Music Education Through Cultural Immersion: Preservice Music Teachers' Experiences in a Caribbean-American Steel Band

• In Event: 31.092 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Three - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 31.092-5 - Music Education Beyond Traditional Public School Settings

Abstract

This project culturally immersed four postsecondary music education students with no prior steel band experience in a Caribbean-American community steel band over a 13 week period. Although participants relied on formal conservatory training to musically navigate classes and rehearsals, the students encountered and embraced alternative rehearsal structures and unfamiliar methods of teaching and learning music. Among primary themes that emerged from this study were rehearsal strategies, authority, interlocutors, and schedule challenges. Facing significant logistical challenges, the project underscores the difficulty of deviating from the over encumbered music education student schedule. This study points toward the utility of culturally immersive programs for preservice music teachers as well as music educational strategies to be learned from the Caribbean steel band artform.

Author

• Adam Grisé, University of Maryland - College Park