Welcome to the APME Liverpool 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. We encourage you to browse the various presentations and to create a custom schedule. 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 July 22–24, 2025!
“The jam session is…the…true academy ” according to Ralph Ellison. Jam sessions continue to exist and have branched out into other styles, like blues, rock, and funk, better known as “open jams.” Where do open jams and PME align and conflict? How do we better create “the true academy”?
The presenter describes his work as a professor and provocateur at a US university. The presenter gives drum kit performances in a university art gallery, modeling noisy, relational resistance in co-musicking as fundamental to a necessary paradigm shift to counter perpetuation of racist, regressive social policy in the United States.
Join Drs. Davis, Kennedy, and Wacker as we present our analysis of Journal of Popular Music Education articles (2017–2024). We’ll explore trends in research methods, participant types, and topics, compare findings with other music education journals, and discuss emerging gaps and future directions in the field.
This panel explores how music education can better support students’ mental health by addressing industry-related challenges. Attendees will gain insights into current training gaps, discover successful wellbeing initiatives, and leave with practical tools to foster resilience, self-awareness, and sustainability in the next generation of musicians.
This paper outlines the interdisciplinary approach taken in an undergraduate module in which music students to analyse visual aspects of their promotional materials and performances. Theories from disciplines including persona studies, visual studies, image studies, performance studies, audio-visual studies and fashion studies are synthesised to inform constructively critical analysis.
This presentation explores the integration of video game music (VGM) into higher education curricula as a tool for teaching popular music. I illustrate how VGM can serve as an effective pedagogical tool for engaging students in the study of popular music history, theory, composition, and performance at the tertiary level.
This interactive workshop offers practical strategies to support neurodivergent students in music education. Participants will explore inclusive teaching techniques, engage in hands-on activities, and leave with a toolkit for fostering creativity, wellbeing, and resilience—both in the classroom and throughout students’ careers in the music industry.
While popular genres are slowly being integrated into music theory curricula, many university music programs continue to struggle with how to accomplish this task while serving the needs of their entire student body. This session is meant to foster a discussion of solutions, both tried and untried, failed and succeeded.
How do collegiate R&B ensemble directors gain and develop their knowledge for teaching R&B music? How do these ensemble directors employ their expertise in their instructional contexts? This session will present the findings of a dissertation study that focused on the pedagogical content knowledge of three collegiate R&B music instructors.
This project centres around music literacy education practices and teaching 'active consumption', a phrase and method for combining various states of critical thinking about popular music. It also focuses on determining teaching methods that prioritise students' own interpretations and independence over binary correctness and incorrectness.
Popular music related materials exist in archives, museums, libraries, and private collections, providing knowledge and evidence of events, individuals, institutions, and cultures. This paper consider the role of artefacts in popular music higher education, the treatment of the curator, and collections as a tool for narrative building to be fostered through more inclusive and considered circumstances.
