1. Framing the Problem

“First generation” pedagogy refers to a form of experiential learning that employs a combination of lectures with simulations and fish-bowl exercises designed to teach diagnostic, analytic and predictive skills related to negotiation. “First generation” pedagogy is employed where negotiation is conceptualized “as a strategic and instrumental process” (Fox 2009, 13). Such conventional pedagogy does not venture into the realm of interdisciplinary learning, learning outside of the classroom or experimentation with hands-on learning beyond standard, “canned” role plays and skills-building exercises.

In this study, “music” is both metaphor and method. The collaborative metaphor of the ensemble is offered in place of combative and competitive metaphors most often associated with negotiation and dispute resolution. The ensemble model is not genre-specific or instrument-specific despite the fact that the students in the study were exposed to a classical String Quartet. The ensemble could equally have been a choral group, a jazz combo, a drumming or chanting circle, or any other form of self-directed instrumental, vocal or mixed instrumental/vocal group. The genre of music is likewise irrelevant to both the research study’s framework and with respect to the type of music that could be made as part of the active music-making exercises described in Chap. 4. The musicians interviewed in Chap. 2 in response to the first research question were a mixed group of instrumentalists and vocalists (some of the musicians were both), from the classical, jazz, opera and cabaret communities.