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.

In 2005, the Barenboim-Said Foundation launched the Early Childhood Music Education project in Andalusia (Spain) to promote music education for young children. Ten years later, an initial study was performed to evaluate the influence of the project on the development of the participating children. The results of this study form part of a broader ongoing research project, in collaboration with the University of Seville, aimed at investigating the influence of the Early Childhood Music Education project on general aspects of child development. This study has a quasi-experimental design, framed in Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, consisting of an experimental and a control group (n = 1101) and the administration of a questionnaire, adapted to measure and compare means between the two groups, as the sole measurement tool. The results, analysed using an independent samples t-test for the comparison of means and Cohen’s d effect size, reveal statistically significant differences in the means of the dimensions of the experimental and control groups. This confirms the hypothesis that the Early Childhood Music Education project has a positive impact on the different dimensions, in accordance with Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

This article gives an account of a study in which the practice of music consultancy in primary education was examined. Its aims were to discover to what extent the claims made for music consultancy can be substantiated by empirical evidence, and to identify the factors which contribute to its success. The trends indicated that schools having a music consultant tend to achieve a slightly more favourable standard of music education, in terms of frequency of activities undertaken, than schools with no postholder for music. Little evidence was found, however, of the qualitative benefits thought to be conferred by the classteacher, supported by the consultant, being responsible for music teaching. Several interrelated factors were identified as having possible influence on the efficacy of music consultancy in promoting a satisfactory standard of music teaching among class teachers.

This article reports findings from a study that sought to identify barriers to music and music education in the UK. Emerging from empirical research involving n = 723 participants and clarified by an evidence base of over 10,000 research participants, the key findings presented in this paper relate to pupil and participant voice and involvement, location as a sub-theme of diversity and inclusion, collaboration and transition points. The research is contextualised by twenty years of policy initiatives seeking to address barriers to music learning. The article provides an overview of the research study before presenting the rich data that emerged within each theme reported. Research participant voice is used as much as possible to enable the reader to consider, reflect and interpret the data in a way that is meaningful for their own context. The paper concludes by asking why after 20 years of policy initiatives, research and evaluation the same barriers still exist and, as we emerge from the pandemic, suggests that this research provides a compelling case that now is the time for change.

‘The Sequence of Musical Development’ by Swanwick and Tillman was published in the British Journal of Music Education (BJME) in 1986. This year marks its 35th anniversary and provides an occasion to look back on the article’s content and legacy. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the antecedents for the article’s underlying concepts, as well as how our understanding of children and young people’s musical behaviours and development has evolved. Alternate and more nuanced perspectives, both available at the time and since, draw on an expanding, diverse, multidisciplinary research base. These enable us to have a better grasp of the strengths of the original, as well as what continues to need investigation.

How might primary students utilise the stimulus of a painting in a collaborative composition drawing on a non-conventional sound palette of their own making? This practitioner research features 17 recorder players from a Year 6 class (10–11-year-olds) who attend a West Auckland primary school in New Zealand. These children were invited to experiment with the instrument to produce collectively an expanded ‘repertoire’ or ‘palette’ of sounds. In small groups, they then discussed a painting by an established New Zealand painter set in the Waitakere Ranges and attempted to formulate an interpretation in musical terms. On the basis of their interpretation, drawing on sounds from the collective palette (complemented with other sounds), they worked collaboratively to develop, refine and perform a structured composition named for their chosen painting. This case study is primarily descriptive (providing narrative accounts and rich vignettes of practice) and, secondarily, exploratory (description and analysis leading to the development of hypotheses). It has implications for a range of current educational issues, including curriculum integration and the place of composition and notation in the primary-school music programme.

This article examines the difference between the systems of education in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. For student teachers preparing for the Secondary phase, the isolation of Northern Ireland needs to be counterbalanced. Assisting students to adopt a curriculum philosophy very different from that which underpins their own recent school experiences requires both careful preparation and the support of appropriate classroom experiences. In preparing Primary school teachers to use music in their classroom two issues need to be addressed: the development of musical understanding in students with minimal practical musical skill, and the preparation of specialists to adopt the role of Music Co-ordinator in their schools. Account needs to be taken in the training of all teachers of the cross-curricular themes of Education for Mutual Understanding, Cultural Heritage and Information Technology. Finally, the author proposes a strategy for musical support and development of classroom teachers serving in primary schools.

Interview-based case studies, involving two institutions, four professors and 11 music teacher trainees were conducted in order to investigate the preconditions for deep learning in the subject of higher music education called musikdidaktik. Analysis was based on the ‘didaktiktriangle’ which is a theoretical model that suggests the relations of the professor, trainee and the selected content as being at the core of any educational endeavour. The model helps to frame the debate about the quality of teaching and learning by highlighting the trainees’ learning as relational. Professors as well as trainees located preconditions for deep learning to relations within the didaktik triangle. Furthermore, it became apparent how those preconditions were connected to the institutional culture within which the triangle relations were played out. It is suggested that deep learning in musikdidaktik was regulated by how the teaching forms and the selected educational content gave space for trainees’ learning styles, strategies and approaches. Furthermore, the learning was affected by the musikdidaktik subject's low status within the institutional culture and its external relations to the trainees’ practical teaching training.

I am grateful to Ruth Wright and the editors of the journal for inviting me to make this brief response to the fascinating set of articles collected here. Taking the articles as a whole, I wish to offer a few thoughts which came to mind whilst reading them, concerning our roles as music-education researchers and music educators in relation to informal learning.

This article looks at the way music education policy is realised in three curriculum contexts: the formation of the official music curriculum, its implementation by music teachers and its reception by students. Working from within the field of education policy studies, I have collected data on music education in Cyprus in order to explore what music teachers and students might expect from a music curriculum and have compared this with what the official music curriculum actually prescribes. The findings constitute distinct sets of educational ideologies and indicate areas of fragmentation between the three contexts. I discuss some implications and make suggestions for conceptualising music education policy. I conclude that music education policy needs to be construed as a polydynamic process which is polyglot, polycentric and polymorphic in its nature.

Theoretical approaches to learning in practice-based jazz improvisation contexts include situated learning and ecological perspectives. This article focuses on how interest-driven, self-sustaining jazz learning activities can be matched against the concepts of stolen knowledge (Brown & Duguid, 1996) and landscape of learning (Bjerstedt, 2014). Based on an extensive interview study with Swedish professional jazz musicians, it argues that the multidirectedness involved in jazz improvisational practice calls for a rich learning ecology framework including several didactic loci.

The author's interest in the role of language in education began while he was a student at Goldsmiths' College. A number of transcripts from lessons are considered, and the dialogue between teacher and pupil is analysed with a view to finding clues about the nature of the musical learning which is taking place. It is the author's view that we should allow children ample opportunity and time to talk about the music they are involved with, since it is through verbal articulation of knowledge that the process of musical learning and creativity can be fostered.

The article explores reasons for the absence of women from the world of professional music making. The processes of women's music making are examined, especially oral transmission, communal creation and ownership, its relation to everyday living, and holistic approaches to its role in education. These are illustrated by examples drawn from composers such as Hildegard of Bingen and Clara Schumann, and traditional sources, together with education and good practice in a variety of areas.

This paper explores secondary school music teachers' current practice with regard to the organisation and assessment of composing at Key Stage 4. It draws on research undertaken on a nation-wide basis in England, via the use of two online surveys and face-to-face interviews. In terms of the organisation of classroom composition, the study found that the place of staff notation is currently under-theorised in terms of a developmental musical thinking tool, as opposed to what might be termed a ‘storage system’. The research also found that ICT has brought composing to a wider range of participants. Considerably more time is spent on composing than other musical processes within a typical Key Stage 4 music classroom. The study found that music teachers are, in general, satisfied with the sorts of assessments which are being done at Key Stage 4. Examination Board criteria for assessing composing are universally utilised but there is a feeling that whilst these criteria are fit for purpose, they do not always reflect the effort that students have put into their work. Some styles which are ‘set’ by examination boards are seen as being inappropriate for some students to access.

This paper reflects on the musical skills and abilities required of the improvising musician and suggests some possible strategies to help school music teachers enable children to develop improvisational skills. The writer includes musical materials which exemplify his own suggested teaching and learning approach and which aim to develop the musical memory of performers.

Interpretation of musical works depends on meanings, which, on a pragmatist view, are necessarily tied with cultural habits and practices. This entails that a piece of music is always interpreted differently by people raised in different cultural contexts. A musical work is always a result of this process of interpretation. Strictly speaking, works of music are therefore different works in culturally different contexts even if they were presentations of the same notes. The following discussion of the conditions of cultural exchange in music illuminates some pragmatist viewpoints on the topic by using Keith Swanwick's ideas as a point of comparison. The discussion shows that a contextual starting point leads towards a more ‘child-centred’ education.

We discuss a recent peer-learning project we undertook as co-conductors of the Young Conservatorium Wind Orchestra at Griffith University. Drawing on current educational theory on peer learning and material from our conducting practice and research, we explore how this approach offers professional conductors the opportunity to work together in an inclusive and empowering learning environment. We outline our peer learning context, the learning relationship we shared, the most significant musical outcomes of such a process, and the implications for conducting pedagogy and the professional development of conductors.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how amateur choral singers experience collective group support as a method of learning ‘art music’ choral work. Findings are derived from a grounded-theory based, socio-musical case study of an amateur ‘art music’ Bach Choir, in the process of rehearsing and performing the Mass in B Minor by J.S. Bach. Data collection consisted of participant observation, qualitative interviews and a paper-based survey. Findings indicate that in the process of learning a challenging choral work, participants use peer-learning as support and form supportive groups within each voice part, with ‘informal leaders’ supporting others (‘followers’) who are performing the work for the first time. On the other hand, performing a challenging work can also seem ‘intimidating’ for those less experienced singers. Findings also indicate that whereas followers (and the conductor) benefit from this group support, ‘leaders’ may experience a certain lack of musical challenge.

There has been little research conducted on Taiwanese Aboriginal music education in comparison to Aboriginal education. C. Hsu's Taiwanese Music History (1996) presents information on Aboriginal music including instruments, dance, ritual music, songs and singing, but information on music education practices is lacking. The examination of historical documentation shows that music education was used by both the Japanese government and Christian missionaries to advance their political and religious agendas. This paper will examine the development of the music education of Aborigines in Taiwan from the mid nineteenth century, when Christian missionaries first came to Taiwan, until the end of the Japanese protectorate (1945). I shall discuss how the missionaries from Britain and Canada successfully introduced Western religious music to Aboriginal communities by promoting various activities such as hymn singing and religious services. The paper will then look at the influence of government policy on Aboriginal music education during the colonial periods. These policies affected both the music taught in elementary schools and the teaching materials.