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Music in Education
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Course

Course

Listening to music, singing, making music alone or with others: music plays an important role in the daily lives of almost all people. The Music in Education course in Enschede trains you to become an enthusiastic and inspiring music teacher, who teaches music in a meaningful way. Contemporary education that gives children, adolescents and adults the opportunity to strengthen their musical identity and share it with others. And to develop their musicality further.

We do this by letting you practise a great deal and offering you a broad basis, after which you develop further in the part of the field closest to your heart. In this way you become an inspired and innovative music teacher with your own specialisation in or outside education. 

After you graduate, you have three teaching qualifications: teacher of Music, Culture and Arts, and General Art. We train you to teach Culture and Arts and General Art in an inspiring way, using not only existing methods but also projects in and with practice. For example, a historical-musical trip through a city or a project with an orchestra or a special target group.

What do you learn in ArtEZ's Music in Education course in Enschede?

The Music in Education course in Enschede is practice-oriented and varied and comprises three domains: teaching, music theory and making music. Each will take up about a third of your time. In addition to classes and internships, you will also take part in various projects within the domains. We will educate you broadly. This means that we cover all types of music, from classical to jazz/pop and from medieval sounds to blues.

  • You will do internships and take classes in, for example, didactics/methodology, musical expression, art criticism, and art and cultural history. The digital skills classes teach you how to use technology to make music, such as deejaying, remixing, making your own music productions, video, animation and gaming. In the Music and Education Lab you develop and test apps and software, often commissioned by external companies that ask our students to develop apps to improve education. As part of this, you will work with MediaMusic students. Furthermore, in cooperation with the Music Therapy course, we train you to become a remedial education music teacher. 

  • In order to become artistically proficient yourself, you have weekly individual classes in your main-subject instrument for three years. You will also take a choir class, play in ensembles and follow singing, piano, guitar and drum classes in a group.

  • Does the word 'theory' make you think of dry, boring classes? Then our Music Theory workshop will be music to your ears. Here the starting point is always practice. You start writing music (composing) in, for example, Baroque style and then delve into the music history of the Baroque period and music theory. Not only the classes in music history and writing music, but also the classes in arranging and the exercises in the auditory lab can link up with the theme. We are proud that other academies of music are also interested in this new approach we have developed. We are actually the only academy of music where you are taught music history for four years.

Weekly master classes

Every Friday we organise, together with the other courses at the Enschede Academy of Music, a master class by heavyweights from the Netherlands and abroad, such as

  • Robin P. Anthony (international producer);
  • Andrew Gander (Australian jazz drummer);
  • Tolak Ollestad (known from, for example, Al Jarreau, Earth, Wind & Fire, Natalie Cole, Seal and Jewel);
  • singer-songwriter Jeangu Macrooy (student in Enschede and Dutch participant in the Eurovision Song Contest);
  • Jan Wolter Smit (expert in Lesson-Up education).
  • These master classes are freely accessible to all students and are streamed, also for our partner schools. Furthermore, once or twice a week we organise a lunch concert, which people from outside can attend free of charge. A great way to gain stage experience.

Internship

Your best teachers are the students and groups you teach. That is why we regard the internships as the heart of your education. In no other music in education course will you gain as much practical experience as with us in Enschede. In seven out of eight semesters you will do an internship; your first internship is already in the first semester of the first year. During the course of your studies, you will gear your internships increasingly to your picture of the future and personal qualities. As a course, we have a large network of internship hosts you can choose from, both within and outside education.

In the first three years, you will do your internship for an average of one day a week. You start by learning different working methods and writing an arrangement. Gradually, your work becomes more complex. In addition to the classes you teach, you prepare, for example, a concert or presentation in education or you work with students on a musical. In the fourth year you will do an internship in the upper grades of secondary education and prepare the students for the final exam. In your graduation year, sometimes also as early as the third year, you also have the opportunity to do an internship outside education.

In addition, you will do an internship for one day or part of a day at one of the music teacher training colleges in Enschede. Your main-subject teacher/internship supervisor will be there as well. You will also receive main subject lessons and internship/peer review at this location, enabling you to immediately apply in practice, under supervision, what you learn in the main-subject classes.

Projects and study trips

  • In the fourth year you will create a complete performance together with your fellow students. First-, second- and third-year students are also involved. This music production brings together all the competencies we ask of a beginning music teacher. You write arrangements, play and sing, organise and take care of sets, public relations, sponsorships and ticket sales. You also provide educational material with which the music teachers of secondary schools in the region can prepare their students for the performance. The show itself is performed before an audience a number of times; in recent years there have been at least 1,500 visitors. Throughout the process you will receive artistic and business guidance.

  • In the first three years you go on a cultural trip abroad every year. During this trip you undertake all kinds of activities and visit cultural sights. In the first two years you go as a participant, in the third year you organise the cultural trip yourself together with your fellow students. In this way, we train you to organise a working week for secondary education.

  • In the Music Writing Workshop you compose music for orkest de ereprijs or another orchestra. The orchestra will then perform your composition under your direction. Recordings will also be made of this.

  • In the annual improvisation week you will work for one week on a music or theatre performance. You follow improvisation workshops hosted by renowned guest teachers from home and abroad, write music based on a few musical building blocks and rehearse that music together.

  • Together with the other academy of music programmes in Enschede, we organise project weeks for all students during which you can take part in workshops in, for example, stage presentation, applying for a job, making film music, use of the interactive whiteboard (IWB), leadership and voice expression.

  • As a third-year student you are on the verge of conducting your graduation research. This study day for third-year students of all music teacher training courses in the Netherlands is a great opportunity to exchange knowledge about this and to expand your network.

  • You will have the opportunity to expand your knowledge at study days and symposiums organised by, for example, the VO-academie, Meer Muziek in de Klas and trade associations.

Structure of the course

  • In the first year you are introduced to teaching music classes and develop a theoretical and practical basis. You do internships in the lower grades of secondary education and in primary education and take subjects such as digital skills, artistic orientation and art criticism. Of course you will be making a lot of music yourself. You get to know different styles of music: from classical music to jazz, pop and non-Western music. In addition to your main instrument, you also learn to play other instruments, sing in a choir and play in ensembles.


    In the first year you can apply for admission to the Honours Programme, by way of supplement to the theoretical programme of your bachelor course.

    Honours Programme

  • In the second year you deepen and broaden your knowledge and skills. As part of the Teaching domain, you immerse yourself during the remedial education music teacher project in teaching music lessons to people with a disability, for example a deaf student or a student with an autism spectrum disorder. To this end, you will do an internship together with a music therapy student. Guest teachers will give you insight into the different forms of special education. In addition, in the second and third academic year you will do internships in primary and secondary education.

    From the second year you will also learn to lead choirs and ensembles. The pop music workshop teaches you basic skills on drums, guitar, bass guitar and keyboard. At the end of this course you organise a public exam in a pub. Here you perform a repertoire together and change instruments every track or song. You also have to take care of PR, technique and appointments with the performance venue. In the third year you organise a cultural trip abroad for the first-year, second-year and third-year students.

  • In the fourth year you have the opportunity to specialise. You will receive fifteen credits, ten of which you are free to spend on one of the other academy of music courses in Enschede. In addition to an internship in the upper grades of secondary education, you will do an internship that fits in with your future plans and the subject of your graduation research, and you will work on a final product. This can be a dissertation or essay, but you can also design a new method or set up your own business. Together with your contemporaries, you will work on a major joint music production.

    All graduation students of Music in Education exhibit their work during the ArtEZ finals.

Course supervision

We deliberately opt for small groups and personal attention. Before the first year starts, you will get to know your fellow students and teachers during a camp. In the first year, you receive weekly academic career counselling, both in groups and individually. An academic career advisor will continue to support you up to and including the fourth year. Moreover, as a first-year student you will be assigned a study buddy. If you have any questions or problems that go beyond your study career, you can contact a student counsellor or the Board of Examiners. If you have any doubts about your studies or problems with your academic career advisor or a teacher, you can make an appointment with the Head of Department.

Music & Health

High demands are placed on musicians on a physical and mental level. That is why we at ArtEZ pay the necessary attention to healthy music making. We mainly do this during project days and weeks. You follow a series of lessons about healthy voice use and you learn to recognize and prevent work-related complaints.

 

Facilities

The music teacher training course in Enschede is part of the Academy of Music. All our rooms are fitted with audio equipment for singing, playing and recording. In addition, we have:

    • studios;
    • drum booths
    • band studios for joint rehearsals;
    • an auditorium for performances, livestream, lighting and sound;
    • a large number of instruments and an excellent lending library of both instruments, microphones and the like;
    • a virtual location where musicians can play together in real time at different locations.

Enterprise and entrepreneurship

Knowing where opportunities lie, taking initiative, being a capable organiser, able to pitch yourself: these are skills that you work on throughout your studies and that ensure that after you graduate you are an enterprising music teacher who will have a job in the field within a year.

Studying in Enschede

Look here for more information about studying in Enschede.

Doing research outside of your regular class hours

When you study at ArtEZ, you also get acquainted with research. Think of theory classes, material research, and socially engaged research. Within your course, there is ample support and space to discover what kind of artistic researcher you are. But outside your regular class hours, there are also special initiatives, activities, and workshops where you can work on research. Especially for students who seek further depth. Curious? Then quickly read more about the (extracurricular) research activities.

Doing research outside of your regular class hours