Name: Where are all the Black kids? Engaging underserved teenagers in group piano through informal music learning
Start: 2025-06-05T11:30:00-0500
End: 2025-06-05T12:00:00-0500

Welcome to the APME Memphis 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. The conference schedule will be available in late spring 2025. At that time, you can view the schedule and select the presentations you’d like to attend. If you have any questions, please visit our conference website or contact us at conference@popularmusiceducation.org We look forward to coming together as a community June 4–7, 2025.

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:30am - 12:00pm CDT

Classroom 113 - Legacy Building

Black kids are an underrepresented demographic in extracurricular piano study. Researchers have found low socioeconomic status to be a significant barrier to child participation in extracurricular activities (Kuhn et al., 2021), and Piano study as an extracurricular activity is amongst the least accessible due to financial barriers (i.e. instrument and lesson cost). These barriers have a greater impact on Black families in the U.S., as they are disproportionally below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023). In K–12 school settings, Black children participate in music study less frequently than their peers (Elpus & Abril, 2019), and although many educators have attempted to mitigate financial barriers by offering scholarships and loaner instruments, Black children remain vastly underrepresented in piano studios across the country (Duke et al., 1997). Another barrier might lie in students’ musical identity and cultures. The predominant model of piano teaching in America is deeply rooted in the Western art music tradition, which can be alienating for students whose musical identities differ from that of the curricula (Wright, 2008). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the lived experiences of middle school beginner piano students participating in a free, community group piano program hosted at a predominately Black inner-city school, with an aural-centered and culturally responsive (McKoy & Lind, 2022) curriculum. The curriculum follows Lucy Green’s (2014) HeLP approach for classrooms . Data collection is currently in progress and will be ready for presentation in the Summer of 2025.

Speakers

Eden Esters Brown

PhD Candidate, Louisiana State University

Hi All! My name is Eden and I am a doctoral candidate in music education and piano pedagogy at Louisiana State University! My research interests include piano education access and motivating pre-college and community piano students through culturally inclusive studio curricula and... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:30am - 12:00pm CDT
Classroom 113 - Legacy Building 3775 Central Avenue 129 Music Building Memphis, TN, 38111

Instrumental Pedagogies and Practices, Research

Eden Esters Brown

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