This article deals with objectives in the teaching of musical instruments to children. Methods of establishing and re-establishing goals are suggested, and previous lists of objectives pertaining to music education in general, instrumental teaching and athletics are presented. Based on these lists, and on his experience as a teacher and consultant in instrumental methodology, the author presents a list of goals specifically formulated for the teaching of musical instruments to children. Some of the goals are far-reaching, dealing not only with progress on the instrument, but also with the overall musical and personal development of the pupils. The article concludes with a discussion about possible priorities among these objectives.

Through interviews with ten conservatoire students and ten professional orchestral musicians teaching at conservatoires, this paper seeks to establish whether young people regard the orchestral music profession as a worthwhile ambition. If so, are teachers preparing students sufficiently for their careers and passing on the benefits of their considerable experience? While interviewees express deep enthusiasm and love for the orchestral profession, both students and professors seem less sure about the consistency and quality of career preparation at the conservatoire level. Professors explain the difficulties of prioritising multiple agendas during lesson time, while students, though determined to pursue their dream of becoming orchestral players, reveal only partial understanding and knowledge of the profession.

This study aims to provide new insights on the nature of the embodied and collaborative processes related to the emergence of new musical ideas that occur when children are composing in groups.

Data was obtained by participant observation of the teacher/researcher and by ten videotaped one-hour musical sessions dedicated to the development of a music composition by two groups of children, all of whom were eight years old.

It was found that when composing in groups a) children use embodied processes to transform what they experience on diverse realms of their existence into musical ideas, and that b) while creating music, children engage in several improvisatory moments where new ideas emerge through the diverse ways they enact the surroundings where the activity is occurring. Findings suggest a conception of music composing as a multidimensional phenomenon that entails cognitive processes that are distributed across and beyond the physical body. Findings also suggest that composing music in collaboration with others nurtures a set of creative possibilities that would otherwise, not occur. Considerations for music education theory and practice are addressed in the last section of the article.

paper deals with a central concept in music education, that of ‘appraising’ music. Through a series of incidents surrounding the development of the Music National Curriculum this concept, new to many, was left undefined. Using research which shows how people cope with change and successfully take on innovations, a need for deeper information on what appraising entails, and the underlying principles involved, was identified – that is, the ‘how-to’ and ‘principles’ knowledge of appraising. The paper reports research carried out with a group of teachers to define the activity of appraising music in a way which takes account of real classroom situations and can be used by the 90% of primary teachers who are not music specialists. Because the definition is developed by teachers it is more likely to be understood by other teachers. The paper ends with an example of a programme of work which uses the developed understanding. This includes nine areas of appraising, an explanatory definition and four stages in the process of appraising as well as an understanding of progression in this activity using seven words to indicate progression and identifying a ‘putting in’ and ‘drawing out’ stage within this.The children's appraising and progression is discussed and the paper argues that, in choosing this term, the Music Working Group has identified the way in which we come to know and understand the processes involved in music and musical thinking within the three activities of Composing, Performing and Listening.

Recent teaching with PGCE secondary music students has revealed that conducting ensembles is a musical activity in which they have variable knowledge, skills and experience. It is a general expectation, nevertheless, that music teachers still conduct choral and instrumental ensembles as part of their job in schools, and some may also undertake such roles in the wider community. This paper seeks to identify from research literature aspects of effective conducting that warrant greater attention. This forms part of a research project which is exploring definitions of effective conducting and making an analysis and case for more structured teaching in this area within higher education.

This article investigates some of the properties and capabilities of electronic keyboards which now dominate so many British music departments, especially in secondary schools. Their strengths and limitations are discussed and questions are raised over whether the prevailing practice in lessons always supports worthwhile musical objectives. It is argued that the emphases placed upon musical literacy and assessment do not necessarily enhance pupils' musical experiences or promote gains in sensitivity and awareness. An example of good practice is described, and it is suggested that more stress might be placed on defining that which constitutes a musical lesson so that keyboards can be used to support genuinely musical outcomes.

This paper draws on three different research projects to demonstrate the use of an expanded model of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), developed as part of a doctoral research study. The first project is an evaluation of the impacts of a Music Partnership Project within Primary and Secondary schools. The second project is an evaluation of the Good Vibrations Javanese Gamelan project in male and female prisons. The third project is an exploration of the learning processes within a Good Vibrations Javanese Gamelan Project in a young offenders' institution. CHAT provides a lens for analysing activity, placing the interactions between the individual, individual cognition and the socio-cultural environment at the heart of the analytical framework. Although a useful way of looking at activity in order to understand the individual and social processes occurring in a learning activity, criticisms of CHAT include the rigidity of the unit of analysis, its inability to view progression and transformation and the focus on one individual without taking into account the labour power that a group offers.

Since its inception in 1997, the SCARLATTI Project at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow has sought to investigate and document the teaching approaches and methodologies adopted by music teachers in Scottish secondary schools and to share good practice, findings and thoughts among the profession. Here, as a follow-up to a previous article (Byrne & Sheridan, 1998), readers are brought up to date on developments since then, highlighting some problems and some successes. The article also focuses on issues related to the delivery of core or key skills through music and introduces a new composing thinking tool for novice composers. Finally, a report on a small-scale study on music teachers' teaching styles is given. Having collected ‘data on the teachers' backgrounds, qualifications, experiences and accomplishments in the creation of music through improvising and composing’ (Byrne & Sheridan, 1998: 299) these are analysed and some initial thoughts offered.

Early in my career as a music teacher I was very focused on providing my students with what I believed at the time were a range of musical experiences that broadened their understanding and appreciation of music from a variety of cultures and traditions. However, as I gained more experience, I was able to spend a greater amount of time reflecting on how the pupils were learning as well as what they were learning. Through my engagement in practitioner research I also became more aware of the musical experiences my pupils were having away from school and this led me to realise that an increasingly large number of pupils were already passionate about music but this interest was not necessarily transferring to music within a classroom context. For example, students who were often self-critical about their abilities during classroom music tasks were actually able to demonstrate an increasing level of knowledge and understanding of the music that they were involved in as listeners or performers away from school.

The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between music preference and music education, informal influences (attending classical music concerts and musical theatre productions) and familiarity of music. The research included students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split (N=341)1. The results showed that participants usually listen to popular music in their leisure time and that popular music is their most preferred music style. A positive relationship between familiarity and preferences was found but this effect was not unambiguous. A relationship between music preferences and secondary school music education was not found, but those participants who attended music school preferred some music styles more than did those participants who did not attend music school. There was a significant correlation found between the frequency of attending classical music concerts and preferences for classical music, jazz and world music. Finally, the results indicated that people who frequently attend musical theatre productions have significantly higher preferences for jazz and world music. The authors pointed to the problem of unattractiveness of music lessons in secondary schools and suggest possible solutions to the problem.

This article reports the second stage of a project investigating the impact of IT, generally stereotyped as a masculine area of competence, in music education. The project examined differences between boys' and girls' use of music technology and their attitudes towards it. The second stage focused, in particular, upon the effects of school type, since previous research had suggested that girls in single sex schools are more likely to fare better than their counterparts in coeducational schools in areas of the curriculum stereotyped as masculine. The results of a study of 1115 pupils (661 11–12 year olds and 454 15–16 year olds) from eleven secondary schools (four girls', three boys' and four coeducational) in Leicestershire, Birmingham and Coventry are reported here. The most noteworthy findings came from pupils' ratings of their own abilities in relation to same-sex and opposite-sex peers. These ratings were lower in older girls from co-educational schools, indicating a particular lack of confidence within that group. Qualitative data from pupil and teacher interviews is used to examine explanations for this finding and its educational implications.

Over the past three decades it has become customary to regard music education as a form of aesthetic education. Recently a number of writers have expressed some objections to this view which they maintain has acquired the status of an accepted orthodoxy. In a healthy educational climate it is right that any orthodoxy should be questioned and aesthetic education has often become the subject of an international debate The purpose of this paper is not to add another voice to that debate but to re-examine the concept of aesthetic education with reference to the teaching and learning of music in educational institutions.

Many discussions on this issue become clouded because the term ‘aesthetic education’ is used in different ways and in different contexts In a broad sense the aesthetic is not necessarily associated with the arts and is taken to be a dimension of experience in any discipline; accordingly, aesthetic education is across the curriculum. Most frequently, it implies an education in the fine arts, the aim of which is the development in children of a particular style of thinking or mode of intelligence. A third view arises from the notion of aesthetics as a form of enquiry best described as the philosophy of art; aesthetic education thus conceived involves the study of topics such as artistic meanings, judgements and values.

An examination of these different conceptions of aesthetic education raises a number of philosophical and educational issues that have implications not only for the organisation and practice of music education in schools but also for the education and professional development of teachers.

This philosophical essay is a meditation on the multiple and contested meanings of the concept of democracy with the aim of redirecting dominant discourses in music education practices and building new capacities for democracy's practical use in music classrooms. Inspired by philosopher John Dewey's travels to China, and his influence on major Chinese thinkers like Hu Shih and Tao Xingzhi, the author plays with the etymological origins of the term ‘democracy’, finding limited value in its Greek origins, but inspiration in the many ways of referring to democracy in Chinese [Minzhu: 民 主 / Pingmin: 平 民 / Shumin: 庶 民 / Minben: 民 本] each of which has the potential to direct and enlarge contemporary instructional practices in formal music education settings.

It might be presumed that a journal which contains the words music education in its title, might have a coherent view as to what its main topic of interest ought to be! But as we have often said in these pages, BJME is a ‘broad church’, and all sorts of interpretations of the terminology are welcomed. But sometimes, especially for students embarking on academic study of the domain, definitions can be helpful. With this in mind, let us think about what the terminology might mean nowadays.

This paper explores the relationship between school music and community music in Australia. While many Australian schools and community music activities tend to exist in relative isolation from one another, a range of unique school–community collaborations can be found throughout the country. Drawing on insights from Sound Links, one of Australia's largest studies into community music, this paper explores three case studies of these unique school–community collaborations. These collaborations include a community-initiated collaboration, a school-initiated collaboration and a mutual collaboration. The author brings these collaborations to life for the reader through the words and experiences of their participants, and explores their structures, relationships, benefits, and educational and social outcomes. These descriptions feature important concepts, which could be transferred to a range of other cultural and educational settings in order to foster more vibrant school–community collaborations.

This article reports on a retrospective study of Finnish pre-service elementary teachers' assessments of their musical experiences in nursery school and elementary and secondary school and real-time study of their experiences in teacher training. The participants (N = 590) had received musical instruction in five age groups (4–6 years, 7–12 years, 13–15 years, 16–19 years, 20–25 years). The assessments were most positive in the 4–6 years group and thereafter declined until puberty in the 13–15 years group. A change in a positive direction was perceived in the 16–19 years group and also in the 20–25 years group (during teacher training). Gender differences were statistically significant except during upper secondary school. The most enjoyable activities in formal music education were singing and playing; music theory was experienced most negatively.

In this qualitative case study, we used participant observation and interviews to examine Violet, a Flemish string youth orchestra. In doing so, we identify the qualities that constitute an ‘eclectic’ ensemble space, herein defined as a musical environment that uses a blend of informal and formal learning practices. Moreover, we emphasize how members benefit musically, socially, and personally from such spaces. Our findings suggest that a blend of eclectic practices create a music space that promotes social engagement, social interaction, and peer learning among members. Additionally, eclectic music spaces allow for personal development and nurture self-appreciation. An eclectic ensemble space thus provides a rich alternative to more traditional forms of music ensemble instruction.

Social activism and education have been associated with hip-hop since it emerged in New York City 38 years ago. Therefore, it might not be surprising that universities have become interested in hip-hop. This article aims to highlight this ‘hip-hop academisation’ and analyse the discursive mechanisms that manifest in these academisation processes. The guiding research question explores how hip-hop scholars talk about this academisation. The theoretical framework is informed by the scholarship of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Hip-hop scholars were interviewed in New York City during 2010. The results demonstrate themes of hip-hop as an attractive label, a door opener, a form of ‘low-culture’, a trap and an educational tool.

Music is unique in its power to involve the whole person, intellectually as well as emotionally and kinaesthetically. Our ultimate aim in music education, therefore, should be to develop musical imagination and understanding. We can achieve this by making composition and improvisation the central focus of the music curriculum, with listening activities carefully related to children's work. Musical experiences in the classroom should be adventurous, challenging, joyful yet serious, taking place in an atmosphere of warm, sympathetic, tolerant, and respectful relationships. In this environment, children are more likely to value music, and to develop sensitivity not only to music, but to other people. Schools too often underestimate children's potential. In music we can help all children to experience a sense of achievement, leading to greater self-respect.

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the creative musical identities of pre-service music education students in the United States and Singapore. The Creative Identity in Music (CIM) measure was utilized with both US and Singapore pre-service music teacher populations (n = 274). Items of the CIM relate to music-making activities often associated with creativity in music education in the literature, including composition, improvisation and popular music performance. Results suggest, similar to findings of previous research, that while both populations are similar in their degree of creative music-making self-efficacy and are similarly willing to allow for creativity in the classroom, Singaporean pre-service music teachers value the areas of creative identity and the use of popular music listening/performing within the learning environment to a significantly greater extent (p < 0.0001) than their US counterparts.