Hebert's research is published in several scholarly books and 35 different professional journals.
Music competition in Japan In 2012, Hebert published
Wind Bands and Cultural Identity in Japanese Schools, a book that identified the world's largest music competition and documented the experiences of its participants. With more than 14,000 competing
wind bands and widely admired performances, Japan is an especially important nation for instrumental
music education, and Hebert's ethnographic and historical monograph has been described in the journal
Music Education Research as "the most comprehensive information about concert (wind) band participation in any country." According to a review in the
British Journal of Music Education, "David Hebert delved deep under the surface of the seemingly everyday where he discovered anomalies and cultural specifics that are unlike anything found in the West ... His book performs the remarkable: a call to explore new ways of doing high school band programmes differently." A sociologist with Tokyo Metropolitan University has said that this book "can serve as an important reference and inform the decisions of those attempting to advance changes to the educational system." The book also describes
Japanese composers, and has been used for concert program notes by prominent conductors, such as
Eugene Corporon, and Timothy Reynish (who describes it as "compulsory reading for anyone interested in Japanese music") This book helps to explain why
music competitions are a global phenomenon.
Music globalization, transculturation and hybridity According to Roberta Pike, Hebert asserts that “research is needed to explore the role of culture in music education.” From a global perspective, Hebert has examined how musical practices, technologies, and genres are adopted into new contexts, including educational and religious traditions within institutions. In addition to research on Japanese composers, he has studied
brass bands among
Tongans and
New Zealand Maori, jazz and popular music in the United States,
Christmas music in
Finland, multicultural and indigenous music education in
Guyana, the learning of
Indian music outside of Asia, and some cross-cultural music exchange projects in
New Zealand and
Ghana. Hebert has written of inherent tensions between originality and institutionalization, and contends that musical hybrid projects should be “recognized as the potential wellsprings of new musical traditions.” In 2008 at
Boston University, he taught a course on the topic of "Music
Transculturation and Hybridity". Hebert's research on this topic builds on the scholarship of
Bruno Nettl,
Margaret Kartomi,
Mark Slobin, Timothy Taylor, and Tina Ramnarine. He twice served as keynote speaker for conferences on Music and
Globalization in Poland, and the resulting book
Music Glocalization has been described as “highly original” and “the first comprehensive account of how the notion of ‘
glocalization’ may be useful in rethinking nationality in music and the use of local musical traditions that serve as a means for global strategies.” In the book, Hebert collaborated with Polish musicologist Mikolaj Rykowski to introduce theoretical models and the term ‘glocklization’, which combines the glocal concept with a
Glock pistol, to indicate unbalanced forms of
glocalization perceived as destructive to
cultural heritage.
Pluralism and music institutions Hebert's work has also addressed the challenges of representing
cultural diversity and embracing pluralism in music education, claiming music has a unique role in
intercultural communication. He has advocated for
popular music pedagogy and
world music pedagogy as innovative approaches for reaching a wider population of students. Teacher educators have noted that Hebert “guides the reader toward a sociological understanding” of diversity, and offers “suggestions for 'empowering music teachers to respond appropriately to the complexity of ethnic differences'.” Extending in directions pioneered by his PhD mentor
Patricia Shehan Campbell, Hebert has also written of “the challenges of multicultural teaching in music” and “the central role that ethnic identity plays in musical meaning and engagement.” His research in this area has often been in collaboration with
Nordic scholars, including Eva Saether and Marja Heimonen. Along with William Coppola and
Patricia Shehan Campbell, he co-authored
Teaching World Music in Higher Education as vol.7 of the Routledge World Music Pedagogy series.
Nationalism in music education Hebert co-edited with
Alexandra Kertz-Welzel (professor and chair,
University of Munich), the 2012 book
Patriotism and Nationalism in Music Education. This book includes contributions by music education researchers from several continents, and according to
History of Education, discusses “how music contributes to the creation of an emotional climate in schools, and its function in fostering the formation of particular loyalties, identities and dispositions.” Music psychologist
John Sloboda described this book as “a 'must read' resource for anyone interested in this topic.” According to a review in
Fontes Artis Musicae, Hebert and Kertz-Welzel pose “challenging questions about the role of music teachers in propagating and inculcating patriotic sentiments”, and the book is relevant beyond the
sociology of music, to any “scholars engaged in researching comparative and political educational issues.” Elsewhere, Hebert has argued that “intercultural music transmission” enables national boundaries to be positively transcended via music participation.
Historical ethnomusicology Hebert's interests in global music
historiography developed as he explored such topics as how European music was adopted in Japan, and how the American genres of
jazz and
rock music ironically struggled to gain acceptance in American schools. In 2014 he produced a book with
Jonathan McCollum (
Washington College) entitled
Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology. Through use of “a broad spectrum of geocultural examples, the volume includes several engaging strategies for using and writing about history in order to understand the world's musics”. Ethnomusicologists Keith Howard, Daniel M. Neuman and Judah Cohen contributed chapters. Hebert now edits a book series in this field with Jonathan McCollum for
Rowman and Littlefield press,
The Lexington Series in Historical Ethnomusicology: Deep Soundings.
Music technology, virtuality, and online music education Hebert has also been active in researching the application of new technologies in
online music education and research. Before becoming interested in "
big data", he authored an article examining the challenges of educating music teachers in a fully online doctoral program (at
Boston University). This sparked some debate – with Kenneth H. Phillips, among others – that led to further publications on projects in Europe and Africa that made use of the Internet to support intercultural music exchange. Hebert's interests in
music technology brought him to collaborations with Alex Ruthmann, and projects on music and
virtuality as well as
digital humanities and "
big data" approaches with Danish computer scientist and
computational musicologist Kristoffer Jensen.
East Asian studies Hebert has researched music in Japan, where he lived for about 5 years, and he often lectures for leading universities and conservatories in China. He has published several articles and book chapters on Western music in Japan (and Korea) and developed
International Perspectives on Translation, Education, and Innovation in Japanese and Korean Societies (Springer), the 25th anniversary proceedings of the Nordic Association for Japanese and Korean Studies. Hebert has also drawn attention to East Asian arts through the
International Sociological Association. == Philosophical orientation ==