Teaching music theory in UK higher education today: contexts and commentaries

ABSTRACT

This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues raised in relation to a selection of prior contributions to Music Education Research and comparing approaches to music literacy and theory teaching as represented in recent music theory conferences in the UK and the United States.

KEYWORDS:

• Music theory pedagogy
• higher education
• social justice in music
• diversified curricular

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For further on music theory and analysis as an autonomous discipline, see Horton (2020) and Agawu et al. (2023).

2 OpenLearn can be accessed at https://www.open.edu/openlearn/.

3 My thinking about this suite of courses has been influenced by conversations initiated by Chloë Alaghband-Zadeh and with contributions from Ruard Absaroka, Joe Browning, Freya Jarman, Sue Miller, Laudan Nooshin, and Lara Pearson at panels on music analysis at the July 2018 CityMAC conference at City, University of London, the September 2018 conference of the Royal Musical Association at the University of Bristol, and the April 2019 conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology at the University of Aberdeen.

4 Thanks also to two Open University colleagues, Maiko Kawabata and Lilian Simones, who provided feedback on framing and pedagogy.

5 My references here to music theory generally include music analysis and vice versa, but, like Horton, ‘I maintain this synonymy, while acknowledging its inadequacy: practitioners might distinguish between theory (as the modeling of musical systems or the taxonomy of praxis) and analysis (as the application of theory in the elucidation of works)’ (Horton 2020, 63).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Attah

Associate Professor Tom Attah is a musician, teacher and published author who leads the BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance and BA (Hons) Music Production degrees at Leeds Arts University. https://www.tomattah.co.uk.

Esther Cavett

Dr Esther Cavett is a Senior Research Fellow in Music at King’s College London and Lecturer in Music at Somerville, where she teaches music analysis.

Byron Dueck

Byron Dueck is Professor of Music at the Open University. His research interests include North American Indigenous music and dance and the music of central Cameroon.

Sue Miller

Sue Miller is Professor of Music at Leeds Beckett University. Her writing has been informed by both her professional practice as a performer and her experience as a music educator.

Lauren Redhead

Professor Lauren Redhead is Head of Music at Goldsmiths, University of London, a composer of experimental music, a performer of music for organ and electronics, and a musicologist.