The goal of the project “You Feel, I Listen, We Make Music – a Dialogue” was to develop adequate pedagogical approaches for inclusive and integrative contexts with heterogeneous groups comprised of hearing, hearing-impaired and deaf students.

Within a music project integrated in the project as a whole, experiences and insights with the potential to lead to the achievement of the project goals were won by mutual exploration, music making (rehearsing, performing), and activities, as well as through dialogue between all hearing, hearing-impaired and deaf participants.

The interactive music project thus had a key role within the overall project: in it, all participants collaborated on a “composition” involving various personal styles and forms of artistic expression, from initial development and composition, through rehearsal, culminating in a final performance and presentation within the framework of a larger event. In order to achieve this goal, all participants needed to find and develop a common (musical, …) language and a functional common process. Thus, they developed the prerequisites for the success of the planned music projects as well as practice-proven forms of successful collaboration in heterogeneous groups. This brought the following important parameters of inclusive learning environments to the center of attention: community development –nonviolent communication, development of a school for all pupils, organizing support for diversity, organization of learning arrangements – cooperative learning (Norm & Kathy Green); Source: http://www.inklusionspaedagogik.de/.

In order to help the pupils develop their collaborative “composition”, they received precise guidelines in diverse areas including instrument-making workshops, interaction with both musical instruments and methods of musical expression (rhythm, tone, melody, …), communication (general, musical), improvisation, and reflection on means of articulating their experiences.

The scientific tools accompanying the project, were to begin with, well-established ones, including diary entries, minute-taking, supervision and medial documentation (film, photography). Going beyond these tools, in accordance with the artistic basis of the subject matter, more subjective output from the project participants, such as drawings, essays, poems, aphorisms, vocal and instrumental sound improvisation and, of course, qualitative in-depth interviews, were used to cast light on both the individual and group experience. Such output was necessary in order to reflect and document the experiences gained through interpersonal interaction and the processes of inner change. Thus, both approaches underlined and mirrored the overall aim of the project.

The students thus took on an integrative role in fulfilling the project goals as they, through their creative and artistic achievements, had a significant impact on the structure of the collaborative “composition”; also, in the context of their work within the project, students’ experiences, ideas, and impulses were useful for the development of adequate education models for inclusive and integrative contexts with heterogeneous groups.

Direct and indirect participants of the requested project included: - Pupils of the BIG and its partner schools - Teachers from the BIG - Students of the University for Music and Performative Arts Vienna (mdw) and - mdw Teachers - Scientists - Environment (Parents, …)

This project has been completed.