Dr David Baker

Biography

David Baker is a trumpeter and Associate of the Royal College of Music, London. He taught brass instruments in primary and secondary schools for a Local Education Authority music service for over 10 years. In 1999, Peters Edition published Fast Track Trumpet, two volumes of his educational music for trumpet.

David was Course Tutor for the MA in Instrumental Teaching at the University of Reading, where he supervised the practitioner research of instrumental and singing teachers and also MA dissertations on various areas of music pedagogy. He has also been Lucy Green’s Research Officer for the Ear Playing Project at the University College London Institute of Education; this was an Esmée Fairbairn Foundation venture that grew from Musical Futures. At UCL, David was Honorary Senior Research Associate and Principal Investigator for an Arts and Humanities Research Council project entitled ‘Visually-impaired musicians’ lives’, again working with Lucy. This has led to pedagogical training for students from the Royal Academy of Music in partnership with the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and also opportunities to lecture in the UK, USA, Australia and Norway. David is currently programme leader of the MA in Music Education at the UCL Institute of Education.

David’s research interests are: musicians’ life histories, visual impairment and music-making, music service provision, conceptions of musical ability in the primary school, pedagogical training in the conservatoire, and playing by ear. He has published articles in the British Journal of Music Education, the International Journal of Music Education and Research Studies in Music Education. He has also contributed chapters to the Ashgate book, Developing the Musician, the new Oxford Handbook of Community Music and also coauthored a book with Lucy Green on visually-impaired musicians, Insights in Sound: Visually Impaired Musicians’ Lives and Learning.