Inspired African music teaching and learning: engaging in innovative practice and pedagogies in higher education

Tertiary music educators are called to prepare students with requisite knowledge, skills and understandings in their initial teacher education (ITE) programs. In this paper we explore university partnerships in ITE programs by combining e-learning and traditional classroom methods as an effective way to share multicultural music practice like that of African. This paper forms part of our wider collaborative research project “See, Listen and Share: Exploring intercultural music education in a transnational experience” which began in 2016 across three universities. For this paper, we focus on teaching a South African song as a means of cultural and social learning. We draw on 2017 questionnaire data from Spanish and Australian students and include our observation and reflection notes. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. What emerged from the findings are discussed under overarching themes relating to benefits, opportunities and constraints students and authors experienced. We used ‘Skype’ as one-off teaching experience thus a limitation in itself therefore generalizations to other universities and contexts cannot be made. We recognise the need and importance for culture bearers and community musicians to work with academics in higher education institutes to inspire and share African music and culture within and beyond the African continent. Our research requires further exploration where tracking our participants over time in the field with a follow-up questionnaire might provide more information and evidence about the effectiveness of the hands-on approach. Although there are gaps concerning the use of emerging technologies which requires further exploration, we encourage institutes and individuals to engage in cross-institutional and cross-cultural exchange regarding the teaching and learning of African Musical Arts Education.