1.    Prioritising a sociological approach to music (as advocated by Lowitja [Lois] O’Donoghue CBE AM—see Egan, 1987) 

and,

2.    Building on the informal and intense musical experiences that students bring to the classroom (Philpott, 2016; Spruce, 2016; O’Neill, 2014). 

 

This website provides sociological information and explores musical examples within a given historical context, covering ancient traditions through to modern day music practices in Indigenous culture. This approach of grounding Indigenous perspectives in a socio-historical context can be directly translated into the teaching of Classroom Music. Music is essentially a social practice and, like any other social practice, it reflects socio-economic relationships—patterns of privilege and poverty, racism and other forms of discrimination as well as political power imbalances. VCAA curricular support for a sociological approach to inclusive Indigenous music teaching strategies includes: VCAA, ‘Music: Foundation – Level 10’, ‘Learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures’, and ‘Intercultural Capability’.

 

It is vital to avoid ‘idealising’ classical music as ‘pure Art, as we should avoid trivialising or romanticising Indigenous cultural practices as ‘exotic’ (Nakata et al., 2012). This website effectively counters the pigeon-holing perception of Indigenous music as ‘traditional’ or ‘exotic’ by displaying interactive clips of selected Indigenous artists. The genres listed effectively demonstrate the diversity of Indigenous musical culture: pop, rock, country, rap, alternative, world, folk, hip-hop, reggae, soul, jazz. This list also has the benefit of engaging with the kind of popular music genres that students are exploring outside of school, thus enabling a filtering of informal knowledge into the formal classroom context—something which is likely to promote student engagement and fight the perception of Classroom Music as “increasingly alienated from young people’s lives” Savage (2007, p. 75).

This website was specifically developed as a resource for music teachers. Amongst other things, it provides detailed lesson plans that are structured around the incorporation of Indigenous music and cultural perspectives, with a particular emphasis on singing in traditional local languages. These lesson plans are targeted at the later primary school years, however the stimulus material could easily be used to design high school level lesson plans with appropriately scaffolded task work. The site also provides web resources aimed at creative student engagement e.g. an online animated video series about the Dreamtime and an online web-series dance initiative by Indigenous hip-hop artists.

This book is both a factual historical text and a compilation of songs that are directly inspired by Indigenous culture and history. Egan confronts the genocide of Australia’s First Peoples and simultaneously encourages creative exploration of that same history through the use of song—enabling “musical immersion” as an effective multi-modal teaching strategy (Philpott, 2016). Sheet music is provided and the book comes with an accompanying CD. The music notation is simplified, enabling an informal learning approach with the possibilities to scaffold in informal learning activities such as improvisation or aural composition (O’Neill, 2014).

 

Songlines is one of Australia’s foremost Indigenous artist organisations. Based in Victoria, Songlines offers school collaboration opportunities that provide “insightful and valuable cultural knowledge programs, as well as music and dance programs”. It must be noted that although such programs are fantastic, they cannot be allowed to function as filling in for the role of the teacher. As Walter & Butler point out, “race outsourcing” (2013, p. 403), the common practice of bringing in outside Indigenous experts to deal with such material, is merely posturing. Indigenous perspectives must be included in a meaningful and entrenched way.

Nakata, M., Nakata, V., Keech, S. & Bolt, R. (2012). Decolonial goals and pedagogies for Indigenous studies. In Decolonization: Indigeneity, education and society, 1(1), 120-140.

O’Neill, S. (2014). Mind the gap: Transforming music engagement through learner-centred informal music learning. The Recorder: Journal of the Ontario Music Educators’ Association, 56(2), 18-22.

Philpott, C. (2016). The what, how and where of musical learning and development. In C. Cooke, K. Evans, C. Philpott and G. Spruce (Eds.). Learning to Teach Music in the Secondary School (3rd ed.), (pp. 32-51). Abingdon: Routledge

Savage, J. (2007). Reconstructing Music Education through ICT’. In Research in Education, 78, 65-77.

Spruce, G., (2016). An integrated approach to lesson planning. In C. Cooke, K. Evans, C. Philpott and G. Spruce (Eds.). Learning to Teach Music in the Secondary School (3rd ed.), (pp. 80-93). Abingdon: Routledge.

VCAA, “Intercultural capability”. Retrieved on 4^th October 2017 from:
http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/intercultural-capability/introduction/rationale-and-aims

VCAA, “Learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures”. Retrieved on 4^th October 2017 from:
http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/static/docs/Learning%20about%20Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20Histories%20and%20Cultures.pdf

VCAA, “Music: Foundation – Level 10”. Retrieved on 4^th October 2017 from:
http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/the-arts/music/curriculum/f-10 

Walter, M. & Butler, K. (2013). Teaching race to teach Indigenity. Journal of Sociology, The Australian Sociological Association, 49(4), 397-410.