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Understanding what it means for older students to learnbasic musical skills on a keyboard instrumentAngela Taylor a; Susan Hallam aa Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2008

To cite this Article: Taylor, Angela and Hallam, Susan (2008) 'Understanding whatit means for older students to learn basic musical skills on a keyboard instrument',Music Education Research, 10:2, 285 — 306

To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14613800802079148URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613800802079148

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Understanding what it means for older students to learn basic musicalskills on a keyboard instrument

Angela Taylor* and Susan Hallam

Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK

Although many adults take up or return to instrumental and vocal tuition every

year, we know very little about how they experience it. As part of ongoing case

study research, eight older learners with modest keyboard skills explored what

their musical skills meant to them during conversation-based repertory grid

interviews. The data were categorised using simple clustering, and thematically

analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Although this study

was very small scale, findings suggest that lifelong musical experience, expecta-

tions and understanding profoundly affect adult motivation for learning a musical

instrument. By choosing what to learn and how to do it, and satisfying their need

for achievement, enjoyment and self-confidence, older keyboard learners can use

their music learning to construct a dynamic musical identity as part of their self-

fulfilment.

Keywords: older learners; basic musical skills; keyboard instrument; repertory

grids; adult musical motivation; adult musical identity; empowerment; self-

fulfilment

Introduction

Although many adults over the age of 60 continue to learn music in choirs,

orchestras, community groups and workshops as well as in one-to-one lessons, little

music education and psychology research has been carried out to explore what their

learning means to them. The pleasure and satisfaction from the mastery of playing

new repertoire in the company of others can boost self-confidence (Coffman and

Adamek 1999) and minimise the negative effects of physical and psychological aging

(Coffman 2002; Hays and Minichiello 2005). Taking part in piano master classes in

front of an audience can enable older adults to reflect on their musical progress and

increase their self-esteem (Taylor 2001), and indeed there is strong evidence of the

benefits of music making for amateurs (Everitt 1997; Hallam 2001).

Nonetheless, adult piano beginners seem to worry more than children about what

they are doing, and need correspondingly more emotional support and guidance

from their tutor (Kim 2001). This is interesting, because even though they have a

greater awareness than children of what might be involved in learning something

new, adults are used to being responsible for their actions, and could be expected to

apply that to their formal learning as well. However, within institutionalised learning

situations, instead of choosing to be self-directed, adults often seem to regress to the

dependency of their former schooldays (Illeris 2006), and in classical piano lessons

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1461-3808 print/ISSN 1469-9893 online

# 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14613800802079148

http://www.informaworld.com

Music Education Research

Vol. 10, No. 2, June 2008, 285�306

http://www.informaworld.com

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little self-directed learning has been observed (Chen 1997). Further, while findings

from a case study of an adult education jazz piano class suggest that learners with a

classical music background might feel more comfortable with a formal prescriptive

tutor approach, they also suggest that those with no classical background might

prefer an informal open-ended one (Sanchez Cantu 1987). Such sociocultural

differences in learners’ expectations are supported in recent research on the identity

of pop and jazz musicians (L. Green 2001; Macdonald and Wilson 2005).It seems that most adults who play the piano are those who start as children and

carry on taking lessons as adults. Being able to maintain self-efficacy is a key factor

in choosing to continue lessons, and adults play mainly for family, church activities

and choirs (Cooper 2001). Wristen (2006) found that learning for personal growth

and the love of music appear to be important reasons for taking up the piano, and to

be a beginner in a group environment can be a rewarding experience. Likewise, it can

be a positive experience for older beginner electronic keyboard players to participate

in a Yamaha music education course (Keenan 1995). Taking lessons on electronic

keyboard can also help combat osteoarthritis (Zelazny 2001). Importantly for

success, Zelazny comments, the elderly ladies in her qualitative study chose music

which reflected their musical preferences and competencies.

Despite the findings described above, the way mature adults think and feel during

their music learning experiences has been rarely researched in detail, a possible

explanation being that there is usually little time to explore this process during music

lessons. Repertory grid interviewing is an effective tool for such exploration because

it enables older learners to speak for themselves.

A link between musical skill acquisition, motivation and adult musical identity

When adults learn to use musical skills (Music Adviser’s National Association

[MANA] 1995), how they choose to do it relates to the way they use music to create

meaning for themselves (Baumeister 1991). Drawing upon principles of reversal

theory (Apter 2003), the way learners regard a particular musical skill will influence

how they choose to position themselves when they are using it. They may sight-read

and improvise for enjoyment or to meet a challenge, and might adopt an

appropriately playful or working mode during the activity. This will depend on

how they value the skills, the way they like to learn best, and how they have

experienced music in the past. In reversal theory, such modes are termed meta-

motivational states (Apter 2003), and learners may switch (reverse) from one state toanother depending on the teaching and learning situation they find themselves in.

Given that adults motivate themselves to learn music by setting up short- and long-

term goals that alter as they interact with their musical and social environment

throughout their lives (Hallam 2005), beginning older adult students, all too aware of

their musical strengths and weaknesses, will choose certain skills to develop as their

goals for personal growth and well-being (Baltes 1993; Brandtstadter and Greve

1994; Carstenen 1994). Choosing such goals interacts with personal musical

meaning, and, in turn, adult musical identity.

Looking at this from a slightly different perspective, within a person’s musical

identity there are different musical selves or identities that come together such as

musical creator, performer, technician, listener, collector, organiser, learner or

mentor. These musical selves can be engaged either positively or negatively when

286 A. Taylor and S. Hallam

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learning musical skills. For example, the novice can enjoy improvising as a successful

musical creator and performer, and/or experience difficulties with learning to read

music as a poor musical technician and performer. In an adult learning to play an

instrument, these musical selves may well be incompatible (Coulson 2001). How

adults deal with such incompatibility when they learn music skills will depend on

how they balance their motivational needs (Hallam 2005), how they react to success

or failure (Dweck 1999), how they adapt to getting older (Atchley 1989; Baltes 1993;Carstenen 1994) and how they value their musical selves. Adults will choose which

musical selves or identities they want or feel are worthwhile to develop, and which

they want to avoid (Cross and Markus 1991).

Adult beginners are in a special position, because after a lifetime of experiencing

themselves as musical listeners they suddenly have a range of possible musical selves

to explore which tap into dreams and strivings which they were previously unable to

express (Emmons 1989). During their learning, they can transform themselves from

music listener to music practitioner, a huge shift in musical identity. They can use

their music learning to structure their identity as a musician even if they would not

think of calling themselves one (Trevarthen 2002). Acquiring instrumental skills is

just one way in which music learning can interact with personal and musical identity

throughout adulthood, adult identity formation being characterised by personal

growth and change (Tennant 1997).

Using conversation-based repertory grids as a research tool for phenomenologicalenquiry with older learners

Exploring personal meaning lies at the heart of Kelly’s construct theory and the

repertory grid construction procedure which is based on it (Kelly 1955/1991). This is

a technique whereby a person is invited to show the ways (constructs), in which he or

she discriminates or construes the things or items of experience in his or her world;

these are called elements. The items of experience in this case study were the musical

skills and tasks needed to play the electronic keyboard and the piano. The grid itself

is a rating table which records meaning in words and numbers (see Appendix 1).

Despite its potential for exploring individual differences in how people ascribe

meaning to their learning (Candy, Harri-Augstein, and Thomas 1985), repertory grid

construction has been little used in music psychology research. Although Maidlow

(1998) used this methodology with some of her students to explore the role of

influential people in their musical lives, she regretted not having time to talk with herparticipants about their repertory grids. Hewitt (2005), though he had time to talk to

teachers about their perceptions of children’s learning, did so in semi-structured

interviews after constructing their grids with them using computer technology.

Conversations held during the actual process of eliciting constructs and

constructing repertory grids can be used most effectively to share meaning and

facilitate the agency which is central to humanist�constructivist research (Pope

and Denicolo 1993; Pope and Keen 1981). In this study, conversation-based grid

interviews seemed appropriate for older learners who might not have reflected on

their learning before (Boud, Keogh, and Walker 1985), and they were found to be

insightful for the first author, a tutor�researcher interviewer interested in the

phenomenological issue of how music learners live their learning (Van Manen 1997,

2002). Constructing repertory grids with the respondents acted as a catalyst for

Music Education Research 287

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discussion about what the early stages of learning a musical instrument could mean

to them, and during shared action-based reflection everyone could engage with this

issue on equal terms in a concrete and pleasurable way. This study, though very

small-scale and therefore not one from which firm conclusions can be drawn, aims to

explore how positive and negative attitudes towards basic music skills can affect the

way in which older people might experience their instrumental learning, use it in

their everyday lives, and so construct their musical identity.

The study

With no precedent in musical education and psychology research, the idea of using

repertory grid interviewing to explore older adults’ perspectives on learning basic

skills came from Chapman’s use of repertory grids to explore students’ emotional

responses to Maths skills (Beail 1985; Chapman 1974). Initially, the grid interviews

were intended to function as a triangulation exercise to provide quantitative data to

offset the qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews about their

musical lives. However, as meaning cannot be precisely quantified, for example, no

two participants will conceptualise their ratings and the gaps between them in the

same way (Harri-Augstein 1978; Yorke 1978), the conversation held at every stage of

the procedure assumed greater importance than precise numerical values (Pope and

Denicolo 1993; Pope and Keen 1981; Thomas and Harri-Augstein 1985). As the

richness of the conversation during the interviews became evident, a framework

evolved for discussion and reflection, in which formal questioning was combined

with open-ended exploration of emergent issues (see Appendix 2 for interview

procedure and schedule).

It therefore seemed inappropriate to analyse the data quantitatively in great

detail, as is customary for repertory grid interviewing, and more suitable to use

interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) as part of the emergent design of the

study. Concerned with understanding how people think and feel, IPA is a two-stage

interpretation process or double hermeneutic: that of participant(s) trying to make

sense of their world and researcher(s) trying to make sense of what they say (Smith

and Osborn 2003). IPA and conversation-based grid interviewing can be seen to

approach the issues of uniqueness and meaning in similar yet complementary ways.

They were used together throughout the study to understand how the participants

made sense of their instrumental music learning without needing to use detailed

quantitative measurement, and initial analysis revealed considerable differences

between them.

Participants

Eight adult learners over the age of 60 agreed to be interviewed, their anonymity

being guaranteed. They had all started learning their instruments as a hobby and

found that they were taking it very seriously (Stebbins 1982). One was a private

piano student, and seven were either present or past students in a daytime adult

education electronic keyboard workshop where they received both group and

individual tuition with the opportunity to work in a self-directed way and share

their ideas. As these students knew the interviewer as their tutor, all felt at ease


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talking to someone who was familiar with the problems they needed to solve when

learning to play their instruments.

The piano is totally self-contained. As an instrument that does not need the

accompaniment of any other to create a fully harmonised piece of music, it is likely

to attract those who enjoy their own company, who do not feel they need to share

their music making with others, or who are too shy to play to an audience (Kemp1996). The computer-generated electronic keyboard, with its capability of mimicking

an infinite number of instruments and musical styles, takes this further and allows

performers to achieve a highly sophisticated sound output on their own, even with

very modest performing skills. It might be said that the keyboard is able to empower

or magnify a performer’s musical potential and mask his or her technical weaknesses.

As such, it is a suitable instrument for adults unused to playing a musical instrument,

yet whose expectations of their instrumental learning are coloured by the

sophistication of a lifetime’s musical enculturation.

Procedure

The grid interviews, which lasted about two hours, recorded and transcribed, were

carried out in the respondents’ own homes (see Appendix 2 for interview procedureand schedule and Appendix 3 for transcription key). The 13 music skills, or elements,

used as a basis for construct elicitation and grid construction had been chosen in

consultation with the participants several weeks beforehand. They were: listen to

yourself; think about posture and touch; co-ordinate your hands; select style and

registration; play expressively; count main beats; read music; perform to others;

practise; memorise; improvise; play by ear; and sight-read. Two constructs were

provided to be able to explore interesting and important issues, but they were only

used at the discretion of the participants. These were to do with whether or not

learning the skill enhanced people’s sense of well-being, and whether aging helped or

hindered learning basic skills.

At every stage of the interview, being highly aware of a position of power as

tutor�researcher and wanting to promote equality and strengthen data reliability

(Smith 2003; Yardley 2000), the interviewer encouraged the participants to change

anything they were no longer happy with, whether it was their ratings, the labelling

of the elements or constructs, the positioning of the poles or the preliminary verbal

analysis of their grids. After analysis of their data during the interview, each

participant received a verbatim transcription of conversation extracts, a writtenaccount of the main findings, initial analysis and further interpretations of their grid

interviews. All were contacted face to face or by phone to check that they were happy

with the way they were being represented, and their comments were considered

carefully and acted upon (Elliott, Fischer, and Rennie 1999; Yardley 2000). All

names were changed to ensure anonymity. Additionally, all transcripts, evolving data

categories and interpretations were validated by the second author as part of a clear

audit trail of research (Smith 2003).

Conversation-based repertory grid interviewing yielded extremely rich verbal

accounts of what it meant to be learning the keyboard and the piano. This paper

traces a path through them to highlight issues that were interesting and unexpected

as well as to show support for findings obtained by other researchers. The aim of this

research has been to suggest possibility, with the richness of data and the directness


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of the quotations allowing the reader to see through the eyes of the participants, and

through understanding, claim knowledge (Dreyfus 1994; Palmer 1969). For added

insight, there are phenomenographic comparisons with the other participants in this

particular music learning world (Marton and Booth 1997).

Findings

The data can be interpreted on two levels: as being about how different people

approach learning skills, and about the dynamic interaction between instrumental

music learning, choice, meaning and musical identity. The underlying discourse is

about how older people experience learning a musical instrument, how they might

resolve conflicting desires and expectations of themselves and their learning to make

it meaningful and worthwhile to them, and how in so doing they construct their

musical identity. The data were categorised using simple clustering of constructs and

skills and analysed thematically using IPA.

Emergent categories and themes

The following major categories and themes reflecting the participants’ perceptions of

their learning experiences at that time were identified: love of music, a major source

of enjoyment; family links, instruments and emotional significance; achievement,

frustration and empowerment; self-confidence and well-being; want, ought and

possibility; choice and musical identity. Although the constructs were individually

worded by the respondents, those most frequently elicited could be categorised as

being to do with achievement (8 of 8 people); choice (7 of 8); personal satisfaction (7

of 8); self-confidence (5 of 8); and enjoyment (3 of 8). However, it is worth noting

that these are artificial divides.

Music learning has subjective aspects of meaning which overlap, as in music as

achievement and music as enjoyment, and how this varies for different people can be

difficult for them to articulate. Enjoyment itself can be viewed as a multi-faceted

entity, for example, as personal satisfaction in achievement, choice and idiosyncrasy

as well as fun and self-forgetfulness. Further, musical skills are complex, and

acquiring them involves many aspects of the learner’s personality, which can

sometimes be in conflict (Apter 2001; Coulson 2001). Likewise, musical motivation

and identity interact with each other and cannot really be objectified and separated

from the person to whom they belong. Many of the constructs and quotations can

therefore be used to illustrate more than one category or theme, all these devices

simply being semantic tools for understanding these people and their engagement

with playing an instrument. The overall complexity of the early stages of learning a

keyboard instrument is discussed in greater detail below, there being space for only

some of what the participants have said.

Love of music, a major source of enjoyment

Listening to music mattered to all eight participants, and playing their instruments

brought their music alive (Gabrielsson 2001). The pleasure they got from hearing the

sound of the music they produced themselves was an important reason for learning


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their instrument (Blood and Zatorre 2001). All said they were learning for

themselves and for enjoyment.For James, a photographer aged 73:

surprised at how important doing it for myself is . . . the actual sound of it [jazz] is

immensely important . . . it makes my hair stand on end, it’s moving, uplifting, makes

you dance. It’s the things that music does as well as the sound of it. They go together.

Brenda, 78, with very clear memories of classical music making with her family,

her mother-governess being a keen amateur pianist, declared:

That’s what music is all about � being able to hear sounds that give you satisfaction . . .

it’s the contrast between keys I notice so much in Mozart, I hug myself.

For Rita, 75, life without classical music would be ‘very lonely, very lonely’. When

her husband died, there being no room for a piano, she went out to buy a keyboard

as soon as she could, because:

if I came into this house and there wasn’t the keyboard there’d be nothing alive in this

house. It’s something that comes alive, I know you’ve got your TV but to me, can’t say

it’s another person, but it comes alive.

While she was married to Arthur for over 45 years, Rita didn’t play the piano at all.

This is because Arthur, profoundly deaf, had been able to play the piano himself

once, and Rita felt she ‘didn’t want to rub salt in his wounds’ by reminding him of

what he could no longer enjoy. Once he was no longer there, she returned to her

playing and the music seemed to give her some companionship in her bereavement.

Family links, instruments and emotional significance

Four of the eight participants came by their instrument directly or indirectly because

of their family. Pat’s keyboard came from her daughter, and she found:

It’s given me something I’ve always wanted to do, and it’s given me more confidence

and, it’s also because my daughter bought me it I had to show her that I was really in for

it . . . it’s my turn to show them that I can do something to please them.

Pat’s keyboard appeared to symbolise the realisation of her dreams. With memories

of singing ballads with her four brothers and three sisters at bedtime and watching

her dad, a cornet player conduct the brass band in her local park every Sunday

afternoon, she had had to choose between piano and tap dancing as a child, and

opted for the latter. The keyboard could be a means of self-vindication for her as well

as enabling her to fulfil a moral obligation to her daughter. It was a way of redressing

the balance, because after many years of being at the receiving end of her children’s

efforts to please her, Pat, aged 67 could now feel that she was paying them back:

Every time they come they say ‘What are you playing tomorrow mum?’ And they stand

there and you can see their faces, with the smile on their faces, my youngest daughter

came the other day and she said to her partner, ‘My mum’s playing, she’s playing with

both hands!’ [chuckles] As if that’s important!


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Indeed, having been a care-worker in the past as well as swimming instructor, one of

her central constructs was ‘please others vs. upsetting people’ and most of her skills

rated strongly on ‘please others’. Gaining satisfaction from that, though she did not

regard playing by ear, improvising and sight-reading as being important for her

personally, and therefore she had chosen not to develop those skills, she could see a

new possible musical self as performer emerging in the later part of her life. She

could use her music learning to make her feel good about herself and to make her

three daughters proud of their mum’s achievement. Pat went on to use her music to

entertain her neighbours by organising sing-alongs in the residential lounge, which

she led, not unlike her band conductor father all those years ago. This is where her

friend Donna played, and to which, smilingly ‘as his agent’, Pat invited Mark, her

peer, as guest performer, something she wouldn’t have done before taking up the

keyboard herself.

Achievement, frustration and empowerment

Achievement, frustration and empowerment was a central theme which ran

throughout all the discourses. All eight participants had at least one construct

directly concerned with achievement, often clustering closely with enjoyment,

importance, self-confidence and self-satisfaction.

As James put it when discussing the meaning of his construct, ‘satisfied vs.

frustrated’:

I’m struggling hard to learn to do it . . . If you know there’s something difficult coming

that I can’t do, it puts me off my stride sometimes. It makes me feel frustrated . . .Enjoyment comes because it works and is to do with being satisfied. It comes from

things working right and being happy with them.

Used to a very high standard of achievement from his photography, and as a

connoisseur of jazz for over 50 years, James had to accept that, having chosen not to

avail himself of the electronic gadgetry of the keyboard, preferring instead to be

‘pressing the keys and actually doing things with the instrument itself in a very

positive personal way’, he might not be able to achieve the sophisticated end results

he would have liked straightaway. It raises the question, how might beginning adults

use their music learning for personal growth?Rita, aged 75, after playing to amuse herself on her new keyboard, bought after

her husband died, joined the electronic keyboard class because she wanted:

to read, get beyond playing by ear . . . because I don’t play sufficiently well enough by

ear . . . I can play by ear to amuse myself . . . all my life I’ve done that but I’d like to be

able to play the proper chords so it’s sounding really good.

Playing by ear was simply fun for her, rating very strongly on the difference pole of

her construct, ‘tense vs. relaxed’. But it wasn’t enough. She didn’t seem to be satisfied

with the musical identity of someone learning informally from listening to music and

doodling about for self-amusement, ‘I think everybody can play a tune in the right

hand surely?’ and she couldn’t conceive that being able to play by ear might be

regarded as being special. With the sophistication of many years of listening to

classical music, it seems that she was striving after an ideal music self-modelled on


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classical music reading and performance values which was difficult for her to acquire.

As the wording of her construct might suggest, learning many of the basic skills

made her feel tense and unhappy. Of these, reading music was the most important:

I do try to read music, I really do try . . . I’ve got to read it, you can’t relax until you find

out where the note is . . . When I’m doing my own thing I’m not practising. Practising is

learning to read music. You can’t ad lib. No you’ve got to do it properly . . . I’ll be able

to play a tune properly . . . as anyone else would do, that could read music . . . At my

time of life I’m not performing in front of anybody, I’m not going anywhere I’m not, but

it would be nice, even just to satisfy myself, even in front of one or two friends.

During the hard work of the formal music learning that she had chosen for herself

she seemed to regress to being a child at school, one of her constructs being ‘follow

the rules vs. do your own thing’. She declared that if she didn’t follow the rules she

would ‘make a mess of things’:

I’m listening to see if I’m doing it correctly and not correctly. Following rules, yes . . . it’s

automatic I enjoy listening to myself, if I play the right notes, if I’m not doing it right I

don’t enjoy it.

She also felt that she had to follow rules for programming the style and expression

‘buttons’. It seems that she was afraid to experiment with them and tap into her

playful creative musical self, and she saw her age as being ‘a hindrance to your

learning’, especially things mechanical. Her learning seemed to be some sort of battle

in which she felt that ‘if you can conquer the buttons well then you’re there aren’t

you?’ When she succeeded she felt empowered by her playing; she could recreate the

music she loved and get a step closer to the musical ideal she cherished:

It sounded wonderful when I did it . . . it’s like an orchestra behind it. It helps, it helps

you along . . . it makes up for what you were not playing with your left hand . . . you get

a lot of quality in your tune.

Practising was therefore a mixture of highs and lows, of achievement and frustration

for her, and even though she practised nearly every day, she found the discipline

difficult:

I should practise more, practise more . . . practising isn’t a thing I terribly enjoy . . . I

enjoy playing it when I’ve mastered it, but it’s mastering it in the first place . . . I enjoy

that, I love it, that Romance [name of the piece being practised], I love it, when I can get

that . . . it’s so irritating when you can’t, it’s irritating when I can’t find, when I get mixed

up with the chords.

Practising seemed to afford her all too few occasions when she could engage

positively with music, and all too many when she came up against a clumsy and inept

musical self, of which she did not want to be reminded.

However, a few weeks later at the workshop, having successfully played Romance

to James, she could confidently see herself as a performer as well as a listener, the

difference between performing and listening being that ‘I can do it’. She felt that ‘I’d

like to play it in front of anyone’, and her musical identity seemed to be shifting.

Unfortunately, when Rita had only been in it for six months, the workshop

closed.1 She was still struggling with her ambiguous feelings about practising, and


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she had only just begun to taste the pleasure of performing a written piece that she

could prepare by herself. It was hardly surprising that a few months later, having had

no support for her music and being all too aware of how difficult it was for her to

learn new things at her age, she seemed to revert to her former position, amusing

herself at home by playing the tunes she knew by ear, her keyboard still unpacked

and ready at the touch of a switch. Nevertheless, she could also act as musical

facilitator for her grandchildren whom she enjoyed listening to, with some idea now

of what it means to be learning to read music herself. However, her growth as a

musician seemed to have been somewhat curtailed by the premature end to her

tuition.

Unlike Rita, Donna, in her 60s was able to come to the workshop for a few years

before leaving to care for her older brother Tim at home four years ago. With

memories of picking out tunes at the piano with one finger, ‘I never thought to take

lessons’, and family singing round the piano with Tim playing well-known ballads by

ear, she felt that the most significant aspect of her learning was ‘accomplishing what

I never thought I would’. Declaring that ‘the pleasure is brilliant’, she still has a

strong sense of musical self-efficacy. Three skills in particular rated strongly on the

similarity pole of her construct ‘accomplish what I never thought I could vs. failure’.

These were: read music, count the main beats, and perform to others, and they

seemed to matter the most to her. Reading music was challenging:

I just thought it was so difficult, I thought it was just foreign, it just looked so

complicated, I never thought I would ever know what it meant.

Yet, she had suffered little of Rita’s frustration, because unlike Rita, who wished she

had someone to help her, Donna was able to turn to her brother:

even though he didn’t read music, he understood music . . . He just used to, tell me, what

they [the notes] were, in relation to the piano.

For counting, though, Donna didn’t need any help from him, because she could draw

on her life experiences, and revel in the joy of it:

just putting that with that and learning, your three-four time, your four-four, just

putting them both together and actually making a tune, was just brilliant . . . that came

pretty much because of my past, my tap dancing, choir, dancing, jiving, keep fit

movement . . . you have to keep in time with that.

And performing was ‘something I never thought I’d do, and I’ve done it’.

Empowered thus, she went on to entertain the elderly at the care home at which

she worked, and she also played at her friend Pat’s concerts in the sheltered housing

lounge.

Any difficulties she might have had have now faded into insignificance. Neither

seeing the need to learn new material now that she no longer goes to the workshop,

nor to go beyond reproducing the notes of the printed page to get her music, like

many at the early stages of learning an instrument (Hallam 1997), Donna takes

advantage of the computer facilities offered by the electronic keyboard to play the

songs she knows on her keyboard every day at home. It’s:


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something I do now, just for a bit of enjoyment, just for myself . . . it’s part of my life, it’s

got to be, music plays a fair bit part in my life I just do it, it’s for my own pleasure now.

Having completed her identity shift from music listener to music performer�practitioner, Donna continues to construct her musical performer identity as an

important, albeit private part of her self-concept after leaving the workshop.

Crucially, by using her own positive music learning experiences to guide her, Donna

has been able to act as musical mentor for her friend, Pat, who joined the keyboard

class after she had left it, meeting her every week.

One of Pat’s central constructs was ‘struggle vs. easy’. She explained that of the

two dimensions, struggle is the more significant because:

After I’ve had to struggle and overcome I’m pleased with myself . . . A struggle to me is

a challenge and to overcome that struggle I have to challenge myself to do it.

For Pat, the mixture of challenge and frustration fuelled her intrinsic motivation to

carry on with learning:

I have to fulfil something that I want to do. I have to do it to the best of my ability . . . I

can’t, give it up, until I feel as though I’ve got the best out of myself.

On the other hand, she worried that she should be further ahead than she was after

two and a half years, and similar to Rita, reading music was one of her greatest

challenges. Feeling hampered as well as helped by strong memories of singing ballads

with her sister, ‘I used to play the keyboard as I sang the song and it was different

beats to what was on the music’, she later felt that she had to ‘sit down and give my

mind to it’, read the printed version and unlearn what she knew. In this way she felt

she would be able to perform her music to others better. Falling back on a strong

sense of self-efficacy, rooted in a past when she would dress up and sing on a home-

made stage in the back garden with her brothers and sisters, and dance solos in her

tap-dancing class, Pat rated performing very positively along her construct ‘have to

do vs. have not’. However, her feelings about it were mixed, and she also rated it

strongly on the similarity pole of her construct ‘timid vs. confidence’. She had a

problem to solve:

I have to learn to do that. I have to, get it into my head that I will have to perform, really,

you know, . . . I haven’t any confidence in my playing, it’s not personal; in myself I feel as

though I do have a lot of confidence, but not in playing the music to others.

As a musical performer she was grappling with a public self to which she was unused.

Practising helped her deal with this difficulty:

Before I can perform to others I have to practise and practise till I get a standard when I

think I can perform to others.

Pat’s keyboard was always unpacked, and, living on her own, she could snatch the

odd 10 minutes to do it when she was waiting to go out as well as doing her daily

lunch-time practice. Sunday afternoons were reserved for her music as well, and she

made it clear that she didn’t want to be disturbed by family and friends. Like the

others in the workshop, even though she knew that it wasn’t the most efficient way to

do it (Hallam 1997), practising usually meant playing things ‘over and over and over’


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from beginning to end. Without Rita’s ambivalent feelings about it, though, Pat

explained:

I just get satisfaction, I really do, and I just enjoy it, and I just get into the rhythm, and I

forget about everything else and I’m just into that music [chuckles] and I just want to,

move to it.

Self-confidence and well-being

Seven out of eight participants articulated constructs about self-confidence, their

instrumental learning tapping into a basic human need for self-esteem (R.G. Green

1995). Sixty-three-year-old Jane, who took up the piano after the electronic

keyboard, in particular, seemed to need to use her music to build this up. Her

construct ‘confident vs. nervous’ clustered very closely with several others: ‘being

praised vs. criticised’, ‘feel good about myself vs. feel bad about myself’, ‘important

vs. not bothered’, and many of her skills rated positively along these dimensions.

Practising made her feel confident with her achievement ‘because I’m getting better, I

know when I’m getting better, it makes me feel better’ and her aim was ‘to be able to

play a difficult piece. I’d be really pleased with myself. I’d like to play Moonlight

sonata, I will eventually’. Although when she played in front of the others in the

piano class and in the college concerts she ‘was a nervous wreck’, her public

performing tapping into a negative musical self full of anxiety (Green and Gallwey

1987; Wilson 1994), things were different with an audience of children at home:

playing to my grandchildren I was practising all day when they came, and they were

stood there listening and I wasn’t even nervous . . . there’s no grownups, see . . . adults

think oh she’s playing it wrong or she’s all nervous, children don’t think like that.

It would seem that learning a performance art tapped into a conflict between Jane’s

need to use music for self-confidence, achievement, enjoyment and self-fulfilment,

and her fear of being criticised by others. She could resolve it by taking her music

learning out of the public eye and sustain her musical identity without feeling

threatened by a possible loss of face.

Judy, 68, retired from teaching, also did not perform in public. Regarding it as a

duty when she used to be in the class, she felt she had to ‘practise and practise’ to

avoid her feared musical self, capable of ‘falling apart at the moment of truth’ in

front of an audience (Leblanc et al. 1997). Unsurprisingly, performing to others was

the skill she enjoyed least, and it rated negatively along several constructs: ‘confident

vs. insecure’, ‘comfortable vs. apprehensive’, ‘essential vs. optional’, ‘improve vs.

languish’, ‘maintain interest vs. lose interest’, ‘enjoyment vs. boredom’ (see Appendix

1 and Table 1). Performing to others in the workshop was daunting, even in a

supportive group, perhaps because while she did it she was presenting her musical

self in two ways at the same time. She could be said to be performing the music as a

learner and also learning music as a performer. As a music learner she would be

expected to reveal herself and her insecurities in her playing, and to articulate and

share her private personal goals in class discussion. Rationalising that her ‘whole

working life [as a teacher] was performing to others’, she didn’t even play to her

husband. Instead, she played just for herself, ‘to fill a blank in my life’. Her musical

identity as a performer was totally private, and she discounted it completely.


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Table 1. Repertory grid constructed in conversation with Judy.

Construct pole

rated 1

E1

listen to

yourself

E2

think

about

posture

E2a

think

about

touch

E3

co-ordinate

your hands

E4

select style

and

registration

E5

play

expressively

E6

count

main

beats

E7

read

music

E8

perform

to others

E9

practise

E10

memorise

E11

improvise

E12

play

by ear

E13

sight-read

Construct pole

rated 5

C1 essential 1 4 2 1 1 3 2 1 5 1 5 5 4 1 C1 optional

C2 improve 1 4 2 1 2 5 1 1 5 1 3 5 5 1 C2 languish

C3 maintain

interest

1 4 4 1 3 2 3 1 5 1 3 5 3 4 C3 lose

interest

C4 enjoyment 1 5 2 3 2 2 4 1 5 1 5 5 3 2 C4 boredom

C5 for myself 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 5 1 2 3 3 1 C5 for others

C6 technical 4 3 1 1 3 4 1 1 3 2 1 3 3 1 C6 emotional

C7 self-satisfied 1 3 2 1 1 2 2 2 3 1 3 5 5 2 C7 inadequate

C8 confident 2 3 2 2 2 4 2 3 4 1 5 5 5 1 C8 insecure

C9 comfortable 1 3 2 1 2 1 1 2 5 1 5 5 5 2 C9 apprehensive

C10 getting

older helps

with learning

this skill

1 3 2 5 2 1 3 4 3 1 5 3 5 5 C10 getting

older hinders

learning this

skill

Notes: E2 was originally presented as think about posture and touch and divided into two parts on request. Construct wording for C2 improve/languish as explained by Judyduring elicitation: ‘To improve is important, if you don’t improve you languish. If I languish I’d lose interest’.

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To keep herself motivated without a tutor, Judy played music that was familiar to

her because she felt confident with it, and she had a pragmatic approach towards

new pieces as well:

I have a pile of books. If I have a book that’s got a lot of pieces in that I can’t play I

actually begin to feel inadequate so I shove it to the bottom of the pile.

Making use of this coping mechanism, Judy was able to dispose of any music

charged with negative emotional baggage, and she was left free to pursue the positive

rewards of interacting with her keyboard and its music (Baltes 1993). Being able to

regard her music as physical object and metaphorical villain, Judy could avoid an

inadequate negative musical self and focus instead on her ideal musical self who

could ‘fill the room with glorious sound’. Moreover, when she later returned to her

pile she found that she was able to play some of the pieces in it, and the pile itself

seemed to tangibly represent her progress. With her musical self-efficacy enhanced

she could own her music in a particularly satisfying way.

Judy had another way of maintaining her self-efficacy as a player now she wasn’t

attending the workshop, but she felt guilty about it:

[in a conspirational whisper] I’ve only started to do this recently, if I’ve found a piece

where there is a little section that’s difficult, I simplify it . . . Supposing I find a bunch of

chords that’s quite difficult to do [in the right hand] I just play the top notes and it

sounds okay . . . It does make me feel a bit inadequate because I’d like to be able to play

the whole thing, properly . . . I’ve a feeling I won’t get onto the chords, that I’ll carry on

simplifying . . . because I want to get the tune . . . I want the piece.

She wanted the essence of music at the cost of the detail. Feeling bad about

sacrificing notational accuracy, used to playing bits ‘over and over again for as long

as it is necessary to be pleased with what I’ve done’, and not being interested in

improvising or playing by ear, she took a lateral, creative, and arguably, compromise

approach to solving the problem of being able to enjoy her music in the face of its

difficulties during her self-directed learning. Further research into learners’ coping

mechanisms would be worthwhile to increase our understanding of how to resolve

difficulties in learning performance skills.

Want, ought and possibility resolved in choice

What people want to learn, what they feel they ought to learn, and what they see as

being possible to learn might not always match. People can experience and resolve

this tension between want, ought and possibility in instrumental learning in different

ways to make music meaningful and worthwhile for them.

As Judy put it, ‘You’re not a child, you’re an adult. You can take what you want

and you can ignore the rest because you’re an adult’. Although students were often

happy to work systematically at trying to learn the basics, most of them, as we have

seen, did not enjoy performing to others, or they had difficulties with practising, and

some chose not to bother with improvising or sight-reading even though they could

see the point of doing it.

Mark had had plenty of performing practice during childhood as a singer,

winning competitions and singing in choirs. There were a few piano lessons, and now


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at the age of 70, 18 months into learning the electronic keyboard, he had ambiguous

feelings about what he wanted from his learning. Although he got from performing

‘a load of satisfaction, to perform is the whole essence of keyboard and music in

general’, Mark acknowledged his limitations and commented, ‘I wish I could play

properly’. For example, reading music made him feel ‘inadequate . . . which is like

being at school when told could do better’, and:

Counting the main pulse beat is not necessarily my forte or desire to play in this

medium . . . it’s like a machine going along at the same pace all the time without a

variation. I want to shorten or lengthen the notes . . . create my own style . . . Counting

is harder because of my memory and I’m getting lazy. I’m too old to start so I play what

I know in the style that I want to play it . . . Work was my life, now I’m retired, my music

and my writing is my life . . . I just love my music.

Mark had a dilemma. On the one hand if he wanted to play better and increase his

self-confidence as a musician, he knew he must work to learn the basic skills of

reading and counting. On the other hand, he had had enough of work, rating these

skills negatively on his constructs ‘something to play with vs. workaholic’; ‘confident

vs. unable to express myself’; ‘give the drive vs. feel defeated’; ‘feel good about myself

vs. disappointed with myself’; ‘worthwhile vs. waste of time’ (see Appendix 1 and

Table 2). When learning these skills he seemed to lose confidence and adopt a

helpless childlike attitude towards them (Dweck 1986). Moreover, reading and

counting, usually children’s activities, reminded him that learning new things was

harder for him now he was getting older.

Choosing music reading to be his formal learning goal for the term, he explained

that it was the skill he felt he ought to do, even though it was the hardest skill for him

and the least enjoyable. However, he spent little time on it. Instead, he chose to spend

most of his time learning in a self-directed way by exploring his keyboard, creatively

playing the tunes he knew, and composing his own ballads. This allowed him to use

his music to make him feel good about himself. The more he played, the more he

wanted to play, and on his construct ‘addictive vs. can do without’, he rated eight of

the 13 music skills completely positively.

As a learner�musician Mark was prepared to take on board those formal skills he

wasn’t enjoying, arguably because they were tapping into his negative musical selves,

but up to a point only. However, learning informally could empower him as a

performer and creative musician on his very high quality instrument, the Tyros, and

understandably that meant more to him. To be able to do it, though, Mark chose to

trade precision for the big picture at the cost of accuracy and mastery of his

instrument. He masked the depth of his dislike of reading and counting and his

failure to meet their particular learning challenges with his deep love of music, which

he could express in other ways. Eighteen months after the workshop had closed

down,1 despite his letter of protest to the college, Mark was still composing and

playing pieces on his keyboard, but far less.

Discussion and implications for education

A key issue to emerge from this exploratory study is that adults seem to have to

satisfy a strong need for achievement, enjoyment and self-confidence when they learn

the piano and the electronic keyboard. In this way their instrumental learning can


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Table 2. Repertory grid constructed in conversation with Mark.

Construct pole

rated 1

E1

listen to

yourself

E2

think about

posture

and touch

E3

co-ordinate

your hands

E4

select style

and

registration

E5

play

expressively

E6

count

main

beats

E7

read

music

E8

perform

to

others

E9

practise

E10

memorise

E11

improvise

E12

play by

ear

E13

sight-read

Construct pole

rated 5

C1 express my

feelings

1 2 4 1 1 4 5 3 3 2 4 1 5 C1 mechanical

C2 confident 1 2 3 1 1 5 4 2 1 2 3 1 5 C2 unable to

express self

C3 being fluid 1 2 3 1 1 3 3 2 1 2 3 1 5 C3 break up

of flow

C4 want to

improve

1 2 2 1 1 4 2 1 1 2 1 1 4 C4 don’t care

C5 give the

drive

1 2 3 1 1 4 5 2 1 2 2 1 5 C5 feel defeated

C6 frequency 1 3 3 2 1 5 5 5 1 2 2 1 5 C6 infrequency

C7 worthwhile 1 2 2 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 1 1 4 C7 waste of time

C8 something

to play with

1 4 4 1 1 4 4 2 1 2 1 1 5 C8 workaholic

C9 addictive 1 2 3 1 1 4 4 4 1 2 1 1 4 C9 do without

C10 feel good

about myself

1 3 3 1 1 5 5 3 1 2 1 1 5 C10

disappointment

with myself

C11 being

older helps

with learning

2 4 5 3 2 4 5 4 2 2 3 1 5 C11 being older

hinders learning

Note: Construct wording of C3 being fluid/break up of flow as explained by Mark during elicitation: ‘ . . . you have to look at the chords you’re playing till you get itright . . . it’s a break up of flow . . . [the opposite is] being fluid in the way you’re expressing yourself . . . confident’.

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have personal meaning. This supports Myers’ (1989) findings about what adults

require from their music learning. For most of the participants, practising by

themselves appeared to be a major source of satisfaction, and as they engaged with

their music privately at home in a state of flow (Czikzentmihalyi and Czikzentmi-

halyi 1988), they could relax and enjoy the empowerment of connecting with not

one, but two musical selves as they listened and played at the same time. This was a

new and exciting experience, a fresh start with the discovery of unexpected skills and

talents, and a chance to reconnect with their youth at a time in life when much has to

be given up or compromised as part of accommodating to being older (Biggs 1999).

On the other hand, it seems that adult beginners have to overcome their

frustration at the difficulties of learning a new language at the same time as acquiring

new motor skills. Moreover, they need to be able to combine this with expressing

themselves in a way that meets their personal expectations. They may struggle to

resolve a tension between the sophistication of a lifetime’s engagement with music

and the clumsiness of their attempts to articulate their musicality as they come face

to face with the difficulties of actually playing their instruments. This struggle is

something that adult novices seem to experience as part of their learning, and which

children do not. It can add to the intensity of learning an instrument which often

seems to be linked with someone emotionally significant. For some, music learning is

also the realisation of a dream as they finally have a chance to learn the instrument

they have always wanted to learn, or one which is related to it. Struggle appears to

underscore that huge shift in identity from musical listener to musical performer

which beginning adult instrumental learners can experience. An awareness of the

scale of this shift is crucial for being able to connect with adult learners’ musical

identity at times when they may well feel that they have lost touch with it themselves.

Their requirement to be free to choose how they learn is another issue which

clearly distinguishes adults from many children who are taught musical instruments

using the classical master�apprentice model.2 Although they are often childlike in

the instrumental learning situation in which they find themselves, adult beginners

seem to weigh up the costs and rewards of their struggle during it. Sorting out what

they really wanted from their learning from what they felt they ought to be learning,

Mark, Judy, and Donna each compromised with traditional standards and

conservatoire values in musical literacy and performance to feel able to continue

engaging with their instruments. Even if they acknowledge the importance of

mastering all basic skills to make musical participation and learning easier, adults

vary in which skills they seem to find the most efficacious for developing their

musical expertise and expressing their dual identity as musical learner and

performing musician. By choosing how they do it, adults can empower themselves

through their learning. Facilitating empowerment through identity expression

presents a key challenge for tutors.

It appears that adult musical identity can be expressed, constructed and sustained

when lifelong musical experience, expectations and understanding actively feed into

musical participation and learning and are enhanced by it. Through this dynamic

process of interaction with music and experiential learning, older adults can have a

chance to structure a retirement during which they can find self-fulfilment. This

raises questions about the wisdom of the current UK government education policy,

which, by funding one sector of society at the cost of another, leaves the older learner


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marginalised and deprived of the opportunity for self-expression and personal

enrichment.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all those who so enthusiastically gave up their time to take

part in this study, and the two anonymous reviewers for suggestions made about this paper.

Notes

1. As a result of the UK government education policy which came into force in September,

2006, ongoing reduction of funding for adult education has meant that an increasing

number of people can no longer afford to learn music and many classes have closed.

2. For discussion of current challenges to the traditional master�apprentice approach of

instrumental teaching, see Cope (2002, 2005), L. Green (2001), Gullberg and Brandstrom

(2004) and Jaffurs (2004).

Notes on contributors

Angela Taylor is a piano tutor at the Adult College, Lancaster, UK, and performs regularly in

the north-west of England. Her research interests include musical participation and learning

across the lifespan, in particular the musical development of older learners; amateur musical

identity construction; the use of qualitative research tools that encourage participant agency.

She is currently researching music learning and the construction of musical identity in older

amateur keyboard players for her PhD with Professor Susan Hallam at the Institute of

Education, University of London.

Susan Hallam is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London

and currently Dean of the Faculty of Policy and Society. Her research interests include

disaffection from school, ability grouping and homework and issues relating to learning in

music, practising, performing, musical ability, musical understanding and the effects of music

on behaviour and studying. She is the author of 10 books including Instrumental Teaching: A

Practical Guide to Better Teaching and Learning (1998), The Power of Music (2001) and Music

Psychology in Education (2005) and over 100 other scholarly contributions. She was Chair of

the Education Section of the British Psychological Society and is an Academician of the

Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

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Appendix 1. Note on ratings recorded on the grid

Ratings operate on a scale from 1 to 5 which represents the construct continuum ranging from

one pole to the other, from the construct label through to its opposite. A rating of 1 or 2 refers

to the left pole on the grid, 1 being stronger than 2. A rating of 5 or 4 is for the right pole, 5

being stronger than 4. A rating of 3 can mean any of the following: no strong feelings either

way; mixed feelings, that is, both extremes/poles at the same time or feeling different about it at

different times; the construct is not relevant/cannot be applied.

The elements and constructs were grouped in clusters using simple visual methods (Pope

and Keen 1981). Ratings of 1 and 2 were in shades of red, ratings of 3 were black, and ratings

of 4 and 5 were in shades of blue.

Appendix 2. Interview procedure and schedule

. Researcher demonstrates how repertory grid construction works using driving skills as

elements

. Participant reflects on and defines music skills and tasks

. Researcher presents elements as triads, and with participant, elicits constructs with and

without cards as prompts, rates skills and completes grid

. Questions before studying grid together:


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� Which musical skills are the most important to you?

� Which of your constructs or ways of regarding music learning seem to fit your

personality most or are the most important to you?

. Participant and researcher study grid together

. Participant and researcher reflect further on music learning together:

� Which of your music skills (elements) are the most important to you?

� Thinking about the ways in which you regard your music learning (constructs), what do

you feel is the most important thing that your music learning/participation /playing does

for you as well as help you to acquire the skills you need for mastering your instrument?

� Is there any other reason why you have chosen the [named instrument]?

� What do you find easy to do? Prompt: Can you tell me why?

� What do you find difficult to do?

� What do you enjoy doing?

� What do you not enjoy doing?

� Is there anything you feel you ought to do for any reason?

� Is there anything you can’t see the point of doing?

� What’s your main target or goal in your learning/playing?

� How are you feeling about the progress you’ve made or what you can do now?

� What will you do next?

� What would you really like to be able to do with your instrument?

� What would it mean to you to be able to do it?

. Participant evaluates this way of reflecting on music learning

� What do you feel about having taken part in this study?

� Have you learned anything about yourself and your music learning and playing?

� Have there been any surprises for you? Prompt: about your feelings about acquiring or

using these music skills/about the way that things seem to go together

� Can you now see anything new or different to aim at in your music learning or

participation?

� Is there anything you’d like to talk about that we haven’t covered?

Appendix 3. Transcription key

. . . Omitted dialogue

[words in brackets] Explanatory material

Italics Spoken with emphasis


understanding what it means for older students to learn basic musical skills on a keyboard...

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