The advent of the gramophone transformed the cultural conditions of contemporary music, including the way it was taught. For a considerable period of time, musicians and music educators disparaged the gramophone. The members of the musical appreciation movement were more sympathetic and helped transform the gramophone's educational image during the 1920s and 1930s. They argued that the gramophone, contrary to its detractors, might stem the appeal of popular music. As is clear from the sentiments of those espousing the pedagogic uses of the gramophone – which are analysed in this paper – their advocacy went far beyond music and was part of a broader cultural agenda, which included arresting the moral dangers associated with popular music.

Learning to play musical instruments has always been a minority activity in British schools. This is partly to do with resources but also to do with the type of curriculum on which the teaching of instruments is often based. In an earlier paper (Cope & Smith, 1997) we argued that this curriculum was based on a classical, scholastic model and suggested that the goal implicit in this approach, the concert player, was inappropriate for most children. This paper lays out an analysis of the knowledge components involved in playing an instrument and draws a number of conclusions about how this might inform the way in which teaching instruments can be approached.

The purpose of this study was to explore why highly trained musicians choose to teach in higher education. An international population from nine countries of music instrument teachers was sampled via online survey, to determine their reasons for teaching in higher education. Motivational constructs from the expectancy-value framework were used, and data were analysed statistically and qualitatively for themes. Findings show that participants held significantly higher expectancy beliefs about teaching than performing, and significantly higher intrinsic interest value beliefs about performing than about teaching. All six constructs were positively correlated with cost for music performing and teaching predicting the most variance.

There is no difference between the inherent musicality of people with impaired hearing and those with normal hearing. This applies even to the profoundly deaf, provided that music can adequately be perceived. Recognising the shortcomings of hearing aids designed primarily for speech, the author shows how music listening for the deaf can be very considerably improved by using readily available equipment to process sound in particular ways to compensate for different types of hearing deficiency. He observes that some deaf people seem able to perceive music, especially the pitch of notes, more clearly than others who are substantially less hearing impaired. A possible explanation for this paradox is given.

Music teachers enjoy carrying out teaching tasks; indeed, such pleasure may be perceived even when authoritarian pedagogical methods are applied. In this study, we will explore music teacher motivation in classroom settings, collecting data from three educators through psychological scales, lesson observations and personal interviews. Results indicate that teacher motivation in classroom settings is affected by five internal and five external factors. Therefore, the study allows concluding that teacher motivation is also satisfied or thwarted by ideas that school members have about music education. Some practical implications are suggested.

The purpose of this study was to examine the learning situation of Chinese students’ studying chamber music in universities. Therefore, students’ perspectives on learning chamber music were the main focus of this study. The study begins with a comprehensive description by educators of current Chinese college chamber music education and then details students’ cognition of and behaviour towards chamber music education. The survey participants (N = 23) were all music performance majors who had taken chamber music courses in one average-ranked Chinese university. Demographic data regarding students’ chamber music background, actual practical problems in classes, students’ expectations of their chamber music education and the relationship between practice and learning chamber music were collected. The results indicated that students all possessed positive and assertive attitudes towards learning chamber music and believed in the necessity and value of establishing chamber music education in Chinese universities.

The teaching of musical notation is now a legal requirement of the National Curriculum for music in England and Wales. Far from settling the debate over the desirability, or otherwise, of teaching notation, this aspect of the legislation seems to make a review of the problem imperative.

This article examines theories of music as a language analogous to the spoken or written word, and then considers the practical and sociological arguments for and against the teaching of staff notation.

The whole class ensemble tuition (WCET) programme in English schools is a somewhat singular and relatively recent arrival onto the teaching and learning scene. It arose from a remark made by an English politician and has grown from there into becoming a regular feature in the music education landscape in primary schools. It has elements which will be familiar to music educators in many parts of the world, whilst having some aspects which are unique to the English context. In order to place the WCET programme into perspective, this paper outlines the policy context which gave rise to it and explains what it involves and how it is operationalised in schools.

Over the past few years, instrumental performance has been subject to considerable research in this journal and elsewhere. A great deal of this research has concentrated on the practice strategies and individual lessons, which most students undertake in preparing as performers. Little has been done on raising standards of performance on a larger scale within the context of a large music department. This article describes the outcomes of a two-year programme undertaken with undergraduates at Barnsley College. It looks specifically at the scope for curriculum changes over that period and the way the various individual aspects of performance lessons are brought together through a weekly class which focuses on the demands of a public performance and the strategies required to prepare for that event.

An important part of the process that enables us to improve ourselves as musicians in group music making involves developing an awareness of our personal attributes as they are displayed in the rehearsal. In order to help students become more aware of themselves and of their band members’ personal attributes as they rehearse, a peer assessment system was established. The project was piloted and developed at Barnsley College and University of Huddersfield (Barnsley Campus) with first year undergraduates on the BA Popular Music course across 2000–2008. Individuals agreed to allow their bands to identify particular personal attributes for each member that, they felt, could be improved and used as peer assessment criteria. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 students over a 4-year period and the following areas emerged as a focus of these: self-knowledge, feedback, confidence, honesty. The study has implications for devising peer assessment systems that are responsive to individual learners and their unique needs. It also suggests the desirability of providing peer assessment activities that might foster trust among participants and, if so, supports the provision of exceptional feedback. Now in its ninth year, this system has been refined into a model.

The catalyst for this paper is the ongoing debate concerning formal and informal approaches to pedagogy within the music education literature. I utilise a chapter by Philpott (2010) as a means to continue discussion about the apparent dialectic between formal and informal approaches to music learning and the case Philpott raises for radical change in ‘three moments’ of music education history. In engaging with the concerns in Philpott's chapter I also seek to bring to a wider audience the ideas developed by a group of sociologists of education who draw on the work of Basil Bernstein (2000) and critical realism (Moore, 2013) to argue for a realist theory of knowledge. I utilise these social realist ideas as a means to engage with the theme of access to what Michael F.D. Young has recently termed ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, 2012). As Bernstein (2000) suggests we must have an understanding of the recontextualising principles that come into play whenever the classification of knowledge undergoes change, as ideologies shift and change. I argue for a balance between powerful forms of pedagogy and powerful forms of knowledge based on an awareness of the essentially differentiated nature of knowledge.

Singing individually is both a necessary activity within the music class and an essential part of the cultural activity of improvising verses through singing. In this article we show how the introduction of this activity in the educational system of Catalonia has made it possible to obtain positive results with regard to participation in singing, especially solo singing. The analysis of the data also shows how this type of singing activity has a positive effect on negative attitudes towards singing derived from western perceptions of who or who isn't competent to sing, depending on gender, age and social status.

This paper is one of the first presentations of research into brain gym's effectiveness in learning musical instruments. Brain gym (or Edu-K) is the popular, over-arching name for a system of exercises, approaches, and techniques intended to improve mental and physical performance. We explain the basic concepts and activities of brain gym and review the literature already published in other disciplines. We also track the short-term progress and experience of five instrumentalists when coached in brain gym. After one week, every participant rated brain gym as having a positive effect upon their playing. We also found that every participant had a more positive opinion of brain gym than they had prior to the experiment. While the findings are purely qualitative, they do suggest that brain gym has the potential to be an effective tool for music learning, and we encourage further research.

The unit for Research into Applied Musical Perception (RAMP) was set up in the Music Department of Huddersfield Polytechnic in October 1985. Led by Professor George Pratt, then newly appointed as Head of Department, it was supported generously by the Polytechnic which made available a full-time Research Assistant post, filled by Michael Henson. Dr John Sloboda of Keele University, musical psychologist and author of ‘The Musical Mind’, agreed to be an Associate of the Unit and to co-supervise the first postgraduate students registered for research degrees.

The Unit spent a year enquiring of other institutions about their attitudes to teaching musical perception, and trying out a first-year course which this article describes.

The perceived benefits of graded examinations are compared with the actual benefits that they bring and are then weighed against the more general and widely accepted desirable outcomes of musical education in Great Britain. The syllabus of a typical graded examination is analysed in some detail and the conclusions drawn suggest that the time-honoured format of graded examinations serves only some of the musical needs of pupils. Some radical suggestions for up-dating examinations are discussed.

This article is based on some of the materials prepared for the certificate course: Music Teaching in Private Practice to be mounted by the University of Reading Department of Arts and Humanities in Education in collaboration with the Incorporated Society of Musicians.

Understanding physical movement is an integral part of learning to make music. This article presents the action research that the author has pursued while teaching movement to musicians. The narrative provides a theoretical underpinning for the teaching practices discussed. It provides examples of musicians’ movement with analyses of the anatomical structures involved, and it discusses the influences of bodily perception on observing and learning movement (e.g. the body map). The implications of the study are to provide a somatic foundation for music education and thereby to enhance the understanding of music as embodied experience.

This paper critiques a traditional approach to music theory pedagogy. It argues that music theory courses should draw on pedagogies that reflect the diversity and pluralism inherent in 21st century music making. It presents the findings of an action research project investigating the experiences of undergraduate students undertaking an innovative contemporary art music theory course. It describes the students’ struggle in coming to terms with a course that integrated composing, performing, listening and analysing coupled with what for many was their first exposure to the diversity of contemporary art music. The paper concludes with suggesting that the approach could be adopted more widely throughout music programs.

This observational study analysed the lesson content of 24 instrumental lessons (piano, strings and winds) using a gender-balanced sample (equal numbers of male/female teachers and students) from five Australian higher education institutions to ascertain the priorities of topics in advanced applied music lessons in the Western Classical tradition. The results were analysed according to gender to determine differences of approach between male and female teachers and male and female students. Same-gender and different-gender pairings were also considered. Technique was found to be of the greatest importance, followed by Articulation and Expression. Some gender differences have emerged between the teachers, with the male teachers tending towards a more analytical approach and the female teachers adopting more balanced lesson content. The treatment of students showed some divergence, with greater emphasis on Expression in the lessons of female students, whereas the male students studied more Structure. The results demonstrate stereotypical gender behaviour among the teachers and towards their students not previously observed in this educational setting.

In the last editorial of the British Journal of Music Education (Fautley & Murphy, 2015) we gave some thought to the various ways in which music education manifests itself in teaching and learning situations in a variety of contexts. One of the many roles that the BJME fulfils is to document the changing nature of music education, as represented in the articles which are submitted to it, and subsequently published. But this does not mean that we should not also be asking difficult questions as to what the purposes of music education are, or might be. This is particularly the case when we consider the international nature of the readership of the BJME. What counts as music education in one national context may be very different from that which is practised elsewhere.

Repertory grids were used as a research tool to explore 73-year-old James’ musical development over two years. Choosing two music learning cultures for his instrumental learning, James learned the piano in a college workshop and the Appalachian dulcimer in his local folk group. There were clear changes in his musical skills and attitudes, particularly in relation to performing and practising, and an increase in his musical maturity as he transformed himself from a music listener into a musical performer, reconstructing himself as an amateur musician. The empowerment gained from his reconstruction was a critical factor in James’ self-fulfilment as a mature-age adult.