Steve Holley

Popular Music Pedagogies; a loving critique - As popular music education (PME) flourishes, so does the need to identify, explore, and interrogate emerging approaches to teaching and learning through popular music. Although the members of this panel are currently engaged as music educators, none of them entered teaching from what might be considered a traditional path. Rather, members were engaged as professional popular musicians prior to entering teaching. Guided by the research question, “How might highly-experienced popular musicians approach the act of teaching popular music in a school setting?,” we’ll share the initial findings of our collaborative research project while troubling the current arc of PME.

Popular Music Education – Beyond Three Chords and the Truth - In this session, we’ll discuss some of both the why and the how of PME.  We'll trouble some of the notions surrounding PME such as PME is culturally responsive, the conflation/confusion around informal learning practices and PME, and how to incorporate the varied learning experiences of musicians into our teaching practices. We'll also discuss some of these ideas actually look and feel like in the classroom. Sometimes, the truth can hurt a little! 

How Popular Musicians Teach - Employing an auto-ethnographic lens, the paper investigates the various ways the author taught and students learned in a popular music program. Through identifying the similarities and dissimilarities between a learner’s in-school and out-of-school music experiences––as well as problematizing the preconceived role(s) of the learner and teacher in these experiences––the author arrived at the conclusion that a hybrid of formal, non-formal, and informal approaches was, indeed, a viable popular music pedagogy.

Developing Hybrid Practices in Popular Music Education - presentation with Shane Colqhoun