RJA #3a: Research Topic Expanation

I decided to start as broad as I could. I did a general google search of 'methods for teaching musical instruments'. I decided to go to the Wikipedia link just to get the juices flowing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_education

The first thing that jumps out at me was it listed four 'major' international music methods that all very different a are based off of teachers and their methods. Along with that, it lists five other 'notable' methods for teaching based off of others teachings and studies around the world. It then goes on to give a brief history of music education as well as listing some sources and teachers that I can explore. The information seems to be more based on the western ways of music education but I also feel that it can lead me to different sights that will be more geared toward other musics.

I then googled 'world music teaching methods' and found what appears to be an article reviewing what a group of musical 'experts' ,from a variety of different schools and institutions, were talking about regarding the question "how do you teach music in an intercultural environment?" It is on a forum sight called World Music Centre: Worlds of Music.

http://www.cdime-network.com/wom/0212031452477748

The article describes the discussion and how they cover four topics: Context, authenticity, tradition and place of musics in society. It goes through highlighting some main points and describing the differing opinions of the different experts but then comes to a conclusion of the whole discussion. It concludes that their is no definitive way to teach music in a intercultural environment other than to be flexible and open to teaching in a variety of ways. The article also gives the opposites of different methods for teaching (Examples of continuums in approaches to teaching music in an intercultural environment: Tradition - - - Innovation ; Reconstructed authenticity - - - New identities ; Monocultural - - - Transcultural ; Notation-based - - - Aural ; Analytical - - - Holistic) which can help to further my research.

What I am really looking to find for the center of my research is the differences (pluses and minuses) of learning to play from a aural and or a notation-based teaching method. Being taught primarily from a notation-based system myself, I want to explore the aural method more because I have developed an opinion that it has more benefits to my mind. I also want to discuss how every student learns differently therefor should be taught in a more notation-based or more aural based method depending on what works best.