In this issue, we witness different ways in which to illuminate the complexities of music teachers and music teaching processes and the conditions through which students learn and teachers embody different and contested images of professional ideals, ideologies and practices. In studies drawn from as far afield as New Zealand, Australia, Republic of Ireland and the UK, authors locate current debates about practice and offer careful analysis, insights and compelling ideas for change that range from teacher professionalism and accountability to community engagement and government policy. There are a range of theoretical frameworks incorporated (including cognitive psychology, constructivism, interpretative phenomenology, and sociocultural theories of situated learning, zone of proximal learning, and concept formation) and the authors' work relates to a range of contested areas. The articles move between teacher thinking and classroom practice to key factors in students’ learning and achievement and music learning in the ‘third age’. All are concerned with the ways in which beliefs, values and identities, structural and curriculum reforms, informal and formal learning sites, and pre-service and continuing professional development, shape and affirm the importance in building understandings of students and teachers' musical lives and how particular practices get embodied in particular contexts. The sites of practice include secondary school music, conservatoire research, university programmes, music communities and local government sectors. The articles draw on diverse data generated via in-depth interview methods, questionnaires, document analysis, observation and accounts of musical experiences.

The past 20 years have seen ongoing changes to the musical landscape of everyday life and growing evidence of the power of music and its ubiquity in our lives. The music education community, both academic and professional, are becoming increasingly aware of the need to rethink and change practices of teaching and learning that are likely to be beneficial to all. Knowing that across nations and cultures music accompanies the lives of 3.5-year-olds to 85-year-olds for over 80% of the time makes it all the more important that the topics of research that are featured in this final issue for 2011 reflect an international line up of studies originating from Spain, China, New Zealand, Africa, Australia and Britain. Echoing BJME's original aims ‘to strengthen connections between research and practice’ several articles reflect the rise in prominence of practitioners who undertake research as a means of informing practice and professional development.

A little over two years ago, as part of the British Journal of Music Education silver jubilee celebrations, a symposium was held at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education to which all past editors of the journal were invited. It was a particular honour that, although already physically frail, John Paynter, who has recently died aged 79, agreed to make the long journey from York to be present at this event. In a short but perfectly judged speech, he demonstrated that he had lost none of the intellectual acuity and perceptiveness which had made him one of the most respected figures in the world of music education.

The music industry in the 21st century uses digital technology in a wide range of applications including performance, composition and in recording and publishing. Much of this digital technology is freely available via downloads from the internet, as part of software included with computers when they are purchased and via applications that are available for some mobile phones. Such technology is transforming music and the way people approach many traditional music activities. This paper is about transformative practices that are underway in some secondary school music classrooms. Practices are being shaped by the culture of the schools and the students that they recruit. We describe the perceptions and practices of nine music teachers in four New Zealand secondary schools with regard to digital technology and how they are changing their work in their classroom. Data collection techniques include interviews, observation and a questionnaire. The data were subjected to two stages of thematic analysis. Grounded analysis was used to allow the teachers' voices emerge. This was then followed by the application of five themes identified in the literature on pedagogic change prompted by teachers' adoption of digital technologies.

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.

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.

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 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.

The big challenge of John Paynter's work in music education from the late 1960s on was that his approach to children's music was that of composer to composer. This was markedly at odds with the training of most music teachers at that time whose specialism – whose status even – was most likely to be rooted in their performance skills. For many teachers, composition was an entirely alien activity, with ‘real’ composers as distanced figures, to be approached through history and appreciation or possibly performance of their works.

It was my wife to be, whilst teacher training at Goldsmiths in the early seventies, who drew my attention to this extraordinary man. Large, amiable, typically English in so many ways, polished shoes, be-suited, courteous, brilliant. She remembers now some 40 years later the experience of being taught, being inspired by him as a visiting lecturer on her postgraduate, initial teacher-training primary course, promulgating a philosophy of creativity in the class room whose mantra was manna to the ears of eager students, wanting in turn to teach and inspire children. This visit followed closely the publication of the revolutionary Sound and Silence, a book that changed the face of music education for ever.

Although there are many examples of notable string programmes there has been relatively little comparative analysis of these programmes. This paper examines three benchmark string programmes (The University of Illinois String Project, The Tower Hamlets String Teaching Project and Colourstrings) alongside Music4All, an innovative string programme run over three years in five primary schools in regional Australia. The paper discusses difficulties encountered in the Australian experience and gives recommendations for future programmes including allowing adequate time and resources for the planning phase and the importance of ongoing professional development for staff.

The power of one-to-one tuition in Higher Music Education is evidenced by its continuing place at the heart of conservatoire education. The need to examine this student–teacher relationship more closely has been emphasised in the last decades by increasing understanding of processes of student learning in Higher Education as a whole, and in particular the impact which student–teacher relations have on learning. Literature on PhD supervision, for example, has highlighted the depth of applied craft skills made possible in one-to-one interaction, and has also drawn attention to a range of potential difficulties encountered in the supervisory relationship. This paper draws on findings from a study at a conservatoire in the UK, which explored student and teacher perceptions of one-to-one tuition. It analyses student and teacher perspectives on the relationship and considers the match between their perceptions within student–teacher pairs. Findings demonstrate diverse characterisation of the relationship, and varied approaches to extending a social relationship beyond the confines of the lesson. Comparison of student–teacher pairs indicates that the students tended to mirror their teachers' opinions about appropriate social interaction. This was one example of the dynamics of power operating within the one-to-one relationship, although these were rarely discussed explicitly. Such dynamics of power made it difficult in some instances for students to articulate difficulties with learning and to change teacher. There was also evidence of a possible connection between dynamics of power in the relationship and students' reluctance to develop artistic and professional self-direction. The implications of these findings are considered in terms of conceptualising one-to-one tuition, and the need to review the professional framework of its delivery in Higher Music Education.

This article presents part of a five-year Australian study, the purpose of which was to look at learning singing in a pedagogical environment designed using sociocultural theory. The classroom environment was transformed over 5 years in consultation with other staff members and used the reflective journals that students wrote during that time as a way of refining and changing the design. Themes emerging from the journals were analysed to inform changes to the design. One of the main themes to emerge was student reflections about the scientific concepts they were taught and the ways the concepts were introduced. These reflections became the basis for the discussion in this paper. The study demonstrated that the students' acquisition of scientific concepts of singing affected both their singing performance and their ability to learn in a positive way. The study suggests that scientific concepts of singing could become part of the students' toolbox that helps develop their singing by making meaning of what they are experiencing kinaesthetically and aurally while they sing.

Team teaching – two or more teachers sharing the training of a group of students – has only recently been implemented in the curricula of many higher music education institutions. This article reports on a survey of 142 music students and their tutors from three departments (the Schools of Strings, Vocal and Opera Studies, and Wind, Brass and Percussion) in a major British conservatoire. Team teaching had been in use for one year in the first department, five years in the second and 30 years in the third. The extent to which respondents valued team teaching was not, however, related to the length of time it had been in use. Key benefits of team teaching were seen as exposure to new ideas and additional feedback. Respondents suggested a variety of improvements to mitigate drawbacks such as perceived differences between tutors' approaches and limited time for individual tuition. Provided tutors and students communicate effectively with each other and negotiate where necessary, this method of teaching and learning is likely to be beneficial for all.

One of the most impressive things about John Paynter was that he was an excellent teacher; not flashy or showy, but quietly unassuming. Numerous friends and colleagues have commented on how he could walk into a classroom of children or adults and with a few quiet words get them all concentrating on making music together and thinking hard about what they were doing. This certainly inspired me to become a teacher, although it took me many years to learn how to direct and organise with apparently such small interventions. He could pick a few apt words and create a perfect environment for working.

Outside the music department at the University of York is a tall bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth. One of my abiding memories of John Paynter is walking in conversation with him through the university campus and seeing him leap towards this sculpture, indignantly (and with some difficulty) removing a woolly hat that had been placed on the top by some disrespectful student. The small things mattered to John – not that he would have seen such irreverence for art as a small thing – and he was always prepared to remedy them himself through direct, practical action. This made him a head of department who always seemed to have time for his students, and he spent hours in dissertation tutorials guiding me slowly and thoughtfully through debates about music education that he must have explored and resolved for himself many years before. I learnt so much from his precision in writing, his critical thinking and his patient mentoring – qualities I now aspire to in an academic career on which I would never have embarked without his insistence that I should do a PhD. John's retirement coincided with the end of my undergraduate degree, and so sadly I was not able to continue doctoral studies with him, though he remained encouraging and interested in all aspects of my work long after I had left York.

This paper presents theoretical perspectives for choral conducting education. A wide range of related literature on choral practice and education in higher education contexts, as well as training in the workplace is reviewed. Whilst various attributes for effective choral conducting practice have been identified by research studies, there has been no systematic research on the process of choral conductor education and the contexts in which it occurs, particularly in the UK. The proposed framework consists of six interconnected parameters: (i) the tutor(s), (ii) the learner(s), (iii) the music repertoire and the singers, (iv) the sequence and amount of training, (v) the learning outcomes and (vi) the socio-cultural context(s), including teaching context(s) where practice takes place. The framework itself offers insights and related approaches for the development of choral conducting education.