Adult and student perceptions of music teaching and learning at the Goderich Celtic College, Goderich, Ontario, Canada: An ethnographic study

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to discover the manner in which Celtic traditional music is taught and learned at the Celtic College, an annual weeklong event held in the town of Goderich, Ontario, Canada. An excellent example of community music, the College provides instruction to adult learners in Celtic musical traditions from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, and the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Ontario. Instrumental instruction is offered on flute, tin whistle, bagpipes, concertina, accordion, fiddle, banjo, guitar, piano, and bodhran (an Irish drum). Traditional singing, cooking, arts, and crafts classes are offered as well. Because the underlying philosophy of the week is to create a "micro-culture/community," other activities occurring outside of the regular school day are also a significant part of the College week.;Participants were asked to describe their comfort levels regarding both visual and aural/oral music learning, and this was because Celtic music is traditionally learned through aural/oral transmission and not written notation. Many of the instructors at the College are traditional folk musicians who have learned in an aural/oral, non-literate tradition in informal social settings, and when "teaching," employ various aural/oral approaches because those are what they are most familiar with. Student study participants were North American adults, formally schooled, musically literate, and generally uncomfortable with aural/oral music learning when introduced to Celtic music as adults. Thus, when first learning Celtic music, they were both unfamiliar with and had difficulty learning the music in the manner in which it was traditionally transmitted, that is, through aural/oral learning in context. Therefore, in order to learn Celtic music in what was perceived to be the most natural and authentic way (aural/oral), participants developed self-teaching strategies designed to accommodate and/or supplement their aural/oral learning.;The study's results generated three main conclusions. First, because participants' comfort levels with both visual (written notation) and aural/oral learning differed from one individual to another, participants developed specific strategies designed to address their particular learning styles, and these, at times, varied greatly from one individual to the next. Further, students perceived that learning traditional music successfully as dependent upon the development of aural learning skills. Second, adult students perceived that Western concepts of formal music teaching and learning were inappropriate and/or insufficient when learning traditional Celtic music for several reasons. These included the realization that playing in context with other musicians was an integral part of learning traditional music. Learning the appropriate socio-cultural behaviors associated with playing Celtic music with others were, therefore, important as well. Third, students felt that the informal musical activities that occurred in context during the College week provided opportunities for learning that were equal to and/or more valuable than music learning that happened in the formal classroom.