In an attempt to clarify thinking about the musical preferences of fourteen-year old schoolchildren, the author devised an experiment to test the hypothesis that musical preference relates to the personality types of extroversion and introversion, as defined by Eysenck. The results did not confirm this hypothesis, so other factors – the sex of the subjects, the kinds of music and the chosen items themselves – were analysed and their interaction evaluated. There was no hierarchy of factors and the conclusion is that fourteen-year-olds are able to make judgements based on musical criteria.

In this article, I discuss the importance of movement in music education and suggest an effective way to approach this particular area of music teaching for younger children. The most important characteristics of movement to music activity in musical experience would seem to be in the role of developing in the mind of the participants ‘music schemata’, an active, developing organization of past responses to music which play a vital role when we listen to music and comprehend its expressive character. This hypothesis was tested in the teaching-experiment which was carried out in an English primary school and a Japanese primary school with the children of 7 to 8 years of age.

This article describes inshimi – a musical storytelling practice of the Bemba people in Zambia. It gives a general perspective on the whole practice and some details on the ‘MUSIC’ as contained in the practice. The article further encourages the idea that inshimi represents a nucleus of the ‘MUSIC’ practices of the Bemba people and therefore plays a vital role in the transmission of musical arts practices. Embedded in musical storytelling are educational principles that could and should guide musical arts education in Africa and the rest of the world.

This article explores the theoretical concepts of ‘apprenticeship’ and ‘reflection’ in Initial Teacher Education music mentoring. It presents two case studies of Secondary music mentoring and relates these to the theoretical concepts. The article argues that a more integrated view of music mentoring might be provided with reference to Kolb's (1984) theory of experiential learning.

This paper is based on a five-year research project into the work of music teachers in Northern Ireland. It is concerned with the implications of the research for the curriculum. The results reveal a serious shortage of suitably qualified music teachers in the Province, and significant deficiencies in funding and facilities for the subject. They also reveal that many teachers doubt the value of their general classroom teaching, and prefer their extra-curricular activities. The author suggests that Music should become an option during Key Stage Three which schools would have to provide, and which motivated pupils could choose as an alternative to the other ‘Creative and Expressive’ subjects.

This article uses case-study research to examine approaches to adoptive parenting, with particular reference to children's musical instrument learning. Drawing on video and interview evidence, we consider the effects that family narratives about adoption, genetic inheritance and environment have upon different family members' perceptions of themselves and of each other. We conclude that the supportive parenting style demonstrated in our case-study family provides an environment in which musical learning can flourish, and we draw parallels with research in the psychology of music, to illustrate the importance of family support for young musicians.

In this paper, I use a bricolage of arts-based research and writing practices to explore narratives by Grade 4 children about their experiences in a drumming circle called ‘Bam Bam’ as represented in a text they created with me called An ABC of drumming. The term ‘narrative’ is used here in a contemporary sense to simultaneously invoke a socially and musically situated and constructed story (Chase, 2005 p. 657); as an ‘account to self and others’ (Barrett & Stauffer, 2009, p. 7) about drumming in a particular place, with a particular group of children during a particular set of events; and, to explore narratives of drumming as the ‘shared relational work’ of myself as a drummer, teacher, researcher and ‘story-teller/story-liver’ (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 12) alongside the children. In synchronicity with the ABC of drumming produced by the children, the paper itself is framed and written creatively around letters of the alphabet and variously includes poetry and data or research poetry; ethnographic ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz, 1973) of our drumming circle; and, visual and textual expressions by the children. By doing so, my aim is to move collectively from ‘narrative as a “story-presented” to narrative as a “form of meaning-making”, indeed, a form of “mind-making”’ (Barrett & Stauffer, 2009, p. 10) about the children's experience of drumming and the drumming circle itself. The central question underpinning this paper then is, what makes children's experience in a drumming circle meaningful, and how do they make sense of such meaning?

Affordance refers to the properties or designs of a thing that offer the function of the thing. This paper discusses the affordance of Braille music in terms of three notions: mediational means, mastery and appropriation, and focuses on answering the following three questions: (i) How do musicians with visual impairments (MVI) perceive Braille music and what does it reveal about the characteristics and limitations of Braille music? (ii) What are the traits influencing the affordance of Braille music and how does it fit the needs of MVI? (iii) What are the conditions that make Braille music more affordable? To qualitatively investigate these topics, we interviewed nine music teachers and their seven students with visual impairment at a school for the blind in Korea. We found that learning and mastering Braille music is not an easy task, and that blind musicians tend to depend more on auditory input and memorisation. These findings suggest that the current level of development, diffusion and employment of Braille music is not satisfactory in Korea. In order to promote the affordance of Braille music, the adaptability, learnability/usability and availability of Braille music must be enhanced.

The essay sets the context and identifies some possibilities this music educator/feminist theorist currently finds in music, whilst applying the framework of sociologist Dorothy Smith's standpoint feminism to music as constituted within the ideology of particular institutions and practices. Contributions of feminist musicology, in terms of documentation of women's experience in and with music, women's status, and perspectives of feminist music criticism, are summarized. Considering these contributions and framework as a basis to this contextualized critical stance leads to further questions. For example, just as feminist musicology provides music education with the possibilities of new content, is it not likely that feminist criticism in music education could assist musicology in coming to terms with making musical sense, collectively, through cultural institutions? In beginning to work with such a question of criticism, it is suggested that institutional issues of power, as played out through who teaches and sexual harassment of student, are evident and require attention.

Curriculum design is a domain that infrequently forms a discrete element of initial teacher training, or continuing professional development for music teachers in English secondary schools. Classroom music teachers, teaching Key Stage 3 (KS3) learners (11–14-year olds), are, however, required to design their own curriculum. Teachers are accountable to school leaders for curricula they implement, and the outcomes from their selected approaches. This article discusses classroom music curriculum practices and their significance in music education. The research project was conducted with music teachers from schools in the East and West Midlands of England, utilising questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Research findings are conceptualised in a model of music curriculum activity. The research thereby facilitates discussion of unacknowledged complexities and tacit teacher planning practices in music curriculum design.

The author describes an investigation into the use of West African folklore in the school curriculum by means of an African folktale which became the basis for a project in the class music lessons. Starting with research into West African folklore, particularly children's stories and songs, in Ghana and Nigeria between 1979 and 1983, music was composed in a basically African style to go with an adaptation of one of the stories.

The practical work in a London primary school investigated ways of minimising the apparent dichotomy between African and Western musics in the curriculum.

As an experiment, a Balinese gamelan was integrated with a summer music course for the physically handicapped. Two ethnomusicologists were invited to demonstrate playing techniques and to teach pieces of gamelan music which were later performed. This article documents the success of the experiment and describes the very considerable potential of the gamelan in general recreational and educational music therapy. More particularly, the essentially non-Western methods of learning and practising adopted on the course encouraged and engendered a broad range of skills in those with little or no previous musical experience, and significantly extended the abilities of the musically trained. The results of this experiment suggest that both music therapists and music educators may be able to extend the range of their work by drawing on certain non-Western musical traditions.

This article explores the opportunities that the aesthetic experience of music offers pupils in their developing awareness of the subjective self and its relation to the objective universe of which it is a part. How does creatively produced music, having challenged the local frameworks or ‘conceptual spaces’ within which it is defined, remain intelligible to its audience? It is suggested that a principle of intelligibility that transcends this formally defining framework rests on a direct and unified perception of affective, subjective reality, shared by human beings; a perception that embraces both composer, performer and listener. This realisation is developed through the relationship that we have, as subjective individuals, to the objective universe of which we are a part. Aesthetic experience gives rise to a sense of transcendent reality, within which the subjective individual and objective world are unified, and which is identified as a central element in our sense of the reality of God.

Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are two political ideologies that currently shape state directives for education in many countries. In this article, I describe the confluence of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies that led to the introduction, by the English state department for education, of a Model Music Curriculum for schools. I describe how neoliberalism has transformed the music education ‘ecology’ in England and created an environment that was receptive to the introduction of a curriculum on neoconservative principles. I consider the current position of progressive music education and why it seems unable to mount a sufficiently persuasive challenge. I make a case for the importance of analysis that explicitly focuses on political ideologies and their present-day rhetoric and discourses. Finally, I point to the general early years sector in England as an illustration for how to respond to state interventions in curriculum that might be emulated by the music education sector.

LEA re-organisation is in many places bringing instrumental teachers into closer contact with people whose background is that of classroom teaching and curriculum development. Initially there may be some suspicion on both sides, but our experience in Wolverhampton suggests that this is potentially an enjoyable and immensely fruitful relationship.

The writer looks at the meanings of the word ‘play’ and its properties, and draws attention to the common elements and the differences to be observed in the play of young people and adults respectively. He applies these observations to music, giving examples.

He then considers how classroom teachers have used some of the ‘play’ principles in their work, and introduces the idea of drawing instrumental teachers into similar patterns of action – to be fully developed in the other articles in this group. He summarises recent writings on the subject and his own practical contributions over the last few years.

South Africa is undergoing dynamic changes affecting all aspects of life, and legacies of the previous regime have a bearing on these changes. Music educators informal institutions face many challenges. Music-making in the informal sector is extensive, ongoing and relevant. Today, one of the greatest challenges for music educators in the formal sector is to realise the importance and value of developing a philosophy and process of music education that emanates and evolves from musics and musical practices existing in southern Africa.

‘Project’ is something of a misnomer for the complicated string teaching organisation which now involves some thousand young string players, twenty ILEA schools in and around the Tower Hamlets area, and 35 qualified string teachers, mostly on a part-time basis. At no time in the early days was any such structure projected: it has grown up as a result of experience and considerable generosity on the part of the ILEA in allowing scope for experimentation and expansion.

Over the past decade, some major changes have taken place in the policies of Britain's symphony orchestras towards the communities within which they operate. Responding to local needs, most have now evolved enterprising educational activities. This ‘community’ brief has itself generated enthusiastic commitment from the participating musicians; but it has also highlighted the new responsibilities of orchestral management to the personal and artistic development of the players who must work in this somewhat different cultural climate. The author, Gresham Professor of Music and Director of the Department of Performance and Communication Skills at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, examines these issues and their implications for the future of orchestral musicians.