A Space for Family and Social Musical Learning

Type: Short paper - Article nº 1224

Authors: Vânia Malagutti Fialho

Presenter: Vânia Malagutti Fialho

Institution: Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM)

Abstract

This text discusses the musical learning potential inherent in the activities of the HausMusik Brasil Project. Established in 2007 in Curitiba (Paraná, Brazil), the Project transforms the intimate setting of family living rooms into a musical stage and a powerful environment for the transmission and acquisition of musical knowledge.

This paper presents a synthesis of the results of a qualitative study developed through participant observation of project editions carried out within the HausMusik Brasil extension center in Maringá, affiliated with the State University of Maringá (UEM), between 2023 and 2025. The Project has already held hundreds of editions, bringing together families and friends united through music and sustained by social, affective, and experience-sharing foundations.

These gatherings include musical moments during which participants attend and appreciate a recital, as well as moments in which they actively engage by singing and/or playing instruments, always under the guidance of a musician. Participant observation data reveal an encounter among different levels of musical knowledge—a “meeting point with/in music” characterized by a complex overlap of forms of knowledge that constitutes a rich and dense musical experience: observation (often unconscious), silent exchanges of knowledge, performance models assimilated and reshaped, and musical instructions shared. Consequently, this environment becomes a place for the transmission and acquisition of musical knowledge, transformed into knowledge through experience (Dewey, 1976).

Each edition promotes a powerful space for musical learning, since wherever someone is making music, someone is learning music. This understanding, aligned with research in music education, is grounded in empirical data demonstrating that everyday musical practices function as social spaces for the transmission and acquisition of musical knowledge (Kraemer, 2000; Souza, 2009; Souza, 2023). This perspective allows us to affirm that the people involved in HausMusik simultaneously experience and foster a process that enables both subjective and collective advancement of musical knowledge.

References

Dewey, J. (1976). Experience and Education (2nd ed.). Companhia Editora Nacional.

Kraemer, R.-D. (2000). Dimensions and Functions of Pedagogical-Musical Knowledge. Em Pauta, 11(16/17), 50–75.

Souza, F. A. F. (2023). Gaps Between Formal and Informal Spaces of Musical Learning. Revista Educação e (Trans)formação, 12.

Souza, J. (2009). Learning and Teaching Music in Everyday Life. Sulina.