Browsing by Author "Torttila, Nea"

The Finnish national core curriculum 2016 sets creative music making such as improvising and composing as one of the main contents and targets of music education. Still many primary school teachers feel uncomfortable to teach creative music making in school. The aim of this study was to highlight the primary school teachers’ thoughts about creative music making in grades 3 – 6. The study sought to determine what kind of targets teachers set to creative music making, what working methods they use and how teachers understand their own role as an instructor of a creative music making. The interest of this research lays especially in the teachers’ own experience of creative music making. This was a qualitative case study. My research material consisted of semi-structured inter-views from two class teachers who had a lot of experience of creative music education. The interviews were analysed using thematic approach of content analysis method. I classified the research material in three categories that stood out from the material. The final research questions were based on those categories. The teachers highlighted pupils growing interaction skills, mental growth and ICT skills as the most important targets of creative music making in primary school. The mostly used working methods were various technology-based compositional projects. The teachers experienced their own role in creative music making process in many ways. The teachers highlighted especially their role as a structure creator and enabler. According to the results teacher’s role was also to encourage and give feedback to pupils during the process.