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!
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Soul Jazz is an approachable and listener friendly way of entry into jazz for students unfamiliar with jazz. Students and educators of all levels will be enlightened to the vast potential of Soul Jazz to inspire and motivate those unfamiliar to learn more about Jazz.
Exploring the integration of student voice and co-construction in lower secondary music curricula, this research examines teacher and student perspectives to enhance engagement and inclusivity. Through qualitative action research, it highlights strategies for developing responsive curricula that foster collaboration, cultural relevance, and improved retention in music education.
Utilizing Critical Race Theory to conceptualize this study, rhythm and pitch—two key elements of music— are used to explore literature around the interconnectedness of capitalism and racism. A greater understanding within this study may lead to more socioacademically equitable music learning and teaching in K-12 and higher education.
In this session, we will explore a qualitative study in which high school participants in nontraditional (modern band) music classes detailed narratives related to student agency. We will discuss the findings and implications for future research.
The human voice, like a paintbrush, crafts rich auditory textures. This study explores Circle Singing methods, enhancing vocal proficiency and social-emotional skills. Participants engage in structured and improvisational vocal expression, including instrumental singing and body percussion, transforming their voices and bodies into dynamic performance tools.
This music teacher education program includes popular music from diverse cultures throughout the curriculum. Freshmen learn guitar informally and perform cover songs in bands. Senior student teachers teach Hip Hop and Latin pop through iPad classes. The program enhances preservice teachers’ development of both comprehensive musicianship and cultural competency.
Award-winning filmmaker Martin Shore’s "Living Documentary" blends traditional filmmaking with real-time, evolving art to create interactive, dynamic storytelling. This workshop explores integrating this innovative approach into the classroom, using examples from Shore’s films Take Me To The River and Take Me To The River New Orleans and Berklee student projects.
This study explores how adolescents in two distinct regions -- rural Ireland and Los Angeles county -- discover the songs that become the soundtracks to their lives. In an age of infinite content and evolving technology, this research creates a window into the musical world of our high school students.
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.
Composing and Improvising in the Music Classroom: Ideas and techniques to support the early stages of group composition, encouraging creative music-making. Designed to develop key skills in performing, listening, composing, and improvising by breaking down a musical example into simple rhythmic and melodic riffs, transforming it, improvising on its various elements before using these as the basis for pupils own creative compositions.
The session examines gender and positionality in digitally-supported music education, highlighting how media reinforce stereotypes. It critiques the exclusion of marginalized groups through biased technology and representation. Solutions include positionality, active unlearning, and counter-storytelling, fostering inclusivity in music education by addressing power structures and promoting reflective, creative practices.
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.
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.
This paper will reflect on a survey conducted that studies developments in instrumental popular music grades for the guitar. Drawing on other scholarship and experiences, the paper observes how the establishment of these examinations in the 1990s and their subsequent developments have shaped the opinions and approaches of music students.
Students are often initially hesitant to participate in musical activities, due to cultural differences, or the fear of making a mistake. One method of overcoming this reticence is to incorporate the principles and games of improvisational comedy into the lesson plan. Designed by Jake Cassman, a former music director and performer at Second City theater in Hollywood, this workshop gives educators the chance to learn about and participate in the activities that improvisers have used for generations to encourage play, focus and community.
