From the music you know to where you want to go

Repertoire-Based Music Literacy Education (RBMLE) is an emerging framework for developing musical literacy through meaningful engagement with actual music.

At its centre is a simple principle:

musical understanding should grow from music itself.

Rather than treating rhythm, notation, terminology, aural work, theory, interpretation and creative activity as entirely separate areas of study, RBMLE uses repertoire as the point around which these different dimensions of musical learning can connect. The approach begins with music that learners can hear, sing, play, recognise or meaningfully engage with, and uses that musical experience as a pathway towards increasingly sophisticated musical understanding. In this way, repertoire becomes more than the material learners eventually perform. It becomes a teaching environment.

Why Repertoire?

In many conventional approaches to music literacy, concepts are first taught in isolation. Learners may complete exercises on:

• note names;
• rhythmic values;
• intervals;
• scales;
• key signatures;
• chords;
• terminology;
• harmony;
• and other theoretical concepts.

Only later are these ideas expected to connect with actual music.

These forms of study remain valuable. However, an important educational question arises:

What happens if the relationship is reversed?

What if learners first encounter an idea within music, begin to hear and recognise it, experience how it functions, and then learn how to name, represent, analyse and apply it? RBMLE explores this possibility.

Instead of beginning only with the concept and moving towards the music, it also begins with the music and moves towards the concept.

Music as the Organising Context

Within RBMLE, a piece of repertoire can become the organising context for many forms of learning.

One musical example may allow learners to engage with:

• pulse and rhythm;
• pitch;
• melodic contour;
• intervals;
• tonality;
• notation;
• articulation;
• dynamics;
• phrasing;
• form;
• harmony;
• aural recognition;
• interpretation;
• improvisation;
• composition; and
• performance.

The purpose is not to force every possible concept into every piece.

Instead, the teacher identifies the musical features that are authentically present and pedagogically useful. Learning therefore remains connected to musical meaning. A learner is not studying a dotted rhythm simply because it appears on a worksheet.

The learner can hear it, perform it, identify it within the repertoire and eventually understand how it is represented.

The theoretical symbol is connected to an actual musical experience.

From Experience to Understanding

A repertoire-based learning sequence may move through several interconnected stages.

Learners might first:

• hear the music;
• experience it through movement, singing or performance;
• notice a musical feature;
• identify it;
• name it;
• read or represent it;
• reason about how it functions; and
• finally apply, create or communicate with that knowledge.

The sequence does not always have to be identical, and learners may move backwards and forwards between stages.

The important principle is that musical knowledge develops through connection. Learners increasingly understand not only what something is called, but also:

what it sounds like; feels like; appears in notation; how it functions; and how they can use it independently.

Music Literacy as a Multidimensional Capacity

RBMLE is grounded in a broad understanding of musical literacy. Being musically literate involves more than reading staff notation. It also involves the capacity to make meaning from music.

My developing framework considers musical literacy through eight interconnected dimensions:

1. Hearing: Recognising and processing musical sound.
2. Feeling and experiencing: Responding physically, emotionally and musically to sound, rhythm and movement.
3. Identifying: Recognising musical features, patterns and relationships.
4. Reading and representing: Understanding and using notation and other forms of musical representation.
5. Interpreting: Understanding expressive, structural and contextual meaning.
6. Reasoning and applying: Using musical knowledge to solve problems, make connections and transfer understanding to new situations.
7. Creating: Improvising, composing, arranging and making musical choices.
8. Communicating and performing: Using musical knowledge meaningfully in performance and interaction with others.

RBMLE seeks to bring these dimensions into relationship with one another rather than allowing them to develop as disconnected compartments.

The Learner Does Not Begin at Zero

A central principle of RBMLE is that learners often arrive in formal education with existing musical knowledge.

A learner may already be able to:

• sing complex melodies;
• reproduce rhythmic patterns;
• perform by ear;
• recognise stylistic conventions;
• improvise;
• participate in church or community music;
• play an instrument informally;
• respond physically to metre and groove; or
• understand repertoire deeply through repeated listening.

Yet the same learner may have very limited experience with formal terminology or Western staff notation. A conventional approach may interpret this as a lack of musical knowledge.

RBMLE asks a different question:

What does this learner already know musically, and how can that knowledge become the foundation for further learning?

This shift is important. It moves the educational starting point away from deficiency and towards existing musical capacity.

From the Music You Know

The phrase

From the music you know to where you want to go

captures one of the central ideas of RBMLE.

The starting repertoire may be:

• music a learner already knows;
• music from a community or cultural tradition;
• a song;
• instrumental repertoire;
• popular music;
• traditional music;
• Western art music;
• ensemble repertoire; or
• new music selected because it provides a meaningful learning opportunity.

The repertoire itself is not restricted to one style or tradition. What matters is the quality of the educational relationship created around it. The learner's existing musical world becomes a possible entry point into broader musical knowledge.

To Where You Want to Go

The destination does not need to be the same for every learner.

One learner may want to read notation more fluently. Another may wish to:

• direct a choir;
• write or arrange music;
• preparing for an external music examination;
• understand the music performed in an ensemble;
• eventually study music at university.

RBMLE therefore does not reject formal systems of musical knowledge. On the contrary, it can provide a structured route towards them. The distinction lies in the pathway.

Instead of requiring learners to abandon the musical knowledge they already possess before entering formal study, RBMLE attempts to build a bridge from that knowledge towards new forms of musical understanding.

Repertoire and Formal Music Literacy

RBMLE is not an argument against notation, music theory or formal musical knowledge. These remain important.

The question is how they are introduced and connected to musical experience.

For example, learners may encounter a particular interval repeatedly within a piece.

They hear it; sing it; and recognise its shape. They discover how it appears on the stave and learn its name. They identify it in another musical example. Eventually they use it when reading, performing or creating music. The formal concept remains the same. What changes is the route by which the learner comes to understand it.

Repertoire-Based Rather Than Repertoire-Restricted

The word repertoire-based is important. RBMLE does not suggest that learners should study only the concepts contained within one piece of repertoire. A piece is a starting point. Learning gradually expands beyond it.

A rhythmic pattern first recognised within one song can later be identified elsewhere.

A harmonic relationship can be transferred to another piece.

A notational principle can become part of independent score reading.

A concept that was initially understood in one context becomes increasingly abstract and transferable.

The long-term goal is therefore not dependence on familiar repertoire. It is independent musical literacy.

The Role of the Teacher

RBMLE does not reduce the importance of the teacher. It increases the importance of pedagogical judgement.

The teacher decides:

• which repertoire is appropriate;
• which musical concepts are developmentally relevant;
• when a concept should be experienced before being named;
• when formal explanation is necessary;
• how much repetition is needed;
• how repertoire can connect to curriculum requirements; and
• when learners are ready to transfer knowledge to new contexts.

The teacher therefore acts as a mediator between:  the learner; the repertoire; the curriculum; and the wider system of musical knowledge.

This connects RBMLE closely with my research into teacher agency. Teachers already make many of these decisions in practice. RBMLE seeks to make the underlying pedagogical process more visible and more deliberately structured.

RBMLE and Teacher Agency

My research into South African music-literacy education demonstrated that teachers frequently adapt curricula and create alternative pathways because learners do not all enter formal music education from the same starting point.

Teachers may need to:

• fill gaps in foundational knowledge;
• develop additional resources;
• connect different musical traditions;
• translate terminology;
• adapt sequencing;
• and create opportunities for practical musical experience.

RBMLE develops from this reality. Rather than seeing adaptation as an exception that occurs when the formal teaching sequence fails, a repertoire-based framework asks whether responsive, contextual teaching can be designed into the learning process from the beginning.

Access and Participation

This gives RBMLE an important relationship with questions of access. Formal music education can sometimes function as though musical participation begins only after learners have acquired certain forms of notation or theory. This may create unnecessary barriers.

RBMLE asks whether learners can enter the learning process through musical participation first and then progressively acquire the formal literacy required for further study.

This may be especially significant in contexts where:

• formal music education is limited;
• specialist teachers are scarce;
• learners enter programmes at different ages;
• musical knowledge has developed predominantly through community participation; or
• Western notation has not historically been the primary means through which music has been transmitted.

The aim is not to lower expectations. It is to create better entry routes towards high levels of musical understanding.

Building Bridges Between Musical Literacies

Different musical traditions organise, transmit and understand musical knowledge in different ways. Some rely strongly on notation.

Others rely more heavily on: listening; imitation; oral transmission; embodied participation; memory; improvisation; communal performance; or repeated engagement with repertoire.

RBMLE is interested in the educational possibilities created when these forms of knowledge are treated not as competitors, but as possible bridges. A learner who has developed strong aural fluency may use that fluency as a foundation for reading. A learner comfortable with notation may need greater opportunities to connect written symbols with sound. A learner accustomed to improvisation may use creative activity to deepen theoretical understanding.

Musical literacy can therefore develop through multiple routes.

RBMLE and Curriculum Design

Another important part of my current work concerns the way repertoire-based principles can influence curriculum architecture. A curriculum should not simply specify what learners need to know.

It should also consider:

• when they encounter concepts;
• how concepts are revisited;
• how musical understanding becomes cumulative; and
• how knowledge is transferred from one context to another.

This involves distinguishing between:

introduction — encountering a concept for the first time;

practice — developing fluency;

integration — connecting the concept with other musical knowledge;

application — using it in authentic musical contexts;

and retrieval — returning to previously learned material so that knowledge is not lost.

RBMLE therefore has implications not only for individual lessons, but also for long-term curriculum planning.

Research Into Practice

RBMLE occupies an important space between research and educational development.

It is both a developing theoretical framework and a practical approach that can be explored through curriculum, teaching and resource design. This makes it possible for ideas to move continuously between research and practice.

For example:

• research into music literacy influences workbook design;
• workbook development reveals problems in concept sequencing;
• teaching materials provide opportunities to test integrated approaches;
• teacher responses generate new questions; and
• those questions return to research.

The process is therefore cyclical:

research → design → practice → reflection → further research

Repertoire, Learning and Assessment

One of the important challenges for RBMLE concerns the relationship between broad musical learning and formal assessment. Many learners work within systems in which written theory examinations, school curricula or graded music assessments remain important. A repertoire-based approach therefore needs to prepare learners for these requirements without allowing the examination itself to become the entire purpose of music education.

The educational challenge is:

How can learners become successful within formal assessment systems while still developing connected musical understanding?

This is a significant area within my current curriculum and workbook development.

Towards a Staged RBMLE Framework

My current research is increasingly concerned with how RBMLE can be developed as a staged learning framework. The aim is to describe how a learner may progress from initial musical engagement towards increasingly independent literacy.

Such a framework needs to account for: existing musical knowledge; aural development; repertoire acquisition; notation; concept formation; transfer; creative application; and independent musical decision-making.

The purpose is not to create a rigid universal sequence. Instead, it is to identify a developmental spine that can support different learners, repertoires and educational settings.

RBMLE in South African and African Contexts

RBMLE has particular relevance to questions arising from music education in South Africa and the broader African context. Many communities possess rich musical traditions and substantial musical knowledge while access to formal music-literacy education remains uneven.

This creates an important educational challenge. The problem is not necessarily an absence of music. Often there is an abundance of music. The difficulty lies in creating pathways from existing musical participation towards the forms of literacy required for particular future opportunities.

These may include:

• formal qualifications;
• choir direction;
• music teaching;
• arranging;
• composition;
• external examinations;
• ensemble leadership; or
• tertiary study.

RBMLE therefore asks:

How can existing musical knowledge become educational capital rather than knowledge that formal education overlooks?

An Emerging Research Programme

RBMLE is still developing. Its value lies partly in the questions it generates.

Among these are:

How should repertoire be selected?

How does concept learning differ when it begins in music rather than abstraction?

What is the relationship between aural and notational literacy?

How does existing repertoire knowledge affect learning?

How should concepts be sequenced?

How can musical knowledge transfer beyond familiar repertoire?

How much repetition and retrieval are necessary?

How do learners move from supported discovery to independent musical reasoning?

How can teachers use RBMLE without becoming dependent on a prescribed repertoire list?

How might RBMLE function in school, studio, community and examination contexts?

These questions now form an important part of my developing research agenda.

The Larger Purpose

RBMLE ultimately asks a broader question about music education:

What if formal music literacy did not have to begin by asking learners to leave their existing musical world behind?

What if that world could instead become the starting point?

A familiar song could lead to rhythmic understanding. A choir part could lead to notation. A piano piece could lead to harmony. Community repertoire could become the bridge towards formal study. A learner who can already make music could begin to understand how that knowledge is represented, organised and extended.

The aim is not merely to teach more musical concepts.

It is to create connected pathways towards independent musical understanding.

That is the central idea of Repertoire-Based Music Literacy Education:

→ Read more about my research into RBMLE and music literacy

→ Explore RBMLE resources in the store

From the music you know to where you want to go.