by Stephanie Khoury
If music education is to respond to the skills and needs of 21st-century music learners, innovati... more If music education is to respond to the skills and needs of 21st-century music learners, innovative learning paradigms must be explored. This dissertation reports a research-creation approach for the development of a framework for Creative Music Learning with Technology (CMLT), which emphasizes a process of learning to interact creatively with music. Theoretical analysis of improvisation pedagogy and technology for learning to improvise provide the foundation for creative experimentation. An examination of existing technologies reveals a lack of available tools for cultivating a creative disposition to musicianship. As a result, a prototype application was built for iPad and iPhone based on the principles of the CMLT framework. The software is at once a tool for developing musical understanding and for exploring creative freedom in music. A two-phased study of middle school instrumentalists and expert teachers examined the effectiveness of the prototype. In the first phase, seven expert music teachers and eight middle school instrumental students participated in user testing, revealing that the prototype effectively engaged users in learning many key objectives of improvisation pedagogy. In the second phase, six middle school students reported increased confidence after using the prototype for four weeks. Results suggest there is a strong potential for the framework for CMLT to positively enhance creative music learning.
Throughout the 18th century, the practice of partimento flourished in Italian conservatories, spr... more Throughout the 18th century, the practice of partimento flourished in Italian conservatories, spreading eventually to Paris where it functioned as a key pedagogical tool of the “Italian school.” Partimenti can be understood to be instructional bass lines, and was used by thousands of classical composers and improvisers across Europe, a fact that is often overlooked. As a music educator who studies improvisation pedagogy, the obsolescence of the practice in the modern pedagogical landscape seems lamentable. Based on my own belief in the potential of this lost tradition to inspire new creative means to musical fluency, the present paper seeks to answer some important questions: What are partimenti? Why do we know so very little of them? How does the practice fit into improvisation pedagogy more broadly? Can a practice of partimento become a part of musical pedagogy in the 21st century?
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Papers by Stephanie Khoury