I Did That Wrong and It Sounded Good: An Ethnographic Study of Vernacular Music Making in Higher Education

• Main Author: Ezquerra, Victor
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholar Commons 2014
• Subjects: Constructivism; Culture; Ethnography; Higher Education; Music Education; Vernacular Music; Other Education
• Online Access: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5012; https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6208&context=etd

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine vernacular music making in higher education. The participants, undergraduate music education majors (N=23 for Fall, N=10 for Spring), were investigated throughout the course of the 2012-2013 academic year. A constructivist philosophical framework was applied and data were collected using several methodologies including participant observation, journals, interviews, and audiovisual and multimedia methods. Results showed that students were able to successfully learn, create, and share music in a vernacular manner. Participants took a pragmatic approach to making music. Furthermore, students engaged several aspects of music making they had not encountered in traditional music education. This study demonstrates how traditional and vernacular music cultures can be synthesized; the study also suggests that vernacular music cultures should be further examined and should be made part of the music education curriculum