Description
„Anyone who thinks that the digital leads to the standardisation of all preferences is using the internet incorrectly.” This feuilletonistic claim (von Randow, 2017, translation by the author) is a strong counterstatement contrary to current discussions on filter bubbles and the unifying power of algorithms presumably delivering more of the same, known, and already preferred. The above claim rather highlights the users’ agency and, conceivably despite unifying tendencies, one’s autonomy to choose and reject what music we listen to.
Psychological research suggests that we build a strong basis for our life-long musical taste during adolescence, with the most formative timespan lying between 15 and 24 years (Platz et al., 2015). Aside from one’s peer group and family, music lessons in schools can and should provide adolescents with the relevant skills and openness to find, experience and judge the musical variety available in our globalised world (Martin, 2021) as part of fostering someone’s functionings and capability (Robeyns, 2017), for example, in the realm of music (Krupp-Schleußner, 2018). The school curriculum for Thuringia refers to several skills within one’s self- and social competence, such as developing our own values, concentrating on our hearing, and differentiating within our auditory perception. Such skills already create parts of the foundation to enable pupils to use music streaming providers in an autonomous fashion and increasing this proficiency will be the main goal of the presented project.
Due to the early stage of this project, I will present and discuss the plans for the upcoming data collections: A first survey will focus on current and familiar strategies of pupils to engage with music on streaming platforms. Informed by these results will the second phase focus on designing and evaluating a browser-based tool to extend on typical functions of streaming platforms – which are mostly based on the implicit concept of similarity – as well as help students explicitly verbalise musical concepts and ideas as they are needed for further interactions with streaming platforms to promote engagement with and aesthetic evaluations of previously unknown music.
| Names, affilations and contact information | Anna Wolf, Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT Weimar, anna.wolf@hfm-weimar.de |
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| Bio | Anna Wolf is Professor for Music Education in Digital Contexts at the University of Music in Weimar. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Musicology at the University of Bremen and then went to Goldsmiths, University of London, for a Master's degree in "Music, Mind and Brain". From 2011 to 2018, she worked at the University of Music in Hannover, where she completed her doctorate in 2015. Her research focuses on the assessment of musical skills, in particular various listening skills such as analytical listening or sound imagery. Further co-publications on the perception and impact of music in different contexts, neuromyths in music education and translations of the GoldMSI test procedure round off her portfolio. |