Workshop 3: 28 March 2013
Creative learning and ‘original’ musical performance: Workshop 3
Learning to be a creative performer: Workshop
Royal College of Music, 25 March 2013
On 25 March 2013 the CLAOMP team held the third Project Workshop at the Royal College of Music. Students and staff who had participated in our research were invited, as were our main collaborators, i.e. Helena Gaunt and Aaron Williamon. The day took the format of a morning meeting for staff and an afternoon meeting for students, with lunch in between for all. This splitting of the groups allowed us to discuss issues of interest without the potential inhibition that might otherwise have been experienced. We presented aspects of our findings from three research strands: 1) focus-group discussion (‘Teachers’ concepts of creativity’); 2) observational study of one-to-one lessons (‘Inside the teaching studio’) and 3) longitudinal study of individual practice (‘Inside the practice room’). The feedback gained will aid us in developing ways of ‘packaging’ the findings for practitioners.
While both teachers and students present reflected positively on having been involved in the research, each group valued insights about the other group from the findings that we presented. Teachers were particularly interested to see findings from the practice study, in which we identified two ‘ways of working’ in students’ approaches to developing an interpretation. The possibility was discussed of using the findings from the advanced students in the study as a model to help other students develop their own approaches to practice. Student participants, on the other hand, were interested by findings from the teachers’ focus group, which gave them insights into teachers’ concepts.
