Randi Margrethe Eidsaa

Project title: What characterizes the creative processes and aesthetic expressions in collaborative musician-pupil-teacher projects in schools?

Project period: Oct 15, 2007 - Jan 15, 2012

Supervisor: Sven Erik Holgersen 

The project:

This PhD project is a study in the field of music didactics and music pedagogy. The research object is collaborative creative music projects (creative partnerships) in schools and the study focuses on creative processes with music within the context of a strictly structured temporary school project. The intention of the research project is to describe and analyze the music, the ensemble interactions, the didactics and the context. An overall aim of the research project is to clarify in which ways these four components; music, relationships, didactics and project design are connected.

This is a qualitative research project with a phenomenological approach to creative composition processes in music and art partnerships. Empirical work is an essential part of the study. However, there is an underlying set of ideas and theories that will be discussed in the research project; in particular theories on musical creativity and aesthetic learning and aesthetic expressions in the classroom. The research data were collected during the observation of four creative music projects from 2007 to 2010 and include field notes, video, sound recording, written music, interviews, manuscripts and children’s written reflections. Each project will not be described or analysed in detail but I will refer to examples from each case in the discussion. 

Through the analysis of music, events and dialogues the study aims to portray the essence of creative processes and musical production at various stages of professional-pupil-teacher music partnerships.

Randi Margrethe Eidsaa is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Agder (enrolment on the PhD program at DPU, Copenhagen). She holds bachelor in music from Agder Music Conservatory and a master in music education from The University of Oslo. Prior to her work at Agder University she taught music for ten years in primary and secondary schools in Norway. She is a composer and a producer of school musicals and co-author of Sanger, Septimer og Triangler, Spektro Musikal  and Allmenn Musikkundervisning - cases presenting pedagogy, didactics, methods and repertoire for music teachers and students. She was a member of the National Committee who revised the music teacher education in 1997 and the Norwegian National Music curriculum in 2006. She is presently working on a PhD research project on creative collaborative music projects in Lower Secondary Schools in Norway.