Exploring the Boundaries of Digital Popular Music Education in Kenya

With technology enhancement and digitalisation of teaching and learning, creative arts and performance are evolving daily. Additionally, the empirical review indicates that Kenya has already embraced these developments even though much must be done. Music education, which relies on creative arts and performance is among the benefactors of digitalisation of learning and teaching. Therefore, the digitalisation of popular music enhances the genres as instructional tools; facilitating access would help improve pedagogical contexts, easing learning and teaching. This study investigates the implementation and impact of Popular Music Education (PME) in Kenya, addressing the challenges and opportunities inherent in integrating digital technologies into the PME curriculum. Using a qualitative research approach, with phenomenological design through the pragmatic paradigm, the research assesses the effectiveness of digital tools in enhancing musical skills and knowledge among students while considering infrastructural and socio-economic barriers. Findings reveal that the digitalisation of PME holds significant potential for improving access, delivery, and quality of learning and teaching but is constrained by resource limitations, connectivity issues, teacher development, and digital teaching and instructional tools. This study contributes to understanding how digital advancements can be tailored to fit the unique context of poorly developed counties in Kenya to offer 21st-century PME. The study is limited to the availability of contextualised data in Kenya that can depict the exactness of digital capabilities in the teaching and learning of popular music in Kenya.