Making Musicians: A Teacher's Guide to Emotionally Intelligent Music Instruction

by Allison C Wilkinson

When she was diverted out of her ethnomusicology degree with only a few credits left to go, Allison Wilkinson thought the adventure was over for her. Little did she know, her adventure had just begun. Without any pedagogical training to fall back on, Allison was forced to research the best ways to relate to her students. She spent thousands of hours studying ethnomusicology, applied music psychology, trauma training, and the beautiful world of Montessori.
What came out of it is simply the most innovative approach to music education yet. You don't want engaged students - you want obsessed students.

367 pages, Paperback

Published January 14, 2022

Reviews

[Jen B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really did like this book, and would probably rate it more at 3.5 stars. My main issue with it is that at multiple times throughout the chapters, it felt more like an advertisement for the author’s teacher training program; she sells “coaching” for teachers online, and I’m always critical of “coaching” programs. She makes it out to be a whole new way of thinking about teaching, but I’m not convinced it is. Emotionally intelligent teaching IS different than most music teachers have taught and learned to teach throughout history, but it also seems a whole lot like common sense. She refers multiple times to stressed brains not being able to process information and therefore not able to learn, which is pretty simple.

My second main issue is that she simplifies the neuroscience parts to “midbrain, forebrain, hindbrain”.
I DO appreciate the references to neuroscience and how she uses it to explain the connections of how learning music and playing music uses different parts of the brain, I just think it’s far too simplified. Yes, the audience are music teachers and pre-service music teachers who probably have little to no neuroscience (or even psychology), but if you DO have some background knowledge, it feels like not enough.

The last issue I have is with the whole gardening metaphor she employs for the last third of the book. She constantly refers to “planting the seed, prepping the soil, and harvesting” which I just found weird. She uses a LOT of metaphors to get the same points across, which might work well for some people, but I just got bored of.

What I DO like is the reflective prompts at the end of every chapter and suggestions on how to apply emotionally intelligent teaching to music. It’s a really good reminder to think of the joys of music making and sharing it with kids, and why I wanted to go into music education to begin with.

[Debra Navin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love the way the author approaches music instruction. Though there were parts specific to a private studio, I can see applications for my general music classroom everywhere.