Helmut Schaumberger, Univ.-Prof., Gustav Mahler Privatuniversität für Musik
keywords: Music Education, learning spaces, informal learning, holistic music education
We all know music rooms in our schools: four walls, chairs, a piano, sometimes a carpet on the floor, posters on the wall. We also know the rooms for instrumental lessons at music schools and, at the latest since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the diverse spaces and niches of the internet for online musicking. The rooms/spaces available for music education are more or less known, largely defined or allocated. But how satisfied can learners and music teachers be with these rooms/spaces? How well do they support the achievement of learning objectives? And above all, which rooms/spaces are (still) needed to make music lessons in schools fit for the future? Based on a work by Timo J. Dauth (2023), who recently systematized the concept of space in music education, the talk describes new spaces for music learning and their potential for music teaching. In her study on informal music learning, Lucy Green (2005) already attempted to bridge the gap between the school as a place of learning and the places of learning outside of school, Natalia Ardila-Mantilla (2016) comprehensively described the “Musiklernwelten” (= music learning worlds) in her work and Andreas Doerne (2019) presented a concrete vision for the “Musizierlernhaus” (= music learning house) of the future. A music school research project currently running in Carinthia (AT), in which compulsory “holistic” music lessons in so-called “Musikwerkstätten” (= music workshops) are attended in addition to lessons on an instrument, illustrates how important it is to keep creating new spaces of learning.
Helmut Schaumberger is Professor of Music Education at the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music in Klagenfurt, Austria. His degrees (PhD in Music Education, Master in Music Education and German Language) are from Mozarteum University Salzburg, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and University Vienna. For more than 15 years, Dr. Schaumberger taught at grammar schools. As a guest lecturer and clinician, he has presented courses in various European countries and the US.