This article begins with a defence of the study of traditional harmony in schools, colleges and universities, despite the welcome and invigorating competition from expanding conceptions of the role and content of music in education, and in society as a whole. But if this study is to retain a place in our curricula it must be taught quickly and effectively. It must limit its demands on teaching time while expanding the techniques for developing facility both in sound and in the symbols used to notate it.

The article summarises French Ministry of Education guidelines for music education and describes examples of actual practice. Mention is also made of Ministry of Culture provision for music education. An attempt is made to reflect current concerns among French music educators. Among issues raised are the nature of musical ability; what counts as music; questions of access and democratisation; and the relationship between classroom music and specialist instrumental tuition. The article is based on material gathered during a study visit to schools and colleges in Paris, and correspondence with teachers, advisers, and inspectors throughout France.

Control of touch is the alpha and omega of beautiful piano playing. Each finger is a member of a playing apparatus that functions as a multiple lever comprising six segments, from shoulder to fingertips, each of which is controlled by its particular muscles. When a note is played inadequately, tests on the finger and wrist joints usually reveal weaknesses and the need for specific isometric gymnastic exercises to strengthen the muscles that control them. These produce a unity in the functioning of the whole limb, without which complete control is impossible. Such unity is duplicated by the kinaesthetic memory, and confirmed at subsequent practices.

This article is an attempt to explore what we Secondary School Music Teachers should do in our music lessons. To illuminate this problem the author postulates two rôles which he believes many music teachers adopt more or less whole-heartedly: the ‘Instructor’, who passes on a body of received skills, information and perhaps values; and the ‘Enabler’, who sets up conditions in which his or her pupils may discover music.

Although both rôles can be fruitful in some areas of the music curriculum, the author considers them inadequate, and attempts to describe a new role which teachers might find more helpful. He outlines ways in which the teacher who adopts this role might operate when teaching Composition, Literature Studies, Audition, Skills and Performance (C(L)A(S)P).

The article begins with a justification of peripatetic instrumental teaching in maintained schools, and counters the two-pronged attack of financial cuts by local education authorities, and the accusation of ‘elitism’.

Much of the information concerning selection for instrumental tuition was gathered by means of a questionnaire amongst the peripatetic staff from nine L.E.A.s. A summary of the results appears in the article.

One of the main recommendations suggests the setting up of a ‘preliminary instrumental course’, which uses the results of the investigation to provide a more efficient method of selection.

In an attempt to clarify thinking about the musical preferences of fourteen-year old schoolchildren, the author devised an experiment to test the hypothesis that musical preference relates to the personality types of extroversion and introversion, as defined by Eysenck. The results did not confirm this hypothesis, so other factors – the sex of the subjects, the kinds of music and the chosen items themselves – were analysed and their interaction evaluated. There was no hierarchy of factors and the conclusion is that fourteen-year-olds are able to make judgements based on musical criteria.

This article traces the development and influences on music teaching within the state primary school system in West Germany since 1900 and looks at recent significant curriculum changes in the Nordrhein Westfalen Grundschule music curriculum.

The popular view that ‘the gifted can look after themselves’ is considered with reference to the identification of gifted orchestral instrumentalists. Among agroup of professional orchestral musicians, a substantial number are found to have started lessons on their principal instrument not on their own initiative, but on that of their school. The absence of a ‘method’ for the identification of gifted instrumentalists is considered, and some ways whereby the music teacher may develop an environment in which more gifted instrumentalists identify themselves are suggested.

This is the story of a remarkable change in approach to musical education which has taken place in Scottish secondary schools during recent years.

Readers will bear in mind that the system of education in Scotland is independent of, and different from, that established in England. It is administered locally by education authorities which, together with head-teachers, are responsible for the curriculum taught within the schools. The Secretary of State for Scotland, nevertheless, retains an overall responsibility for the structure and balance of the school curriculum, which he fulfils by providing education authorities and head-teachers with general advice and guidance on curriculum matters. He is advised on these matters by HM Inspectorate of Schools (Scotland) and by the Consultative Committee on the Curriculum. The Consultative Committee on the Curriculum, in turn, is advised on musical matters by its subcommittee, the Scottish Central Committee on Music. Two external examinations, Ordinary and Higher Grades – taken at ages 16 and 17 respectively – are the responsibility of the Scottish Examination Board.

Scotland has a population of some five and a half million people. It has four professional orchestras – two with international reputations – professional opera and ballet companies, national youth brass and wind bands, and orchestra. There are over four hundred secondary schools. Instruction in music has been a feature of Scottish schools for centuries.

An integrated musical experience is an elusive event whose occurrence is acknowledged – consciously or unconsciously – by all human beings. It comprises numerous interactive factors, any of which can impede or facilitate the move towards musical integration.

The implications exist that all human beings are inherently music-beings, that music is inherently therapeutic and that musical and self-integration are reciprocal. Thus changes in either will be reflected in the other, and when used in a specifically therapeutic way, music will promote self-integration. Acknowledging these implications broadens and enriches the concepts of healing, of teaching, and of music making, so that all who participate in these events can potentially be profoundly moved towards a more integrated creative experience.

The development of the guitar in the twentieth century has been sufficiently significant to warrant inclusion at all levels of music education. This article considers the extent and manner of its educational involvement and questions whether the response to the instrument has reflected its true potential.

Compulsory classroom music in Upper Schools is often not only ineffective but occasionally counterproductive. The enthusiastic young musician may be deterred from pursuing and enjoying the subject on account of the apathy or hostility of his or her contemporaries.

By permitting the motivated children to choose to study music, in other words to ‘opt in’, their interest and general musical education is greatly enriched. They are being taught in the company of like-minded enthusiasts.

Extra-curricular activities, which the author regards as a pinnacle of music making in the Upper School, receive enhanced status because of the standing of the subject in the school at classroom level.

From the viewpoint of European Music Year (EMY) the author, currently HM Staff Inspector for Music and Chairman of the EMY Advisory Committee for Education, makes some general observations about the present condition of and future prospects for music education in the United Kingdom. Reviewing educational initiatives which have been taken during EMY, he relates these to the wider issues which inevitably preoccupy many of us at the present time. Despite the gloomy prognostications being made by some concerning the future of music education, he prefers at this stage to point to positive achievements and to suggest possible lines of development for the future.

‘Project’ is something of a misnomer for the complicated string teaching organisation which now involves some thousand young string players, twenty ILEA schools in and around the Tower Hamlets area, and 35 qualified string teachers, mostly on a part-time basis. At no time in the early days was any such structure projected: it has grown up as a result of experience and considerable generosity on the part of the ILEA in allowing scope for experimentation and expansion.

‘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.