Digital culture and teaching: possibilities for music education

Abstract

This article discusses how Digital Culture affects teachers’ work in the field of Music Education, debating the use of technological resources and their challenges in pedagogical practice. Reflecting upon the concepts of Musicality and Digital Culture, the work analyzes a focus on the change in processes of learning and self-learning of music practices assisted by New Digital Technologies (NDT) in the context of Musical Education. The methodology consisted of literature review, on-line questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with experienced professional musicians, and data were analyzed under the qualitative-quantitative perspective. The results demonstrate that the Digital Culture pervades pedagogical practices from planning and research of materials to implementation of learning and self-learning resources. The research points out challenges to teaching in the field of Music Education, considering the gap between students’ fluency in the Digital Culture and the material limitations of infrastructure, connectivity, and initial and continuing teacher training. It is argued that Music Education benefits from new digital technologies but requires a paradigmatic change to understand students as whole beings and subjects of the musical-educational process, whose technological experience may be crucial in the educational process.