Making a difference in the music classroom: the role of music composition in reframing pupils’ attitudes toward music education in a Portuguese classroom context

Abstract

In Portugal, music education in general schools is still considerably tied to practices based on instrumental performance related to Orff instruments and the soprano recorder, listening-based activities, and theoretical issues. Creative activities such as music composition remain, therefore, outside the scope of many music lessons in Portuguese classrooms. Thus, quite often, pupils feel disengaged from music education classes that fail to actively involve them in a truly participatory and creative way. A departure is made in this chapter from Deleuze's and Guattari's notions of “deterritorialization/reterritorialization,” and of “rhizome” to explore in depth how the actions and beliefs about music education of a group of 22 pupils changed after participating in a weekly music workshop, where creative activities in general, and music composition in particular, assumed a preeminent role. The workshop was developed while these pupils attended Grades 4 and 5 of their basic education.1 During the research process, a teacher-researcher collected data though participant observation, field notes, and conducted two group interviews with pupils. The analysis of data is presented in this chapter using several characteristics of narrative analysis, in a permanent dialogue between description, analysis, and the literature review. Findings support the perspective that a creative approach to music education, with a significant focus on music composition, favors a plural and differentiated music pedagogy in which pupils develop their pathways through “multiple lines of flight,” encouraging, therefore, the development of transformational actions and of different perspectives that question and offer alternatives to the ways pupils perceive music education in Portuguese general schools today.