Epistemus. Journal of Studies in Music, Cognition & Culture

Reflections on Music Education in Argentina

2023-11-11T22:47:48+00:00

In this paper we present an interview with Silvia Furnó, a doctor in Educational Sciences with an extensive professional career, teacher trainer and researcher in Music Education. Throughout it, Dr. Furno reflects on her training as a teacher, her beginnings at initial level and her time at primary level, her role in the development of curricular designs in the 1980s and the ideas that guided her in the preparation of Musijugando, together with María Inés Ferrero. These ideas are still valid today in the classrooms through her song books and activities. Towards the end of the interview, we also share with the reader reflections on the continuities and discontinuities relative to the place of music in school, the quality of musical resources, pedagogical proposals, the use of musical performances and teacher training in current events, which emerge from the stories that Silvia shares throughout the meeting, and which are framed in current studies of experiences where we seek to review the role of the subject in the music teaching-learning process.

Review of the 5th Meeting of Educators "Popular knowledge, musical tasks"

2023-11-05T18:25:31+00:00

During September 2023, the fifth Meeting of Educators was held in the Memory and Human Rights Space (Ex ESMA), in which students and trainers met to work and reflect on ways of thinking about the circulation and transmission of musical knowledge in the context of socio-community projects.

Discursivity, significant configurations and musical cognition

2023-10-23T22:08:45+00:00

In this work different aspects of the processes of musical signification are discussed, paying attention to the meaning configurations that are involved in the deployment of embodied musical cognition in the field of interpretive praxis. To this end, after presenting a general problematization of this domain, the results of an exploration of the ways in which advanced students of academic music performance (at the undergraduate and graduate levels) conceive and relate their own performative processes and interpretive study are provided. In this direction, the focus of the study was placed on the ways in which the selected actors think, organize and experientially transit their link with musical discourses, as well as the way in which they are inscribed as performers in the discursive plot of the works to be performed. In this sense, aspects related to the operations carried out in the instance of production and interpretive study were investigated, the way in which they access various significant configurations related to the reference works, as well as the ways in which they establish and conceive their relationship with musical discursivity, its narrative deployment and its expressive dimension.

Indeterminate notation and interpretation

2023-10-06T21:23:58+00:00

This study examines the connection between the performance of experimental music and the context that frames it. Although a realization supposes a creative process that depends on the musician who carries it out, the elaboration occurs more in function of the references that the same context produces. It is then understood that this type of repertoire has a stabilized epistemology of practice, a system of signs circumscribed to the demands of a style referenced by discography that sustains a problematic mode of production for this type of work: the reflex act (Alvear, 2021). To address it, I will take as example one of the pages of singularidad #1 (2016), piece by Chilean composer Santiago Astaburuaga, which is examined through a device that intermingles the semiotic theory of Charles Peirce and three types of signs, icons, indexes, and symbols; Walter Benjamin's theory of technical reproduction; and the notion of technique elaborated by Ben Spatz. The objective is to show that understanding the epistemology of interpretation involves laying the foundations for a process of exploration, in accordance with the concept of indeterminacy, of the possibilities of an experimental work.

Movement and experiences in interaction in a case of improvised dance

2023-11-21T17:22:36+00:00

The art of dance is the object of study of different disciplines that are interested in unravelling the elements that come into play when dancing together. Collective improvisation practices are privileged scenarios for the study of basic components of social interaction because they are activities that take place in a restricted temporal-spatial framework, rely heavily on sensorimotor couplings, and also give rise to innovation. Among the various dance styles, contact improvisation (CI) appears as a paradigmatic example of how the creation of shared meaning among dancers allows them to perform sequences of movements based on body contact. Several researches have studied joint improvisation in dance, however, to our knowledge there are no studies on interpersonal coordination in CI that simultaneously integrate registers from a third-person perspective and the experience of the dancers themselves from a first-person perspective. This paper sought to analyse an CI event by integrating both records of personal experience and behavioural dynamics. The qualitative analysis of both records revealed the emergence of diachronic and synchronic categories that allowed us to deepen the interpretation of what happened at both the biomechanical and phenomenological levels. The results obtained allow us to postulate that the role of the interactive synergy of movements would constitute a dimension of utmost relevance in CI situations.

Mothers who lull: Meanings and functions of cradle songs

2023-06-10T20:14:17+00:00

This article presents the results of a qualitative research on the meanings that the act of singing cradle songs has for mothers from the Elqui province in the Coquimbo region, Chile. Our main objective was to elucidate the ideas regarding the functions that this song has fulfilled in the mothers' own lives and how they mean this musical practice. Based on interviews and discussion groups, we seek to reveal the deeper purposes of singing cradle songs, that transcend the mere intention of calming and helping to sleep.

Pedagogical exploration in the field of musical performance through the use of a didactic game: Person on Stage

2023-10-09T12:37:52+00:00

This work is aimed to describe a novel didactic game with projective utility: Person on Stage (PSE-JD). The instrument was designed to reveal the self-assessment modality used by a performer, and the internal conflicts arising from it. A sample of 48 students and teachers from the Conservatorio Superior de Música Astor Piazzolla of Buenos Aires. The use of PSE-JD allowed us to characterize three main aspects: a) the self-assessment mode used by each student: most of them use confrontational, reactive, dependent or abandoning modalities; b) the level of parity or disparity in relation to the power given to the self-evaluation: about two thirds exhibited asymmetric relationship where the performer is dominated by the self-assessment; c) the reaction of the performer against the self-evaluation: most of the participants exhibited a submission attitude. Besides allowing an empirical characterization of the self-assessment modality, the PSE-JD has an epistemological purpose, enabling a deep analysis of authoritative relations installed during learning and allowing the study of the emergence of Music Performance Anxiety. It appears as a useful tool to be applied in the pedagogical field as a powerful regulator of teaching, learning and evaluation processes.

Analysis of sensorimotor precision in Deaf children through a rhythmic game

2023-11-04T10:18:57+00:00

Sensorimotor skills (SMS) encompass coordinated responses to external stimuli, such as clapping or dancing in time to music. These skills emerge during childhood development and are often shaped by acoustic events, such as music and language. The consolidation of SMS is connected to cognitive processes like working memory and attention. In this study, evaluations were conducted on children aged 5 to 8, encompassing both typically hearing children and deaf children, by means of the performance of tasks involving musical synchronization. Although no statistically significant differences were discovered, it was observed that deaf children require approximately twice the effort compared to their hearing peers to attain the same level of performance in these tasks. Additionally, three distinct approaches to gameplay were identified among the participants when carrying out the tasks. The results of this study lay the groundwork for comprehending the gaming strategies employed by deaf children and their relationship to the development of sensorimotor skills within this demographic. This phenomenon may be linked to the degree of linguistic proficiency and motor maturation; however, it is essential to gather additional data to substantiate this hypothesis more conclusively.

Experience in virtual practice of music pedagogy in times of COVID-19

2023-06-10T18:35:12+00:00

The aim of this research was to develop a virtual experience in the initial practice of students of Pedagogy in Musical Education (PEM) associated with the Virtual Musical Initiation Program (PIMV) in times of COVID. An investigation of quantitative methodology is presented, of a quasi-experimental design, at a descriptive level with longitudinal application. During the 2 years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the subject of Initial Practice II in Music Pedagogy (PEM) had to be developed in a virtual format through a Virtual Musical Initiation Program (PIMV). Two surveys were applied to the participants: One survey was applied to music students from the Initial Practice II who participated as tutors in the PIMV, while the other survey was applied to the parents of the children who participated in the initiation program. The results show that the application of the PIMV was well accepted by the students in practice, 72% of them consider it positively and 36% see it as a sufficient practical activity. Regarding the parents, there is a good evaluation of this program in both years, with 95.5% good and very good in year 1 and 100% good and very good in year 2. In general, the Virtual practice experience is valued as positive and motivated university students to highlight in their curriculum the completion of Initial Practice II through the Musical Initiation Program in virtual format.