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.

This article examines a unique music curriculum and assessment environment through the findings of a practical action research project carried out in secondary schools. I address two current international educational issues: the relationship between formal and informal learning in music, and how individuals’ contributions in collaborative groups might be summatively assessed. Following this I present a model of group composing and explain how it was used as a pedagogical tool in secondary music classrooms. The purpose of this was to help students and their teacher to conceptualise collaborative composing, thereby leading to a clearer understanding and more valid assessment of the processes in which they were engaged.

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.

In 2001, the government in England pledged in the white paper Schools Achieving Success that all primary school pupils who wanted to should have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. The research reported here aimed to establish what contributed to the success of the implementation of this policy. The findings showed that success depended on all school staff being committed to the programme; children having experience of high-quality provision; opportunities to participate in performance; and accessible progression routes.

Earning a living via multiple income streams through a portfolio career is the reality for most music graduates. In the last 10–15 years, music conservatoires around the world have begun to recognise and respond to this reality in the way they train and prepare students for life after study (Bennet, 2008; Draper & Cunio, 2014; Rowley et al., 2015; Schippers et al., 2016). Conservatoire curricula is prescribed and controlled to ensure that students gain the skills required to build a career as a professional musician. Reforming conservatoire curricula to incorporate portfolio career training is an ongoing concern that is made more complex by the different conceptual understandings of what training for a portfolio career means (Latukefu & Ginsborg, 2018). This article contributes to the literature on how students conceptualise and make decisions surrounding their transition into work after graduation. It uses narrative analysis research to investigate the value of introducing career design into the curriculum of a Bachelor of Music. It incorporates narratives by students who took part in a series of interventions designed to increase self-efficacy and explores the role of career indecision in the designing of a creative career. Career indecision in this context relates to the inability of music students to conceive of what they wish for their creative career to look like after graduation, even when a decision is necessary. The narratives reveal how different factors such as family support, cultural and religious backgrounds and prior music education impact on their confidence and perceptions surrounding their ability to design and maintain a creative career. These narratives also uncovered the interplay of career exploration, career indecision and anxiety in the career decision-making process of undergraduate music students.

The unit for Research into Applied Musical Perception (RAMP) was set up in the Music Department of Huddersfield Polytechnic in 1985. Led by Professor George Pratt, then newly appointed as Head of Department, one of its primary tasks has been to explore the possibility of creating a course of aural training for undergraduates that would be radically different from those of conventional examining boards: a course that would be of more direct interest and use to musicians. An initial report on the research was published in BJME in July 1987 Vol. 4, No. 2 pp. (115–138), and a book, Aural Awareness: Principles and Practice was published in May 1990 by Open University Press. In this article Professor Pratt and his current Research Assistant, Simon Cargill, give a taste of the Huddersfield course as it now operates.

There is much dialogue in the academy about the role of doctoral studies in relation to employment, career trajectories and graduate outcomes. This project explores the experiences of Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) graduates and students at the Queensland Conservatorium in Australia to reveal how the programme has impacted upon their professional activities, while also addressing assumptions promulgated through the literature on artistic practice and research education. The paper presents emergent themes and concludes by offering insights into artistic research in music more broadly.

One of the common questions asked of music educators is some sort of variation on ‘music education – why bother?’

The author calls for the physical, kinesthetic sense, to be recognised and understood for its role in all musical experience, on a par with our mental capacities, and also suggests that it is the missing, yet essentially vitalising part, of what might be called a ‘whole human’ response to and engagement with music. This thinking is applied to support an emerging theory of practice, which takes its original inspiration from the principles of Dalcroze Eurhythmics: principles which have been adapted and developed to meet the changing needs of contemporary education.

The recent explosion in ‘world musics’ can be seen as a positive element for music education; but a failure to adopt a well-grounded and consensual approach in British educational institutions may well signal problems for the future of music as a curriculum subject. This paper problematises the use of non- Western musics in schools and colleges, it recognises the need for a more thorough conceptual stance and a reappraisal of the music curriculum and, among a number of options, suggests an anti-racist and intercultural perspective as a possible way forward.

One of the outcomes of the National Music Administrators' Conference held in Brisbane, Australia, in 1980 was a ‘Rationale for Music Education’ in Australian schools. This paper uses this Rationale as a stimulus for the discussion of the role of music in the curriculum. The issues raised here are neither new nor distinctively Australian. However, an attempt has been made to evaluate critically what Eisner would categorise as the ‘contexturalist’ and ‘essentialist’ justification for music in education. In an age of accountability and timetable restraints, teachers and administrators must explain their curricula to different audiences. Therefore, the ability to justify music in the curriculum must become part of the teacher's professional equipment.

This article is a field investigation of the musical memories of preschool teachers and child minders, their experiences and interest in working with music in preschools. It is part of a larger international research project at Mälardalens University, Sweden. The original component of analysis is adults' memories of play. (Sandberg, 2001.) Participants also interpreted their own musical memories and defined music. Under the umbrella entity, WRP (Women's Researchers in Play and Disability) participating project partners were from the USA, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan and Sweden. Participants reported their memories using an instruction sheet, a drawing sheet and a questionnaire.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the parent as a supporter of practice during a whole-class beginner violin programme and whether it is considered most beneficial for practice to be undertaken at home, at school or in no formal manner. This mixed-methods research project involved a year-group of 31 pupils aged 6–7 years from a preparatory school in an affluent area of the south of England over a 10-week period. Two parent questionnaires were administered at the start and end of the programme and analysed together with pupil focus groups and teacher assessment. It was discovered that most pupils played at home only once a week, and this was only with parental help. Many challenges to practising at home were identified, and by the end of the programme parents considered that their children could have made as much progress without practising at home. Pupils considered the most desirable ways for their parents to support them were to watch and listen, and to play together. Parents were unsure what to do except for offering encouragement. Pupils were very clear that playing together at school was preferable to playing at home, and it was evident that finding a way to establish school practice sessions between lessons would be the most enjoyable arrangement and support the most progress.

Much previous international research has demonstrated links between general school attainment and active engagement with music. The research reported here compared the change in examination outcomes in English and mathematics in national examinations at ages 11 and 16 of instrumentalists and non-instrumentalists. Data from 701 pupils showed statistically significant differences in examination outcomes between instrumentalists and non-instrumentalists, which was also related to the duration of learning and the instrument played. Instrumentalists had greater change scores in mathematics, but not English, although instrumentalists of lower socio-economic status showed greater change in both subjects. The implications for music education are discussed.

The issue of inclusion is currently a hot topic in music education both in the UK and elsewhere. There are many discussions about what it means, what it should involve, and how it can be enacted. This is to say nothing of the positive effects inclusion can have on the lives of young people in terms of personal fulfilment, as well as musical participation. For a journal concerned with educational research in music education, as is clearly the case with the BJME, there is, or there should be, more to it, however, than just these simple matters. After all, having children and young people in wheelchairs participating in a musical event is all very well – even if it does not happen often enough - but is this really all we mean by inclusion? And it is this aspect which needs problematisation for music education. After all, having young people who are disabled in some form, visible or invisible, taking part in music education should be something which just happens, we shouldn't need, pardon the phrase, to be making a big song and dance about it!

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.

As the time for the implementation of the National Curriculum in Music approaches, will the tail of assessment begin to wag the dog of class-room music and dissipate all that has been achieved in providing the dynamic, challenging and fulfilling experiences that now characterise many class music lessons? This article sets out some proposals for an assessment strategy which, it is hoped, is faithful to the intentions of the National Curriculum Music Working Group in allowing practical music to flourish but with a greater sense of direction and enhanced awareness of the power of musical expression for teachers and students alike.

The basic aim of this article is to argue that world music should be an integral part of any musical curriculum. An extensive example, drawn from Chinese traditional music, outlines potential benefits that the study of world music offers to the music teacher interested in it either for its own sake or as a means of developing pupils' skills at improvisations and composition. The featured example is a composition for erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle) by the folk musician Abing. Ideas are raised concerning musical context, analysis, melodic structure, tonality, metre, notation and ornamentation.