The Nature of Expertise:
19 Principles of Effective Instruction Demonstrated by
Three Distinguished Artist-Teachers in Music

These pages present online supplementary materials for a research investigation concerning the principles of effective instruction in music.

Duke, R. A., & Simmons, A. L. (2006). The nature of expertise: Narrative descriptions of 19 common elements observed in the lessons of three renowned artist-teachers. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 170, 1-13.

The full research report is reprinted here, along with videotaped illustrations of the principles observed in context. Clicking on the Results link in the right margin will bring up the collection of video examples.

This research was funded by a grant from the Walter and Gina Ducloux Fine Arts Fellowship Endowment and by the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professorship in Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas at Austin.

To view the videos in the Results section, click on an image to each example. These pages work best with high-speed internet connections and good quality speakers.

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ABSTRACT

We examined approximately 25 hours of video recordings of private lessons taught by three internationally recognized artist-teachers:  the oboist Richard Killmer, the violist Donald McInnes, and the pianist Nelita True. By creating detailed narrative descriptions of the lessons observed, we sought to determine whether there were elements of instruction that appeared in the teaching of all three pedagogues. We identified 19 such elements, which we organized in three broad categories: Goals and Expectations, Effecting Change, and Conveying Information. All of the 19 elements, which we describe in detail, were prominent features in the lessons taught by all three teachers.

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