This short guide will help you to find out how you can contribute to and/or participate in the project. Whether you are studying at NMH or another school, whether you are teaching at NMH or somewhere else, whether you are a decision-maker or a researcher there are ways you can participate and contribute to our project and to the exploration of music performance education for long-lasting, sustainable and enjoyable careers. Keep on reading!
I’m a student at NMH…
Quick overview
- if you want Alexander Technique lessons, apply for an elective course
- if you want the Alexander Technique to be integrated into your main instrument teaching, talk to your teacher and to the teachers in this project
- if you want to find out more about the project and ideas behind it, talk to one of the teachers on our team
If you are reading this it is likely that you would like to get some Alexander Technique lessons and the most straightforward way at the moment is to apply for an elective course. However, the project is not really about the Alexander Technique itself and more about how the main instrument teaching and learning could be more tightly integrated with the principles of the AT. The role of the students (that is, you) is very important in helping us to figure out the best way to do so; it is not always easy for us to step into the students’ shoes. Talk to your teacher if you think you could benefit from such an approach to learning your instrument.
Have you had any noteworthy insights or experiences with the Alexander Technique? Have you come upon other innovative approaches to learning your instrument? We would love to hear your experiences and get your feedback. Go to the “Share Your Experiences” page and let us know.
We believe that the ideas underlying the project offer a lot of depth for exploration. Whether you are just curious to find out more, or if you are considering doing your master’s project (or even a PhD!) with a similar topic do not hesitate to approach us. We will be happy to share what we know!
I’m a student at another school…
Quick overview
- if you want Alexander Technique lessons, checkout if our school offers an elective course
- if you want the Alexander Technique to be integrated into your main instrument teaching, talk to your teacher and share the information from this website with them
- if you want to find out more about the project and ideas behind it, talk to one of the teachers on our team
- if you want to get a taste of this model apply for a spot at the Norwegian Academy of Music (we have many partnerships for student exchange)
I’m a part of NMH’s teaching staff…
We need you! We believe that the teaching model we are developing offers many benefits to our students. These benefits range from improved playing (better sound, accuracy, breathing etc.) to increased well-being (increased sense of freedom and confidence, reduced tensions, getting to grips with performance anxiety). We envision every one of our students reaping these benefits, but our approach faces two challenges: it’s resource intense and it’s based on teamwork. Both of these issues may turn out to be what makes the approach so valuable, however to get the project off the ground they need to be addressed.
It takes commitment of the whole institution to find solutions to overcome these challenges. However, it would be naive to think that such a commitment to a new approach can be made without knowing what it entails. We would like to invite you to talk to us what all this is about, how you could try this out in your own studio or why should we care to begin with. Let’s engage in the dialogue about the future of music performance education! Changes are taking place in society that we don’t have the luxury of watching these from the sidelines.
We will do everything in our powers to let you know more about the benefits and pitfalls of the approach as we continue to develop it. But even at this early stage we believe that every one of our student deserves not only how to play well but also learn how to have a long-lived, sustainable and enjoyable career. Talk to us!
I’m working at another music performance education institution…
We are very interested in both national and international collaboration. Whether you want to share your experiences or work together we would love to hear from you! If you share our passion for education of young people in pursuit of long-lasting careers in music performance, let’s join our forces!
Would you like to publish any of your thoughts through our blog? Let us know.
I’m a decision maker
It is not easy juggling institutional priorities. In the complex world that we find ourselves today we need well curated and thought-through, societally relevant curricula that are deliverable efficiently. Curatorship means that we need to carefully reduce the number of choices. We need to commit to certain approaches to be able to study them in-depth. As a decision maker you could create the conditions for such curatorship and commitment. We believe it is not wrong to be opinionated after having considered different options and we believe we have distilled and integrated our own experiences and those of countless other educators into an elegant model that can be easily tried out on a small scale or adopted across institutions. We would hereby like to invite you to consider adopting and supporting the development of our model.
Contact one of our team members to find out more about our project!
I’m a researcher …
We believe there are many strands of research to be picked up in this project and we would be delighted to have a research-minded contributor to solidify and support our findings. Need a topic to write a master’s thesis about? Or a full-fledged PhD project?
The music pedagogical perspective is probably the most obvious. Others might include cognitive science, philosophy etc. One line of inquiry is focused on bringing to the fore the different attitudes that underlie and influence the way we teach, and how the “natural attitude” (as opposed to “phenomenological attitude”) might be an insufficient foundation for our pedagogical philosophies that deal with the complexities of human consciousness.