‘Taste the value of each note’: verbal teaching strategies in guitar masterclasses

ABSTRACT

Our study examines the impact of student performance level, student gender and content matter on the verbal strategies (literal language, technical instruction and images and metaphors) teachers use in guitar masterclasses. After recording and transcribing 60 guitar masterclasses, of which 40 were selected for the final sample, we operationalised the variables as follows: independent judges evaluated students’ performance levels, and the content taught and the verbal strategies used by teachers were categorised using the software NVivo 10. Statistical tests (two-way ANOVA, the Mann–Whitney U-test and the Kruskal–Wallis test) suggested that the content presented by the teacher may determine the type of verbal strategy used in the classroom. The results indicate that music education research has used images and metaphors as an umbrella concept, and this may hide specificities of the teacher's verbal discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Images and metaphors
• guitar
• musical instrument teaching
• verbal strategies
• gender bias
• expressive music learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Measures of agreement between the researchers for each verbal strategy are provided in Table S1 – supplementary material – in the online version of this article.

2 This excerpt was operationalised with a value equal to 2.62%. The use of percentage values is supported by the fact that the final duration of a masterclass may vary substantially. Thus this form of operationalisation minimised the effects that excessively long master classes could have on the entire sample.

3 Measures of agreement between the researchers for each content matter are provided in Table S2 – supplementary material – in the online version of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Maranhão Support Foundation for Research and Technological and Scientific Development – FAPEMA under grant number 00704/18.

Notes on contributors

Ricieri Carlini Zorzal

Ricieri Carlini Zorzal is an associate professor of Music at the Federal University of Maranhao – Brazil. He was Head of the Arts Department for three years (2012–2015) and has been collaborating to an interdisciplinary research program since 2014. His research focuses on the theoretical and empirical knowledge related to music psychology, music instrument teaching strategies and guitar performance. He is currently conducting an investigation on verbal instruction in natural music learning environments.

João Fortunato Soares-Quadros Jr.

João Fortunato Soares de Quadros Júnior is a full professor at the Department of Music at the Federal University of Ouro Preto-UFOP (Brazil). He is a collaborating professor of the Official Master's Degree in Musical Education at the University of Granada (Spain). He did his Doctorate and Master in Musical Education at the University of Granada, and completed a Master in Music at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil). Since 2015, he has coordinated the Art, Culture and Education Research Group. He was director of the Division of Prospecting and Articulation of the International Relations Office at Federal University of Maranhao for the biennium 2018–2019.