Interviews and lesson observations

I needed some method of data collection that would allow me to convert

the interview dialogue and lesson observations into a form I could use. Given that I was going to be conducting interviews, some kind of recording seemed inevitable; this would not only allow me subsequently to transcribe the

interviews accurately, but would also let me concentrate fully on the dialogue at the time (Robson, 2002: 290). The decision to film the interviews was partly based on practicalities; the only audio recording apparatus I had was an old cassette tape machine, whereas I also had a camcorder which would record in a digital format, thus making backing up and transcription much easier. I

therefore used this to film all the interviews, with the built-in microphone recording the conversation. It may be that using an audio recording device for the interviews might have been less intrusive than a camera; however, it

transpired that on several occasions gestures and body language proved to be important sources of data which would have been lost without a visual

reference.

As for witnessing the teaching practice of these musicians, it was obvious

that I would have to see as well as hear what was going on in a lesson. This would inevitably involve a degree of intrusion, since covert access was out of the question for ethical reasons. I briefly considered asking to sit in on the lessons, but I felt that, for both teacher and pupil, a camera sitting in the corner of the room would be easier to ignore than a person. Moreover I was concerned that I might not be able to ʻrecordʼ fully the lesson I was witnessing, and that I would be stuck with my fieldnotes in whatever form I made them at the time (Silverman, 2000: 126). Film has the immeasurable advantage of being

available for repeated viewings. Thus I decided to use the camcorder to film both the interviews and the lesson observations.

I devised a set of questions to ask my potential participants, covering a range of subjects concerning music teaching and learning (see Appendix 3). The form of the interview was based on a familiar sequence (see Robson, 2002: 277) of easy, non-threatening ʻwarm-upʼ questions, followed by the main body of the interview, with more open-ended or potentially ʻriskyʼ questions left until later, by which time rapport would hopefully have been established. A few straightforward questions were left until last to signal the end of the interview approaching, and to allow any tension in the situation to ʻcool offʼ.

The content of the questions was partly a straightforward response to the

nature of the enquiry; thus asking, for example: ʻCan you give me some idea of how you actually teach?ʼ was a direct attempt to inform my central research question. Other areas for investigation were suggested by my own experiences of learning and teaching and the process of reflecting on this, particularly during an instrumental training course with the ABRSM. The interview questions were also influenced by my initial reading of, for example, Green (2002), Hallam (1998), OʼConnor (1987), OʼBrien (1995), Bailey (1992), Holt (1969), and Spruce (1996), whose research, experiences and opinions alerted me to many of the issues relevant to music teaching and learning.

Some of my questions were concerned with biographical details, the

musical background of my informants, and how it was that they became involved in making music. I invited them to talk about how they learned to play their chosen instrument, and whether in the process they had experience of being taught in formal instrumental lessons. This might suggest what examples or ʻmodelsʼ of learning they had personally experienced in their own

background, with a view to comparing their experiences as learners with their subsequent behaviour as teachers. This comparison was to be explicitly invited during the interviews, though it would also be the subject of later analysis.

Having invited the participants to reflect on how and why they learned their instruments, I also wanted to find out, in as much detail as possible, what they actually did in their lessons. This involved asking them, initially, how they began teaching; I meant to compare what they said about starting to play an

instrument with what they said about starting to teach it. I asked about the practicalities of teaching - for example, where did they find material for teaching, did they use notation, grade exams, instructional CDs or DVDs and so on - but also about more personal aspects of teaching; for example, what were their ʻbestʼ and ʻworstʼ experiences as a teacher, and did they remember specific moments that had a profound impact on how they taught. Thus I was hoping to get as full an impression as possible of their teaching practice.

I was also interested in teaching and learning in a wider context. In my own background the cultural context of music had always seemed a crucial aspect of its appeal, and indeed its meaning. Working as an instrumental teacher myself (particularly during a spell as a peripatetic in a rather strict Catholic school) I could see that even after several generations of ʻrockʼnʼrollʼ and modern popular culture, certain forms of popular music continued to

fascinate rebellious teenagers, and excite disapproval and even outrage among parents and other adults (including classroom music teachers). As such, an instrumental teacher working in popular genres is often liable to be in a somewhat ambivalent position. I was interested to know what my participants thought about their role as teachers, and the politics of teaching and learning popular music.

My list of questions thus addressed the central focus of my research, and

in the broadest sense this focus was consistent throughout the interviews. However, the flexibility of semi-structured interviews was evident in the

approach that I took, and in the data that resulted. The participants themselves were diverse in terms of their interests and opinions, and proved forthcoming, or reticent, on different subjects. For example, the issue of cultural ʻownershipʼ of popular music provoked lengthy and even passionate discourse in several informants, while for others it seemed to warrant little more than a brief

participants were so inclined, and in some cases this resulted in unexpected data which, in turn, enriched existing data or suggested novel areas for analysis. Where new ideas did appear in the data, these were often

incorporated into subsequent interviews; for example, what Dave had to say about his experience of school as a site for learning raised issues which were subsequently developed in later interviews (in particular with Ed and Graham), and which are discussed in chapter 5 (5.4.4). Equally, certain questions and accompanying ʻpromptsʼ which I had written in advance seemed, in the context of the interviews, irrelevant or inappropriate. For instance, I never actually asked: ʻWhere did your “learning strategy” come from?ʼ, since in conversation with working musicians this seemed to be a needlessly pompous and

ʻacademicʼ way of discussing how someone learns to play an instrument. On the other hand, in the first interview I happened to use another prompt I had written, and asked, almost in passing: ʻDo you have any regrets about the way you learned?ʼ. This produced such an interesting response (and, initially, a four- second pause) that I made a point of asking it in the next interview, and

ultimately this question became central to a major strand of analysis (see section 5.2). Although the basic core of questions remained consistent, the interview structure was to some extent flexible and itself developed as the interviews progressed ʻthrough the interplay of data collection and

analysisʼ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 178).

Thus the design of this study incorporated elements of ʻpurposiveʼ or

ʻtheoreticalʼ sampling in terms of both people and data; firstly, in the sense that I hand-picked cases to be included on the basis of what I judged to be their suitable characteristics (Cohen et al., 2007: 114), and secondly in that the results of my initial data-gathering and analysis informed subsequent

investigation (Robson, 2002: 265). I was attempting throughout to maintain a balance between being consistent in gathering data central to my research focus, while still allowing for new ideas to emerge (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 182).

Potential volunteers were made aware from the outset that, in agreeing to

Information Sheet, which they all read (see Appendix 2), tried to suggest that nothing exceptional was expected:

Iʼm looking to record ordinary lessons, with nothing in particular required of either teacher or pupil, other than getting on with it.

My intention was to intrude as little as possible and observe a lesson that would be ʻtypicalʼ or ʻrepresentativeʼ. How successful I might have been will be

discussed later in this chapter (2.5.2) as well as in chapter 4 (4.6).

While I did not know what my participants would say in their interviews, I did at least have a basic set of questions to ask them. As far as the lesson observations were concerned, I had no idea what they would show me, and I made no specific demands at all, other than to film around an hourʼs worth of teaching. If I was actively involved in the interviews, I was relatively passive as regards the lesson observations, and dependent on the teachers concerned for their choice of students, and the circumstances of the filming. Realistically I was in no position to specify what kind of lesson I wanted to see; as will be

discussed later in this chapter, I felt that they were doing me a considerable favour merely by agreeing to let me witness any kind of lesson at all. As such I gratefully accepted whatever and whoever they were prepared to show me.