Learning in a Teen Garage Band: A Relational Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

The last two decades have seen a gradual awakening of the possibilities of informal modes of learning within Western education research. Informal learning in arts education, and music education in particular, has been the focus of a growing number of researchers. The following chapter provides a narrative account of the forms of learning within one of five teenage garage bands investigated within the author’s doctoral study, “Learning, identity work and music use in young garage bands.” The account also includes a discussion of my endeavour to negotiate reflexive, dialogical relationships of mutual trust with the young musicians, and some of the difficulties encountered within this process. The chapter concludes with a reflection upon the ways in which the band’s purposive, goal-driven approach to music learning challenged some of my initial, overly-simplistic understandings of such musical practices.