Designing inquiry questions

The long-term goal should be something that would genuinely please you. For example, "I want to be able to play all the scales on my instrument" is almost certainly a goal that comes from your teacher's interests, not yours. However, if you find in your investigations that one reason you cannot play your favorite tunes by ear is that you don't know your fingerings well enough, you may decide that studying scales is an inquiry step that would get you closer to your goal.

Once you have a long-term inquiry goal in mind, you can start looking for the first inquiry question that will start you in the right direction. For example, if your long-term goal is to understand what is meant by "well-tempered," you might decide to begin by studying one of the terms used to discuss it. Ideally each inquiry will lead naturally to a new inquiry that will bring you even closer to your long-term goal. However, if your goal is very ambitious or very distant from your present state, you may find yourself getting sidetracked by new interests or backtracking to pick up other necessary knowledge. You can either choose to change your long-term goal or stick with it, but you cannot rush the process any more than a five-year-old can rush the process of becoming fifteen years old. Either way you should feel you are growing as a musician, and you should be enjoying the learning process . If there is no progress or enjoyment, take the "reflect" step of each inquiry as an opportunity to try to figure out where the problems are and what changes might help.

Once you have a long-term inquiry goal in mind, you can start looking for the first inquiry question that will start you in that direction. For example, if your long-term goal is to understand what is meant by "well-tempered," you might decide to begin by studying one of the terms used to discuss it. This might lead to an interesting investigation, or you might have to follow up on difficult terminology a few more times before you find explanations that you are capable of investigating right now. If you cannot seem to find an entry point into a subject area, consider doing the Types of Knowledge inquiry to find out more about the types of knowledge and resources you do have that can serve as a starting point.

Discuss

If you are doing this inquiry as part of a class or group, share your report/presentation with others in that setting. Also set aside some group/class time to discuss everyone's experience with designing inquiry questions. Did everyone have at least one question in each category? In what ways do people's categories of questions look the same or different? Did the inquiries follow roughly the same course?

If you do not have a formal setting for sharing this inquiry, consider how you might get some feedback on it. Can you adapt the report or presentation to be appropriate for some other class assignment? Can you discuss it with a music teacher, or share what you learned in a conversation with a friend who has similar interests in music?

Reflect

Good inquiry tends to lead to more inquiry. One of the main goals of reflecting on the inquiry you just finished is to identify questions that it raised for you that might become future inquiry questions. As you reflect on where this inquiry has left you, here are some points that you may want to consider:

• Do you feel ready to try setting the questions for your own music-learning inquiries? If not, what is missing? Would it help to do more practice in classifying questions? (If so, try doing the question-classifying inquiry above, but starting with the question about music that most interests you right now.) Would it help to do more inquiries that set the question for you? (If so, try Listening to Unfamiliar Music .)
• Do you still have questions about musical influences that you would like to follow up with another inquiry?
• Was one of the "too difficult" questions something that deeply interests you and that you might want to use as a long-term inquiry goal?
• Did you run into problems that suggest that you might benefit from guided practice in other inquiry steps, for example, Types of Music Knowledge, Finding Useful Music Resources, Creative Responses to Music Inquiry, Getting Feedback on your Music Project, Positive Music Critique, or Assessing a Music Inquiry