Interdisciplinarity as a vehicle for innovations in teaching music in schools: opening the schools for out of school musical experiences

In German music pedagogy, the idea of interdisciplinarity is expressed in different terms, such as “fachübergreifend” (transgressing the school subject, Richter, 2010), “fächerübergreifend” (transgressing the school subjects, Dethlefs-Forsbach, 2005) or “fächerverbindend” (connecting the school subjects, Gerhardt, 2012) among others. As these terms are not used in a systematic way to describe interdisciplinarity, characteristic perspectives by German music pedagogies are discussed in this article. An important reason for these diverse understandings is that these terms are mostly used as a white board onto which general ideas of music pedagogical innovations are projected. The purpose of this article is, first, to present a dynamic understanding of the term “fachübergreifend”. Second, the dynamic understanding of this term will be used in a new interpretation: namely, to also describe the relationships of traditional schooling and out of school musical experiences. (DIPF/Orig.