This article focuses on children's experiences of differences between improvising (i.e. creating spontaneous single-event performances) and composing (i.e. creating revised pieces). Eighteen self-selected children participated from a multi-ethnic, comprehensive Middle School in West London. Twenty-one weekly music-making sessions were conducted over a period of six months. A model mapping qualitatively different ways of experiencing improvisation and composition is presented using data drawn from the analysis of in-depth interviews, observation and recorded performances. The categories also form the arrangement of a model where improvising and composing are distinguished as being orientated towards (i) time, (ii) body, (iv) relations and (iv) space. These findings can be applied to the development of a pedagogy, which challenges some of the assumptions about what it is (and can be) to improvise and compose.

Composing is an obligatory activity at Key Stage 3 in the present National Curriculum in music for England and for Wales. The research programme, based on field visits, seminars and questionnaires, seeks to identify a basis for effective classroom practice through direct observation of experienced teachers and their pupils in twenty-six State secondary schools across England. Visits have also been made to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Group-work is the dominant working method in most secondary schools. Much time is at present wasted in group-work and it contributes significantly to stress in both teachers and pupils. Composing is largely an individual activity and this is insufficiently acknowledged or planned for at Key Stage 3. Too many teachers use methods inappropriate to the resources available to them. There are problems of progression and preservation of pupils' work. Despite these problems there is strong evidence that many children enjoy composing activities in school and compose music in and out of school for a variety of reasons and occasions. Composing is firmly established in our music education curriculum and provides a unique feature of practice in the United Kingdom. When composing is taught well, pupils look forward to their music lessons in the secondary school and approve of and enjoy composing activities.

Although it is widely acknowledged that composition has a part to play in general musical education, some critics have argued that its place in the school curriculum is not justified by the results. John Paynter finds the evidence still on the whole encouraging and suggests that, where there are shortcomings, these should be seen, not as criticism of classroom composing, but as indications of uncertainty about how to help pupils make progress – a dilemma which, perhaps, reflects lack of conviction about the value of creativity in a curriculum based upon a theory of knowledge and progression more helpful to other subjects than it is to the arts in education.

How is information and communications technology (ICT) used to promote musical learning by pupils aged eleven to fourteen, i.e. pupils in Key Stage 3? Inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) visited 52 schools in England, and inspected 161 Key Stage 3 music lessons that made some use of ICT. This article describes the characteristics of the good teaching found in 106 of those lessons, and discusses some issues concerning the use of ICT in classrooms.

This article sets out to investigate the language used by pupils in the appraisal of their own compositions. One objective of the research was to reveal how children used the language of the musical elements as defined by the National Curriculum as pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and structure. The results suggest that the pupils' perspective gives a more differentiated understanding of progression both within and across the musical elements than that presented by Music National Curriculum documentation. The research confirms the view that listening, language and assessment are highly complex and takes issue with the proposals of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to provide level descriptions for music.

Studies in the history of music education reveal much about the place and purpose of music in the changing curriculum. In this article, the ideas of some significant British music educators of the twentieth century are considered, in an evaluation of the apparent goals of music teaching that have been articulated over the decades. The connections between rationale and practice are discussed, with published ideas placed alongside the views of contemporary teachers in a small-scale questionnaire survey. The conclusion is proposed that school music, as a small part of the child's musical identity, must be modest in its intentions but ambitious in its provision.

This study explores ways to develop focused musical listening skills with six- to eight-year-olds. Groups of children listened to short musical extracts and decided upon a best-fit match from a selection of patterns, colours and textures. At all times their ‘expert’ status was emphasised to keep self-esteem as high as possible and maximise response levels. In requiring children to make an ‘expert judgement’ it was hoped that concentrated listening could be better sustained and actively fostered. Results suggest that listening skills were developed, musical self-esteem enhanced and verbal responses scaffolded. The greatest measurable progress was made by the less able musicians and those with low self-esteem.

Reflecting upon the relationship between people and music, the author is led to adopt a new position on musical education. His ideas are based on the work of the philosopher Hannah Arendt, the pedagogue and paediatrician, Janusz Korczak, and the composer R. Murray Schafer – all of whom focus upon the ‘dialogue’ of education. From Korczak is borrowed the idea of the child as ‘a present-state being’ rather than a ‘future-state being’; from Arendt the concepts of labour, work and action; and from Schafer his ‘Wolf Project’ for a musical community. On the basis of these three influences, the author advocates a ‘new manner of enacting music’ instead of ‘simply enacting new music’, basing pedagogic practice on a psycho-analytical approach to education. The pupil–teacher relationship turns on identification and projection. Teachers must nurture pupils' aesthetic choices and opinions as well as their commitment, so that ethical and aesthetic considerations can be brought together in the same musical act. Only in this way can musical education be worthwhile.

Primary school teachers have had to endure a great many changes in the profession over the last decade. Since the advent of the National Curriculum – the most significant change of all – there have been further alterations to the teaching programme. The first was a revision of the National Curriculum itself, followed by the election of a new Government, which rapidly introduced another major change: the prescriptive teaching of literacy and numeracy. To accommodate this, primary schools have had to juggle to maintain a broad and balanced curriculum of foundation subjects. As a result, the position of music has become precarious in some schools; in a study made last summer, evidence from ten respondents shows how it has survived in others. This paper looks at the way these respondents perceive music education, and how the literacy hour, in particular, has affected it. In September 2000, yet another revised curriculum will be introduced. The main problem facing teachers is pressure, but basic training is a key indicator of successful music teaching in primary schools. Since music is such a fundamental education – a belief expressed long ago by Plato, it is vital that we music educators maintain its position in the present-day curriculum.

Life attitudes to, level of involvement with and success in musical learning are all tied to first musical experiences. Consequently an important objective in the planning of any musical programme for young children is to acknowledge their interests in and attitudes to different musical activities. The purpose of this investigation was to determine young children's attitudes to musical activities included in their pre-school musical programme. In particular it sought to discern if preferences exist for certain activities. What emerged from the investigation is that pre-school children generally appear to respond favourably towards involvement in all musical activities but that preferences do exist for moving and playing based activities.

This article examines the variety of meanings attributed to the concept of authenticity, first in interviews about teaching world musics with high school music teachers, and second, in the music education literature. More recent theorising about authenticity in folklore and anthropology introduces several issues that may help music educators to understand the concept differently, including the dichotomous, constructed and popular conceptions of authenticity, and strategies for pursuing the study of it. This interdisciplinary approach to authenticity suggests that, rather than a deterrent to multicultural music education, the concept can become a useful tool in our teaching.

The music curriculum, along with the other arts in primary education in England, is under pressure from an increasing governmental focus on ‘core’ subjects. Recruits to the profession are particularly important to the long-term health of music in schools. As part of a longitudinal study to evaluate the efficacy of the university-based arts courses in preparing student teachers, the author looked at the factors affecting music. In so doing it emerged that feelings of confidence were a significant feature in the profile of successful students. The findings from this longitudinal study contribute to our understanding of how students perceive their development as teachers of music and the other arts in primary schools. The subjects of this study were students following a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Education BA(Ed.) course that prepared them to teach the full range of school curriculum subjects as generalists. The analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews reveals a complex interaction between prior experience and beliefs, and the quality of school experience.

The learning of music can transform the lives of young school children and youths in a Johannesburg township. This article describes the background to the pioneering work of the South African Music Education Trust (SAMET) in its attempts to kindle interest in musical literacy, to fund its projects, and to create a culture of trust and partnership between donors and recipients, some of whom are learning about fund management and accountability for the first time.

The oft-lamented decline of singing in school, like many other reported declines in education (Mills 1996), is probably more imaginary than real. Ask adults to reminisce about singing when they were at school, and their stories of off-task antics during massed renditions of ‘Greensleeves’, ‘The British Grenadiers’ or ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’, of grunters, groaners and pupils asked by their teachers just to mouth the words, do not speak of a golden age of singing in schools. Certainly, any golden age had passed when I started teaching in 1976, and I needed to work as hard as any teacher must now to persuade pupils to sing with effort, concentration and sensitivity, to vary the mood of their singing, when appropriate, from that suited to ‘Football Crazy’, and to cease to use their imagination to produce what they thought were amusing alternatives to printed lyrics. Yes, there was sometimes singing, of a sort, in assembly. And yes, many music teachers ran choirs and other activities for pupils who were particularly interested in singing. But then, as now, it was difficult to draw in boys, and girls whose time was sought also by PE teachers. But the fact that no decline in singing at school is proven does not excuse any complacence about the quality of singing in schools now. To judge from the high standards that may be observed in some schools, they could be much higher generally. This article considers some of the background to singing in secondary school, and describes some of the more successful approaches to singing by pupils aged eleven to fourteen that have been observed by HM Inspectors (HMI).

Since their beginnings, popular music studies have relied primarily on disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and semiotics. However, the nineties saw the emergence of a generation of scholars whose knowledge of the recording studio led them to show a common interest in technological parameters, and to develop new tools for musicological analysis. This article describes the perspectives that their work offers within the realm of education.

Who is responsible for the learning outcomes for a student in higher instrumental education? The issue of students having influence and responsibility over their instrumental learning is a complex question. Based on research, this article discusses three questions. First, the relationship between teachers and students in instrumental lessons; second, the role of the students as practitioners: how independent and responsible their practice behaviour is; third, an institution's role in students' learning. Both teachers and students work in an educational institution. The institutional responsibility for students' learning is the most neglected area of students' learning generally.

Inappropriate assessment of children's voices may be responsible for the high incidence in many societies of adults who label themselves ‘non-singers’. Research into the evolution of human behaviour supports the adoption of a new model of vocal development which illustrates the relationship between the instinctive and the acquired. In setting aside the potentially damaging criteria of age-related Piagetian stages, it may become possible to explain the extraordinary success of voice teachers who have transformed adult non-singers into competent performers through accessing ‘the child within’.

This paper is based on a presentation given to the Early Childhood Commission of the International Society for Music Education seminar ‘Respecting the Child in Early Childhood Music Education’ held at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa in July 1998.

The GCSE music examination is the principal form of accredited study for students aged 15+. (More students take the examination than previously took GCE O-level and CSE examinations combined.) For this reason the examination is generally thought of as a success. An analysis is made of uptake rates during the period 1994-8 and comparisons are made with uptake rates in other optional subjects. Based on this evidence, a suggestion is made that GCSE music is not as successful or attractive to students as is commonly thought. An assumption is made that there are factors that make this situation surprising and worth further research. Some possible reasons for the current situation are explored.