"Do you know 'Brave' by Sara Bareilles?" I asked 10-year-old Anthony in a piano lesson one week.

"Yeah," he said.

"Well, I read recently that 'Brave' and [Katy Perry's] 'Roar' have a lot of things in common. What do you think?"

"Huh. I've never really thought about it!" he said.

We listened to both songs a few times and made a list of musical characteristics on the whiteboard. I let Anthony take the lead on what we were listening for—accompaniment style, key, tempo, vocal register, and contour—stepping in to guide the conversation, as needed. Anthony sat at a keyboard in the room, picking out parts of the melody or accompaniment as he listened.

Is this an example of formal or informal learning? Or, is it both?

The context was formal (we were in a school classroom having a private piano lesson) but the genre and learning style were informal (popular music and learning by ear). The learning was intentional (there was an end goal) but the ownership of the experience was something that we shared (we both contributed ideas—I didn't go into the lesson with my mind already made up).

That brings us to an interesting question to ask in our teaching: What makes learning formal or informal? And can it be both? How can we balance formal and informal learning in music education?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

For show notes + a full transcript, click here.

Resources Mentioned

Ep. 042 - What Does It Mean to Be a Teacher-Facilitator?

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