Peer Mentoring in a University Jazz Ensemble

Through an exploration of peer mentoring in a university level jazz ensemble, I examined how three graduate students learned to perform and learned to teach based in a specific cultural music context—jazz. Framed within the universal-pluralistic debate, three students pursuing graduate degrees (Music Education, Mechanical Engineering, Philosophy) shared their prior experiences with learning to play jazz and being mentored during that process, and with mentoring each other and mentoring undergraduate students in a jazz ensemble during the course of this study. The following questions guided this study: (1) How did the participants learn to become peer mentors? (2) How did the participants engage in the peer mentoring process during this study? Data collection for this study included interviews and observations of the three participants during one semester of instruction. Data analysis revealed that peer mentoring was a conduit for how these graduate students learned to perform and teach jazz music. Themes for this study included learning to mentor in jazz and mentoring in the jazz ensemble. Suggestions for the profession include peer mentoring can assist music educators with learning to teach and perform a specific musical style