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Music in the school curriculum: why bother?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2002

John Paynter
John Paynter
Affiliation:
[email protected]
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Abstract

In spite of centuries of experience and experiment, the practicalities and benefits of general education (schooling) remain uncertain. Can we sustain the spread of subjects that now make up the curriculum? In particular, can we justify time spent on music, which to many would appear to be a specialised study for the talented? The evidence of past practice suggests that the content of classroom music teaching has not done much to help the majority of people to understand music. Yet making music is manifestly an important feature of our humanity. Are there principles at work deep in the nature of music which explain this, and can those features be exploited as the basis of a musical education which will have value for everyone?

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , November 2002 , pp. 215 - 226
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This article is a revised and expanded version of the text of the Third Annual Bernarr Rainbow lecture, delivered on Wednesday 17 October 2001 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, and reproduced here by kind permission of the Bernarr Rainbow Trust.