All together now : semi-autonomous ensemble building through collaboration

This chapter discusses the experiences of groups of second year students in an undergraduate music program. Small ensembles involve a unique form of musical and social collaboration because they do not utilise a leader in the form of a conductor. Learning unfamiliar repertoire in a limited time frame, the ensembles found that they needed to come up with a plan in order to learn the music in an efficient manner. The issue that Nyree alludes to in the rehearsal planning and strategies section, that of the different abilities and skill levels of rehearsal members, led to the ensembles developing strategies to facilitate peer-learning. The students built ensembles semi-autonomously, with minimal teacher intervention, by responding to problems in a reactive way as they arose from an initial reading of the score. Issues to do with leadership arose in conjunction with the development of strategies to facilitate music learning. Expansive learning is also evident in changing attitudes to musical creativity.