The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of musical interpretation in teaching and learning Western classical music from both a teacher’s and student’s perspective within the context of piano main instrument teaching in higher music education in Sweden. The following research questions were formulated to fulfil this aim: first, how do teachers and students understand musical interpretation as educational content?; second, how do teachers and students understand teaching and learning of musical interpretation?; third and finally, how could verbal and musical dialogues be used for improving teaching and learning of musical interpretation?

The thesis employs an overarching hermeneutical framework and consists of three movements. Multiple forms of empirical material were created and collected to understand the complex phenomenon: semi-structured interviews (with and without stimulus) with teachers, students, and master class teacher; video and audio recordings of master class lessons and workshops; annotated scores; audio-recorded student performances and written instructions, written responses, and reflective one-minute papers. The empirical material was hermeneutically analysed and presented using poetical condensations, haiku formed poems, (auto)ethnodrama, and collaboratively negotiated student narratives.

The results outline that musical interpretation is neither verbalised nor negotiated. Furthermore, the students are held responsible for developing or already having the skills and capacities required for autonomy and a personal, authentic artistic voice, described as the desired learning outcome. That the students find their education backwards-looking and not preparing for a professional career in music could at least partly be due to the instrumental lessons being mainly devoted to demonstration and imitation without argumentative support. Moreover, as the teachers’ capacity to verbalise and engage in dialogical practices seems to be situationally bound and requiring questions, the possibilities to, on an organisational level, empower students to initiate and enter such dialogues should be further studied.

The created dialogical pedagogical situations, opening for musical and verbal collaboration, helped establish a shared understanding of musical interpretation and highlighted the difference between students’ intentions and performances. These situations offered collaborative explorations of what musical interpretation is, might be, and could be. I suggest that musical interpretation, including its philosophical and ethical aspects, is lifted as a general subject at a programme level, thus securing that it is dealt with adequately, not merely relying on individual teachers. Finally, methodological considerations and suggestions for further research are put forward.

This study aimed to empower piano students and explore their understandings of how teaching and learning of musical interpretation of Western classical music could be developed to foster autonomy and a personal, authentic artistic voice. Two research questions were formulated: How have students experienced teaching and learning of musical interpretation? How do students envision a meaningful organisation of such teaching and learning? The empirical material, created during a participatory action research project with 4 piano students within an artistic bachelor program, was hermeneutically analysed, and narratives were created and twice negotiated with the students. Their education was described as backwards-looking and not preparing for autonomous learning and musicianship. In contrast, a meaningful organisation was envisioned as collaborative, dialogical, characterised by openness, humility, honesty, and mutual understanding where musical interpretation is viewed as a complex, ongoing, open-ended process, allowing for multiple, incompatible views, breaking from the master–apprentice model and the current restrictive ideology.

This polyphonic audio paper addresses the relation between master and apprentice in the music conservatoire, and gives voice to the central human and non-human agents in this context. We aim to explore the power structures that constitute a structural framework for these relations, with regard to the agency with which students shape their individual interpretations, and therefore also to the role of imitation in instrumental music teaching. Master classes have arguably been seen as the pinnacle of the master–apprentice tradition, and have had a central role within higher education in Western classical music. It has regularly been claimed that such classes are effective for student development (see Hanken, 2008; 2011; Hanken and Long, 2012; Hanken, 2015; 2016; 2017) although, until recently, research on master classes has been quite sparse (see Hanken, 2008; 2011).

Results from a qualitative study of teaching and learning of musical interpretation in a master class setting—first articulated in the form of an ethnodrama (Holmgren, 2018; 2020; Nguyễn and Östersjö, 2020; Saldaña, 1998; 2003; 2005; 2011; Salvatore, 2018), written by Holmgren—constitutes the point of departure for the audio paper. Our staging of Holmgren’s ethnodrama as a Hörspiel constitutes an artistic research process, through dramatical and musical composition (Olofsson, 2018). The research process originated in sound, as well as in questions related to musical performance; ultimately, through the many layers of analysis and artistic production, the final outcomes are again manifest in sound. Originating in music education research, the study seeks a better understanding of how the dynamics between teacher, student and music institution can be better utilised in curriculum development. Hence, the audio paper, and the Hörspiel that it contains, constitutes a central result of the study (see further Holmgren, 2020) in artistic form as a sonic and multivocal artefact. We ultimately propose that the future for instrumental teaching in the conservatoire lies in the creation of situations that allow for sharing experiences of performative knowledge. Hereby, teacher and student can work together towards the goal of fostering an individual musician’s voice (Gorton and Östersjö, 2019), highlighting the importance of personal autonomy, situatedness, and an analytical awareness of institutional and societal power structures. Hence, the study points to perspectives that may contribute to curriculum development in higher music education, specifically with regard to instrumental music teaching.

Earlier research indicates that the conservatoire tradition still influences higher music education. In the context of Western classical music, it has been criticised for unreflected use of the master–apprentice model, e.g., emphasising imitative aspects of one-to-one tuition, favouring technical over interpretive aspects of musicianship, and lack of systematic development of students’ autonomy.

Research on group learning of Western classical music within higher music education has highlighted that although students say that group lessons are valuable, they often do not realise the inherent learning potential. Also, students need instructions for how to prepare (and actually prepare) to be able to contribute actively during lessons.

Studies of text seminars have shown that student activity, quality of response, ownership of learning, and participation on equal terms can increase through using response models. Although growing attention is given to collaborative learning within higher music education, there is a need to better understand how learning of musical interpretation could be developed using such models.

This paper aims to study how response guided workshops can be arranged to improve piano students’ learning of musical interpretation of Western classical music. During autumn 2019, five workshops were conducted with a group of four piano students from the bachelor programme at one institution within higher music education in Sweden. In the response model used, students, one week before the workshop, scanned their scores, audio recorded their performances, described where they were in their interpretational process, and included questions directing the desired response. All participants shared their written response, and students beforehand selected topics to focus on during the workshop.

The produced empirical material consists of:

• scanned scores, audio recorded performances, and written instructions;
• participants’ written responses;
• transcriptions of four workshops;
• reflective one-minute papers written at the end of each workshop; and
• the researcher’s field notes and reflections.

The preliminary findings indicate the importance of communicative aspects and how a response model is implemented as challenging and changing established educational traditions are complicated. The students showed a limited capacity for verbalising their thoughts about musical interpretation, selecting topics to focus on during workshops, and tended to focus on details. During the study, the students’ understanding of musical interpretation seemed to increase, and they stated that such workshops should be included in the curriculum. Consequently, further developing such workshops may contribute to increasing student autonomy and responsibility, equal participation, and multivoicedness.

Research has indicated that one-to-one teaching in higher music education in Western classical music typically favours technical over interpretive aspects of musicianship, and imitation of the teacher's rather than the student's explorative interpretation. The aim of the present study is to investigate students' and teachers' understandings of how musical interpretation of Western classical music is learned in this context. Semi-structured qualitative interviews with six piano students and four teachers in Sweden were conducted and hermeneutically analysed using haiku poems and poetical condensations. The analysis found that the conditions for learning musical interpretation centred upon students achieving a high level of autonomy, as affected by three key aspects of teaching and learning: (1) the student’s and the teacher's understandings of what musical interpretation is, (2) the student's experience of freedom of interpretation as acknowledged by the teacher, and (3) (expectations of) the student's explorative approach. As none of these aspects were reported as being explicitly addressed during lessons, there might be a need for both teachers and students to verbalise them more clearly to support piano students' development.