Hybrid spaces and hyphenated musicians: Secondary students' musical engagement in a songwriting and technology course

This case study investigates how secondary students (three individuals and three groups) engaged with music and acted as musicians in a Songwriting and Technology Class (STC), a course involving the creation, performance, recording and production of original music with instruments and music technology. The following research question guided the study: In what ways are students engaging with music in the STC? Findings suggest that students engaged as hyphenated musician[s] by thinking and acting as songwriters, performers, sound engineers, recordists, mix engineers and producers in ways that were recursive and often overlapping. Students' engagement in these roles was particular to their individual and group contexts. Music education might broaden curricular offerings and reconceptualise classrooms as hybrid spaces to address the shared and idiosyncratic ways of knowing and doing music that students encountered through each role and holistically as hyphenated musicians.