Possibly because very few teachers in Britain are fluent readers of Scandinavian languages while, on the other hand, the majority in the academic professions in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland speak and read – not infrequently write – English, the flow of thinking about music education and its developments often appears to be one way.

Yet although it may be true to say that, over the last twenty years or so, music educators in the Nordic countries have drawn quite a lot of inspiration from beyond their own borders (Finland and Sweden tending to look towards Hungary; Norway, Iceland and Denmark perhaps turning more often to Britain and the United States), it would be a serious error to imagine that they have no significant ideas of their own! Indeed, an enormous amount has been achieved in these countries from which the rest of us can usefully learn.

This article investigates the possibilities of a vocational pedagogy for undergraduate popular music education which is grounded in site and city. The value of work-integrated curricula in tertiary music environments is well established; however, often absent from such discussions is consideration of how geospatial contexts mediate the opportunities and resources available to universities. In response, we provide a critical comparison of how work-integrated learning (WIL) has been developed in two undergraduate popular music degrees in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Through comparison, we consider how the geographic locations of both programmes have shaped WIL, as well as identifying the specific economic, cultural and political tensions that emerge.

The purpose of this study was to explore musicians’ approaches to performance during practice and identify the factors that underpinned their approaches. We hypothesised that musicians would be able to recall their focus, knowledge and thoughts of their own repertoire during music performance and that such data would reveal musicians’ cognitive behaviours during the performance. By analysing musicians’ retrospective verbal protocols, we found that musicians used four main reasoning processes – study, static analysis, intuition and performer’s analysis – in their approach to music performance. The findings show that musicians utilise multiple cognitive behaviours for music performance. The implications for instrumental music teaching are discussed.

Guided by three theoretical frameworks in vocational psychology, (i) theory of work adjustment, (ii) two factor theory, and (iii) value discrepancy theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish pre-service music teachers' values and the role of fit between person and environment in understanding vocational satisfaction. Participants were 85 students enrolled in the department of music education in a Turkish university. The Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ) was used to examine the participants’ values in six dimensions: achievement, comfort, status, altruism, safety and autonomy. Results revealed that the pre-service teachers value achievement most followed by autonomy, which suggests that they would like to have a sense of accomplishment and control in their future job. The degree to which their values fit their predictions about future work environment was found to be highly correlated with vocational satisfaction. These results provided evidence that the vocational theories used in the current study offers a helpful and different perspective to understand the pre-service teachers' satisfaction with becoming a music teacher in the future. We believe that researchers in the field of music education may use these theories and MIQ to examine the role of values in pre-service and in-service music teachers' job satisfaction.

This study aims to increase understanding of the values and outcomes of teacher action research in conservatoire education. Teacher action research has been found to stimulate both professional development and improvement of teaching practice. A multiple-case study design was employed to examine teachers’ activities and their perceptions of the value of action research. Findings from the cross-case analysis include teachers’ perceptions of action research as a way to stimulate the advancement of both their teaching practice and their professional development. Constructive collaborations and self-reflections related to teacher action research were found to reinforce their learning and teaching.

The purpose of this service-learning action research study was to develop and investigate after-school individualised vocal lessons for secondary students aged 14–18 years (n = 15) taught by preservice music educators (PMEs) (n = 12) in the United States. In service learning, all parties should benefit from the experience while addressing curricular and community needs. Therefore, our intentions were to: (a) improve secondary student preparedness for solo experiences, (b) provide an authentic teaching experience to improve the quality of instruction given by PMEs, and (c) develop a mutually beneficial and collaborative service-learning experience. The following themes emerged from the data: (a) perceptions of teaching disposition – such as confidence, interpersonal skills and enthusiasm; (b) perceptions of teaching skills – such as student engagement, questioning techniques and responsive teaching; and (c) perceptions of pedagogical content knowledge – such as vocal anatomy, physiology and pedagogy.

Given the differences in continuing musical after primary school, this study works with the idea that the development of music-making habits requires flow, which, in turn, depends on family musical practice. Flow is the state of mind of immersion in an intrinsically rewarding activity, which represents an optimal challenge fostering persistence and skill growth. Based on 164 students (82 girls) from six schools in Catalonia, we compared flow in primary school musical practice between students with high and low levels of family musical practice, concluding that family context should be considered in adapting musical activities to students’ previous experiences.

How do we channel teenagers' interest in music? What guides our music teaching today, and what possibilities are there for development and change? These questions have given me occasion to take a closer look at the situation of music teaching today.

Many teachers have asked themselves how we in the comprehensive school and the music school can look after the zest and creative power which are often exhibited by teenagers when they perform music freely, not under the direct control of a teacher. I have also, on quite a number of occasions during lessons, registered resignation and tedium on the part of pupils.

The consequence has been drop-out from music school – sometimes experienced as a relief both by teacher and pupil. Despite the fact that the educational orientation has been based on a ‘musical encounter’ between teacher and pupil, this encounter has not occurred (or has sometimes occurred with a difference which certainly might have been corrected). But the pupil's great interest in music has not diminished – great interest, that is, in music as the pupil understands the term!

‘Improvisation’ is a provocative word. For some the word is synonymous with lack of discipline, absence of intellectual rigour and anti-musical randomness; for others, it embodies life-giving qualities of freedom, spontaneity and natural expression. The polarisation is equally evident in music education circles: those who regard the process in terms of training and appreciation perhaps favouring the former view, while those who tend towards the notion of education through music doubtless endorsing the latter.

The Report of the Working Group for Music on the National Curriculum suggested that music teachers should incorporate music from non-Western cultures into their programmes of study. African Week proved to be an ideal opportunity to introduce the idea of music and dance from Africa to both students and the wider community in a predominantly white area, as well as to address the vexed problem of how to teach combined arts without diluting standards in the individual art forms.

This is a sister article to one that appeared in this journal in 1999, which established benefits in coupling instrumental study and voice-leading analysis, primarily for performers but also for analysts. That analytical students too were more receptive to study when connected with their instrument was the cue for the present article; performance has much to offer the teaching/learning of non-tonal analytical techniques founded on the basic tenets of set theory. This article details an experimental curriculum, ‘Practising set theory’, tested at Lancaster University across 2001–2, in comparison with more traditional methods employed across 1995–2002, and in relation to the new ‘Music benchmark statement’ (2002). Beyond the specifics, it is hoped this research may interest other practitioners seeking alternative pedagogical approaches to parts of the Music curriculum perceived as difficult or especially demanding.

A challenge was issued, in the first International Journal of Music Education, to find ways to achieve a principle of music education which progressive music educators and traditional African music education have in common:‘an all-round development of the child’. This paper takes up this challenge by exploring the idea that creativity is an essential part of western education. Even though this idea receives the unprecedented support of widely respected western educators of the 20th century and of the Tanglewood Symposium, ‘…those with creative potential are neglected, if not discriminated against, at all levels in American education’ (MacKinnon, 1978, p. 169.) To ascertain why this is so, socio-economic studies are presented which reveal how closely linked the issue of creativity in education is to issues which are beyond the realm of music education or of education in general. The suggestion is that these connections adversely effect the all-round development of the child.

Several of the articles in this issue encourage us to re-think taken for granted attitudes and practice, to jolt us out of complacency. Take ‘creativity’ for example. The word tends to get bandied around as a catch-all, so that it loses touch with any specific meaning. Jere Humphreys, in his Point for Debate, ‘Toward a reconstruction of ‘creativity’ in music education’ takes the long view, and ranges from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to postmodernist ideologies. The basic tension (dualism) he identifies as being between realist and idealist positions, which leads him to conclude that creativity needs to be understood as a social construct. But there are no quick-fixes: to comprehend its significance requires us to consider psychological, cultural, and political/social and economic factors. Likewise,words such as ‘tradition’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘context’ tend to have politically correct connotations in connection with world music. But Huib Schippers, in his paper maintains that almost all music is transmitted out of context, and that the formal education system is a major exercise in recontextualisation. Music educators have to come to terms with what he calls the ‘global flow’.

By developing techniques for describing the varieties of behaviours and experiences in a college-level Dalcroze Eurhythmics class and by using those techniques to record practices in two semesters of Eurhythmies classes, this study addressed both the need in the arts for systematic procedures for documenting the nature of arts experiences and the need to codify features in a Dalcroze Eurhythmics class.

The findings yield a description of regular practices in one particular classroom which may provide a base for future research. The findings also suggest that description of surf ace phenomena does not capture all that we need to know about the instruction process, and it may not yield an understanding of what occurs in a Eurhythmies class.

‘Creative music-making’, as developed in recent years in Great Britain and other countries, has also become popular in Japanese music education; for many music teachers have come to think seriously about the significance of child-centred music education instead of teacher-centred music education. Such a trend seems to be new. However, as in the United States and Great Britain, child-centred music education has been implemented previously – during the 1920's, in Japan's case. This development began in the Elementary School Attached to Nara Women's Higher Teachers College. The author describes the ideas and practices of creative music education in this school, and its historical background, comparing them with creative music-making today.