The research project explores how composition teachers articulate their aesthetic experiences of the compositional work presented by students during individual supervision sessions offered in composition studies at conservatory level in Norway and Sweden.
The articulation of students’ compositional work during supervision has not been significantly examined in existing research. The specific research question in this study is the terminology composition teachers use to articulate their experience of the student’s work as presented throughout the process. Rebne distinguishes between purely music-technical and compositional-technical terminology used in supervision, and the language employed to capture the aesthetic experience of the work. The language itself is not hidden, hence the title of the thesis, but the tacit knowledge utilized by the composition supervisors during guidance is to a large degree localized to the individual supervisor’s practice. This research project is intended as a contribution towards opening up this aspect of compositional supervision for more explicit mapping, analysis, and reflection, and can serve as a basis for a broader investigation of supervisory practices in composition studies at Scandinavian music conservatories.
The study investigates and describes how three composition teachers at two music conservatories in Norway and Sweden articulate their aesthetic experiences of the musical material presented by students for supervision. Composition teachers have many possible perspectives and fields of knowledge to draw upon in their professional approach to, and linguistic communication about, the student’s work. The fields drawn upon in supervision include music-historical, aesthetic, or conceptual references; purely music-technical considerations relating to harmony, rhythm, thematic development, form, or instrumentation; and/or examples from the supervisor’s own production that point to their musical and compositional experience. However, the research focus is on what lies beyond the historical and technical language. Specifically, it concerns the articulation of the supervisor’s aesthetic experience of the student’s work. Rebne argues that the supervisor’s experience and perception of the student work (which is largely unfinished and provisional throughout most of the supervision process), should hold a central place in the supervisor’s overall qualitative approach to the student’s compositional work. The supervisor must be able to articulate their aesthetic experiences and provide qualitative assessments that go beyond purely music-technical terminology.
The central research question, therefore, is how the supervisor uses experiential concepts, and how these concepts reflect the supervisor’s qualitative experiences and perceptions of the student’s work during the supervision process.
