This article is written to show that composition can become an integral part of an instrumental teacher's methodology. Current musical education in schools in England and Wales is trying to give children a broad understanding of what music can contribute to the lives of all - listeners and performers. The starting point for this is composition. If instrumental teachers can introduce children to this discipline along with the disciplines of instrumental technique and a love of performing, we can create true, well-balanced musicians.

Through this approach it is possible that we can develop an integrated music curriculum that joins together the expertise of the classroom music teacher and the instrumental teacher, with resulting benefits to children, who can then see that music is not divided between the creative classroom and the re-creative instrumental and performing worlds.

One of the many roles of music teachers is to stimulate creative thinking and creative activity in their pupils. This obligation to help unlock latent musical talent in young people is no less applicable to the disabled than it is to the able-bodied. Music technology has a central place within this process. There are conditions for creativity, some of which may be precluded from the disabled. It is necessary, therefore, for the special needs music teacher to be aware of these conditions and the way in which a particular disability may bar access to any of them. Those involved in the design of either music hardware or software need to be responsive to these factors, through ongoing collaborative work. This paper was presented at a Conference of the Drake Research Project, University of York, November, 1990.

This article, based on research for an MA (December 2000), investigates the connections between the private teacher and music in the National Curriculum. In the process present perceptions and practice are explored to gain a clearer understanding of the situation as it is today. Various ways of improving communications between schools and private teachers are looked at, with a view to helping the pupil feel that school and private lessons are working in harmony. From the research it has been found that an awareness exists of the need to develop teaching philosophies that relate the private lesson to music in the National Curriculum.

An increasing amount of research emphasises the influence of body movement on the perception of music. This study contributes to the research by investigating whether varied qualities of body movement, when aligned to music may affect the way children attribute meaning to that music. To address this question, 34 children (aged 9–10) were divided into two groups, each of which engaged in distinct listening activities by aligning with discrete versus continuous movements on diverse pieces of music. As a pre- and post-test, children were first invited to move freely to a piece of music and subsequently to draw a visual representation of the piece. Finally, they were asked to verbally explain how the drawings were linked with the music. Findings, based on the children’s drawings and verbal explanations, offer interesting insights on the way different qualities of body movement can influence the categories of visual representations, arousal and voices of the music described. Moreover, the role of visual representation emerges as a way to gain insight into a child’s musical sense-making, principally when the product is analysed together with the process and the gestures employed to accomplish it. The findings of this study may offer relevant insights for music education. Firstly, in the way movement may influence music sense-making and secondly, how multimodal interaction (bodily, visual and verbal) may inform the process of musical understanding in children.

The language of music shares a number of basic processing mechanisms with natural languages, yet studies of learner autonomy in music education are rare. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of fostering music students’ learner autonomy in performance practice through a series of curriculum changes. A mixed-methods approach, including a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews, was used to investigate two cohorts of music education students (N = 74) from Hong Kong. The analysis reveals the students’ autonomous learner characteristics, including the ability to formulate their own learning strategies, identify both musical and non-musical weaknesses and take appropriate steps to improve their performance skills.

In this article the author attempts to briefly review styles of research and consider some implications for music education. It is argued that, although research constitutes a limitless range of activities, there are none the less certain essential conditions to be met. General areas for research are identified that seem central to music education. Note. This article first appeared in the International Journal of Music Education, No. 1 (May 1983), and is reprinted with permission of the editor and the International Society of Music Education.

This article reports on a case study in a Norwegian primary school where nearly 50 fifth-grade pupils took part in a creative music-making project. Facilitated by two professional artists, they created an original piece of music and performed their composition for an audience at the end of the project week. A substantial part of the data consisted of recorded sounds, notations, transcribed interviews and documentations of the process of music composition from the first ideas to the final performance. The analysis was conducted from a sociocultural perspective with a special focus on the mediating tools used in the community of creative musical practice. The findings suggest that the cultural tools used in the project were dynamic and interactive, employed by both the facilitators and the participants. The mediating tools found in the creative music making make up a complex toolbox the participants share and develop, consisting of both psychological and material tools. There were three main categories of mediating tools identified. First, the use of symbolic signs, such as graphic notation, was important from the initial stages when the participants developed musical ideas to the final performance. Second, the actions and interactions of music making, such as conducting gestures shared and developed through the project, were both founded on traditional conductor signs but also transformed and adapted to new ways of mediating musical meaning in this particular project. Third, the participants worked with ‘creative reworkings’ of experiences in this project. Through the transformation of previous experiences into the creation of new musical material, important mediating tools were identified as experiences and meaning in the creative musical practice.

The study and practice of improvisation in music departments of Australian colleges and universities tends to be dominated by jazz and other African-American styles. However, the School of Music of the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne has developed a course of study with a different focus. While rooted in the fundamentals of jazz performance, the philosophy of the course is that students at the end of the twentieth century should endeavour to develop their own musical ‘voice’. An important means of assisting this development is the encouragement for students to compose their own music as the basis for improvisation. In many cases personal concerns and events form the basis for these original pieces and allow performers to develop their own compositional concepts. This is also a significant means of allowing the music to reflect the era and culture of the performers. This article outlines an investigation of ten students conducted over the three years of their degree studies. The investigation aimed to ascertain the conditions under which a personal voice might be acquired and the extent to which composition was employed in the participants' major performances.

The general aim of this article is to explore South Asian music and culture in an educational context. The fieldwork on which it is based mainly consists of semi-structured interviews with pupils of South Asian origin (aged 11–18) who attend a secondary school in Ilford, Essex. The learning methods of South Asian musicians are considered and a detailed investigation of the socio-cultural environment in which these learning methods are related is undertaken, focusing on the role that music plays in the formation of concepts of culture, ‘identity’ and ‘place’. The majority of the musical material is drawn from the South Asian genre of bhangra, concentrating on the improvisations and rhythms of dhol players.

Despite recent moves toward a more collaborative relationship between the academic pursuit of music analysis and the practical pursuit of music performance, there remains a gulf between the two disciplines. This is partly because attempts at collaboration have generally focused on the use of music performance as a way of teaching music analysis rather than the use of music analysis as a way of teaching aspects of music performance. This article describes the development of a resource for teaching musical awareness using analytical techniques and assesses how this relates to teachers' own concerns and practices.

The development of musicians and the continuity of the musical art should be the main thrust of music education. The institutions of education should therefore be equipped to mould the development of music in society and to make the strongest input into musical expressions that are fashionable, acceptable and available. Formal music education came to Nigeria by way of Western institutions, drawing from the cultural traditions of Western societies. On the other hand, the media and other agencies have brought in other types of music acceptable in Western societies outside their academic sectors. Musical and cultural contact has given birth to the contemporary popular music of Nigeria that integrates Nigerian and non-Nigerian elements. With the growth of city life, commerce, industry and communication, this music has grown in popularity, in some cases sweeping every other thing aside. The attendant ‘pop phenomenon’ also means that cultural intrusion from outside Nigeria has grown more menacing. Who controls the popular music in Nigeria today? This paper tries to answer this question and in addition presents some data on the prevailing perspectives in the hope that the Nigerian Government and all music educators should range plans and solutions against them.

Although there are many choices for teachers who are considering music technology in the classroom, care has to be taken not to be swayed by novelty value alone. What is required is software that can be linked directly to children's maturation as composers and instruments that make use of their existing playing skills. Sometimes it is difficult to make the right decision, as user friendliness can outweigh the educational value for the pupils. By looking at all that is available a more informed decision can be taken when purchases are made. This new dimension to music education offers an opportunity to reassess music learning and how thinking and working in groups can be developed in the music lesson.

Work such as that of John Cooksey on boys’ changing voices has influenced choral practice in the USA and in certain UK youth choirs, but has hitherto had little impact in UK schools where many teachers continue to believe that boys’ voices ‘break’. Different practices are found across the independent and maintained sectors of secondary education. The former draws on the choral tradition associated with cathedral music. The latter tends, with notable exceptions, to subscribe to the populist media view that ‘boys don't sing’ or that singing by boys is individualised and the exceptional result of ‘X Factor’ style talent shows. In neither case is there much evidence of a systematic attempt to apply research findings to develop a structured programme of vocal development for boys in early adolescence. The paper examines case studies of different choral practice in schools where boys do sing, but as the result of enthusiastic teachers working in isolation rather than a systematic, research-based approach to boys’ singing development.

My purpose is to develop better understanding of John Paynter's professional life and work, and by examining his pedagogic principles, discern something of the system of beliefs that underlay his commitment to finding a place for music within a system of general education. A number of significant influences are identified that bear upon his thought and practice and which in conjunction with his vocation as a composer-teacher come to privilege a process of making that is thought to bring order and coherence not only to musical thought but by analogy to life lived creatively. Portraying John as existential-humanist, although reductive, has a two-fold purpose; it exposes and invites critique of the creative ideology John so zealously promoted and at the same time provides a basis for a wider critique, and in particular, critique of current and future ideas about music, music education and its practice. In this way, John's life and work can be viewed as a vital source of long-living value.

The teaching of choral conducting does not feature widely within higher education in the UK (Durrant, 1994, 1997). However, in recent years interest has been shown by the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD) in the establishment of centres of choral conducting education in particular institutions around the country. Following recent research on the development of a model of effective choral conducting (Durrant, 1996; Apfelstadt, 1997), this article focuses on some of the key learning processes, methods and procedures that would be central to the development of a choral conducting curriculum in existing and potential higher education courses and programmes. The intention in the design and development of such courses is not primarily to create conductors of elite choral ensembles, but rather to ensure that those entering the teaching profession and directing amateur choral groups in churches and the community have the requisite choral conducting knowledge and skills to facilitate systematic and sustained improvement in the quality of choral activity at these levels.

In this article consideration is given to some of the issues raised in Malcolm Ross's provocative critique of music education and music educators (TJJME, 1995, 12, 185–201). Ross's claim that there is empirical evidence to support a view of school music as a failing arts subject requires closer examination and critical evaluation. Whilst his contention that the arts subjects cannot really be taught in schools is both interesting and challenging, teachers will question some of Ross's underlying pedagogical and aesthetic arguments. They are also likely to conclude that he pays insufficient attention to the many developments that have taken place in the theory and practice of music education.

This paper reports on the findings related to the possible selves of males who participate in choir. It focuses on the perceptions of participants’ past, present and future identities and the way these interact to influence decisions about choir. The paper is derived from a larger study, set in Australia, which investigated the perceptions of success, notions of masculinity and the impact of possible selves on male choral participation. Four choirs of different age groups were involved: junior school, secondary school, university and community. Data were collected through interviews, focus groups, surveys and observational video analysis. Findings demonstrated that the strength of possible selves was influenced by past experience and present self-perception, which impacted future projections of self and subsequent decisions about choir. The research points to the importance of providing positive and fulfilling experiences of choir in school because of its positive impact on individual well being and the active pursuit of desired goals.

What exactly is the relationship between notation and the music we hear? How has this relationship been affected by the development of first analogue and then digital recording of sound during the present century? This article looks at these issues from the point of view of a composer working with both traditional and unconventional notation and with recorded sound in the electronic music studio. The arguments present a very much condensed and simplified version of a discussion presented in the author's recently published book On Sonic Art.

Ensemble playing is considered central in specialist higher music education, not least because of its collaborative nature. It is a subject in which students are expected to take significant responsibility for learning together during their many unsupervised ensemble rehearsals. This article reports from a qualitative case study investigating the ways three undergraduate student chamber ensembles negotiate musical problem-solving, emphasizing their listening efforts. Findings reveal four ways of interacting – complete, incomplete, personal and expert negotiations – and also suggest new ways of understanding aural awareness within ensembles. Working from a sociocultural perspective, the study proposes that listening is also a collective phenomenon.