Esther Cavett
Biographic Data
| ID | 5960476 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Esther Cavett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Esther |
| FAMILY NAME | Cavett |
| SIGNATURE | CAVETT E |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4842-4641 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Piano Lessons in the Office
This phenomenological study investigates the experience of adults who learn the piano whilst working in a demanding professional environment unrelated to music. The context is a large law firm in the commercial district of London. There is considerable evidence that music making, including adults learning the piano or other instruments alone or with others, supports cognitive development, social skills, and mental wellbeing in diverse populations…
Epilogue
Firstly, we would like to thank the authors for their thought-provoking responses to the Report that was the starting point for this special issue, and Mary Stakelum, Editor in Chief of Music Educa
Challenging approaches to music curricula and literacy today
It is serendipitous that we have had the opportunity to put together a special issue for the January edition of Music Education Research’s 25th anniversary. The eponymous god, Janus, represents beg
Teaching music theory in UK higher education today
This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues r…
‘Lowering the bar’ or widening access? Reflections on key findings from a music literacy project commissioned by the Society for Music Analysis
In 2019 the Society for Music Analysis commissioned a report to find out if stakeholders in music education agreed that knowledge and/or skills in music literacy had declined for those applying to study music at university in England. The ensuing mixed methods study collected data from a range of stakeholders through interviews (N = 33), questionnaires (N = 233), a Music Literacy Study Day and informal observation. The findings showed that many p…
It’s like you’re an activist’
This article contributes to current conversations on the potential for participatory music-making to promote sustainable human coexistence. We attend to the experiences and collaborative learning practices of teachers working in a community music school and outreach initiative known as the King’s – St George’s Academy, based in Southwark, London. In order to interrogate how teachers make sense of their experience at the Academy, qualitative data …
The Mind is not Limited by the Skin’
This study explores the experience of concert piano technicians who work on pianos played by the top tier of concert pianists in the world. They identify as craftspeople with a strong sense of vocation, who are autonomous, skilled, yet connected. They consider their pianos to be alive, with their own personalities and agency, needing to be tamed, loved, and negotiated with. The connection between their human fingers and the body of the piano is e…
Schubert’s String Quartets
Desire, gratification and the moment
Drawing on foundational and more recent psychological research on music and emotion, Cavett explores representative examples from Skempton’s approximately 140 piano miniatures, written from his student days in the 1960s until this year. She proposes that Skempton’s music creates a sense of expectation and thus desire through the creation of pattern repetition that is disrupted, only to be later re-engaged with, creating gratification and a sense …
Voices from Southwark
Situated in the context of current examinations of inequality and underrepresentation in music education in the United Kingdom, this article offers perspectives on a community music school and outreach initiative based in Southwark, London, where King’s College London music students, mentored by an experienced local teacher, facilitate small group music-making for primary school children who would not otherwise have opportunities for collaborativ…
Howard Skempton
Mozart's Variations Reconsidered
A Classic Turn of Phrase
Mozart's ‘Haydn’ Quartets
In Classical sonata form, the second group - usually in the dominant or relative major - is normally recapitulated in the tonic. This means that a composer of sonatas must choose whether to transpose the second group in the recapitulation up or down a fourth/fifth or sixth/third. What advice, then, would Mozart have offered if his pupil Thomas Attwood had asked him how to decide whether the second group should come back transposed up or down
Analysis Conferences in Context
Mozart's Codas
Introductory Essay on Composition
Introductory Essay on Composition
Mozart's ‘Haydn’ Quartets
In Classical sonata form, the second group - usually in the dominant or relative major - is normally recapitulated in the tonic. This means that a composer of sonatas must choose whether to transpose the second group in the recapitulation up or down a fourth/fifth or sixth/third. What advice, then, would Mozart have offered if his pupil Thomas Attwood had asked him how to decide whether the second group should come back transposed up or down
Analysis Conferences in Context
Mozart's Codas
A Classic Turn of Phrase
Mozart's Variations Reconsidered
Howard Skempton
Voices from Southwark
Situated in the context of current examinations of inequality and underrepresentation in music education in the United Kingdom, this article offers perspectives on a community music school and outreach initiative based in Southwark, London, where King’s College London music students, mentored by an experienced local teacher, facilitate small group music-making for primary school children who would not otherwise have opportunities for collaborativ…
Desire, gratification and the moment
Drawing on foundational and more recent psychological research on music and emotion, Cavett explores representative examples from Skempton’s approximately 140 piano miniatures, written from his student days in the 1960s until this year. She proposes that Skempton’s music creates a sense of expectation and thus desire through the creation of pattern repetition that is disrupted, only to be later re-engaged with, creating gratification and a sense …
Epilogue
Firstly, we would like to thank the authors for their thought-provoking responses to the Report that was the starting point for this special issue, and Mary Stakelum, Editor in Chief of Music Educa
Challenging approaches to music curricula and literacy today
It is serendipitous that we have had the opportunity to put together a special issue for the January edition of Music Education Research’s 25th anniversary. The eponymous god, Janus, represents beg
Teaching music theory in UK higher education today
This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues r…
‘Lowering the bar’ or widening access? Reflections on key findings from a music literacy project commissioned by the Society for Music Analysis
In 2019 the Society for Music Analysis commissioned a report to find out if stakeholders in music education agreed that knowledge and/or skills in music literacy had declined for those applying to study music at university in England. The ensuing mixed methods study collected data from a range of stakeholders through interviews (N = 33), questionnaires (N = 233), a Music Literacy Study Day and informal observation. The findings showed that many p…
It’s like you’re an activist’
This article contributes to current conversations on the potential for participatory music-making to promote sustainable human coexistence. We attend to the experiences and collaborative learning practices of teachers working in a community music school and outreach initiative known as the King’s – St George’s Academy, based in Southwark, London. In order to interrogate how teachers make sense of their experience at the Academy, qualitative data …
The Mind is not Limited by the Skin’
This study explores the experience of concert piano technicians who work on pianos played by the top tier of concert pianists in the world. They identify as craftspeople with a strong sense of vocation, who are autonomous, skilled, yet connected. They consider their pianos to be alive, with their own personalities and agency, needing to be tamed, loved, and negotiated with. The connection between their human fingers and the body of the piano is e…
Schubert’s String Quartets
Piano Lessons in the Office
This phenomenological study investigates the experience of adults who learn the piano whilst working in a demanding professional environment unrelated to music. The context is a large law firm in the commercial district of London. There is considerable evidence that music making, including adults learning the piano or other instruments alone or with others, supports cognitive development, social skills, and mental wellbeing in diverse populations…
Psychology (13 works) · Art (11 works) · Diverse Music Education Insights (8 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (8 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Visual arts (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · History (5 works) · Literature (5 works)