ABSTRACT
The celebration of local music ecologies and enacting of culturally responsive and appropriate learning methods involves an epistemological shift that can challenge the dominant ways of knowing. Some Schools of Music offer site appropriate examples of non-Western and community-based courses that have been successfully integrated into existing music degrees. This chapter will focus on one institution, a School of Music that is derived from the colonial model, and establishing respectful guidelines in order to actively engage with and integrate the study of Indigenous musical instruments (taonga pūoro) into their degree programme. Music making that is connected to community wellness, life rituals, and other significant ceremonies needs a specific framework to ensure all cultural protocols are met. This chapter discusses the non-Western methodological approach that underpins the design of this project and the benefits to the community when it is considered conceptually through the Indigenous lens. This chapter problematises the notion of Māori-derived cultural practices moved away from a community cultural context into a mainstream tertiary context. The notion of ‘we’ throughout is one that oscillates throughout the chapter, depicting the polymorphous nature of community, collectivisation, and identity as insider to creative work, to learning processes, to ethnicity and belonging, to institutional aspirations, and to authorship.
