Teaching Qualification in Music

The study programme for a teaching qualification in music trains potential music teachers for positions in grammar schools (Gymnasien) and comprehensive schools (Gesamtschulen). Right from their first day, students are involved in the music teaching curriculum at one of the many schools with which we have a close partnership. They give demonstration lessons, lead classes in making music and are in constant discussion with the music teachers. It is a primary aim of the training that students develop into personalities who stimulate and encourage music pupils to work independently. Studying for a teaching qualification in music means giving one’s knowledge a broad foundation, whether it be a student’s artistic and practical training on their main instrument, choral conducting, musicology or music teaching methods.  Graduates of the study programme will take their comprehensive musical education with them into the varied spheres of their professional environment. The study programme leading to a teaching qualification in music covers three different areas: musical practice, musicology and pedagogics. There are two different options for prioritising: students can either take a subsidiary academic subject, to be studied at the University of Paderborn, in addition to their major subject of music, or they can focus exclusively on music. To graduate successfully also requires a thorough knowledge of educational science, which can be acquired either in Paderborn or in Detmold.

The schools in and around Detmold are key places in which students training as teachers can gain experience and can reflect on and become at home in the world of music education.  This takes place during the practical placement which forms part of their Bachelor’s degree programme, and during the practical semester of their Master’s degree programme. Many of the teaching sessions are arranged so that students can put what they have learned into practice right away and use their own teaching experiments as seminar topics in music classes or even turn them into a longer project. One aspect worth mentioning is the working partnership with music classes for brass and strings at various Detmold schools. In these schools students have opportunities to work with pupils under the actual conditions they will experience later as fully-fledged teachers.