This article considers the impact that the Swanwick-Tillman spiral article (Swanwick & Tillman, 1986) has had on contemporary thinking in music education in England. Building on a discussion concerning the antecedents of the notion of a spiral, the ways in which a generalist music curriculum can be planned and organised are discussed. Drawing on the contemporary example of the Model Music Curriculum (DfE, 2021), and then charting this thinking as arising from a graded music examination repertoire-based way of planning, this article goes on to explain why the Swanwick-Tillman spiral still has relevance, as well as much to teach us in today’s very different music education world where assessment, measurement and accountability are dominant. Although centred on the situation in England, there are nonetheless implications for curriculum planners in many other jurisdictions too.

This article critically engages with the discipline of African musics in the academy. It examines the process of curriculum transformation of the African music section at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town since 2005 as an emergent curriculum model for an integrated approach to the teaching of African musics at universities. The adoption of this curriculum predated the 2015–2016 fervent calls in South Africa to decolonise the university, which necessitates an approach to teaching African musics not rooted in its colonial past. As is known, the study and research of African musics in the academy partly stemmed from the efforts of European (and later US) researchers who often received support through the British colonial administration and much of their output seemed to be focused on convincing their peers about the virtues of ‘African music’ and the study thereof. Despite this history, there is evidence to support the fact that in most African universities, the music departments are far more interested in teaching Western art music and its virtues. In recognition of the calls by students for radical changes to the curricula in South African universities, the article seeks to answer the question ‘how do we consider ongoing changes to the knowledge both received and produced in this field?’

This article describes some of the experiences of, and lessons learnt by a composer working as Head of Music in a secondary school. The article highlights in particular aspects which are considered to be of value to teachers and other colleagues now embarking on a new era of musical education in schools, notably aspects relevant to the composing component in public examinations. The text includes details of a recording of newly composed music.

We have discussed in these editorials before the broad range of interests that music education encompasses (Fautley and Murphy, 2015a). The range that we described therein is a strength of our discipline. We are, however, now living in troubling times, and the global downturn in the economy is having effects in all sorts of ways on many aspects of our lives, both personal and professional. Music education is not immune from these changes. We are living through a time of austerity, and in many jurisdictions, the refrain has been ‘we're all in this together’ as a way of explaining away government decisions or unpopular economic strategies. But are we? It is in times of austerity that we often feel that we need to make the case for music education even louder than we have done before. Yet herein lies one of our problems. Many music educators feel in these times of austerity that music education is under threat, and that the proper course of action under such circumstances to take is to increase activities related to advocacy. This is problematic in a number of ways, as we shall now discuss.

From time to time the standard and content of musical education in Danish Teacher Training Colleges has been the subject of strong criticism. It has been argued that the courses are out of date; that they should be modernised, and that the quality of instruction should be improved. Yet the criticism is often imprecise – possibly because those who make it are not themselves sufficiently well-informed about the details of the existing courses and the problems faced by those who have to teach and administer them. The author, a very experienced musician, author of numerous music-education publications, and himself a Lecturer at a Teachers College, discusses the principles and problems of organising music as a specialist area of the teacher-education programme.

With colleagues in Japan, the author, a composer and improvising musician, developed novel techniques of collaborative composition. Subsequently – in Japan and in Britain – he explored ways of developing those techniques with school pupils. In this article he writes about the background to that experiment, the professionalism of composers and performing musicians, and the relative importance of boundaries of all kinds (e.g. different frames for the reception of music). In particular, he reflects upon compositional ideas and processes generated by his work with children.

This article examines the state of world music education in secondary schools in Manchester, analysing school curricula and exam specifications alongside interviews conducted with teachers. World music occupies a significant position in music education at Key Stage 3, but its scope becomes progressively limited at higher levels. While teachers recognise the benefits of world music education for promoting cultural understanding and social inclusion, they struggle to maintain it throughout their programmes because of barriers related to examinations, teaching materials and school resources. This creates a dysfunctional learning trajectory that discourages students from studying music, particularly disadvantaging those from weaker socio-economic backgrounds. Nevertheless, teachers’ perspectives, often overshadowed by government policy, evidence strong aspirations to implement multicultural music education in practice.

This paper reviews the implementation (1988) of a practical music-making curriculum in Scotland for 14—16 year olds in the context of its reliance on activity-based learning experiences. Such experiences, which result in the pupil taking part in subject-related activities such as performing, inventing, and active listening, enable knowledge and skills to be applied and developed in a variety of ways, and in so doing reinforce previous learning and allow new opportunities for learning and teaching. This approach has a theoretical foundation in a wide variety of literature, and the paper focuses on literature concerning creative and aesthetic activities, and more specifically the role of active-learning experiences in a musical context.

The first British patent describing an educational game designed for musical ‘amusement and instruction’ was granted in 1801 to Ann Young of Edinburgh, Scotland. The authors' discovery of Young's game box has prompted an examination of the nature and purpose of the six games she designed. Ann Young's patent is discussed in the context of her cultural environment, the history of women inventors, and eighteenth century educational theory. The activities are compared with musical instruction games recently patented in the UK and the USA.

This article examines the impact of the Music Code on the teaching of music in elementary schools during the last ten years of its operation. Secondly, it draws attention to the friction between the teaching profession and the wider musical world as a result of an almost exclusive use of tonic sol-fa to meet the requirements of the Code. Finally, the contribution of William Gray McNaught to music education in his role as editor of the School Music Review is evaluated.

The National Curriculum for Music in England at Key Stage 3 (KS3; age 11–14) declares its purpose that pupils should be inspired to ‘develop a love of music and their talent as musicians’ (DfE, 2013: KS3 Music). The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) have criticised secondary schools for a lack of progress in the musical development of pupils (e.g. Ofsted, 2012). This paper reports on an exploratory study into how far class music lessons at KS3 provide for the development of the musician and the relationship between the musical values of music teachers and classroom practice. The research centres on an investigation into the place of musical competencies in music learning and the contexts within which musicianship can develop. It concludes that classroom music lessons have a tendency to focus more on presenting pupils with a range of ‘taster’ musical experiences than in the development of musicians.

Amongst the most fascinating discoveries made in recent years was the identification of the Egyptian songstress Iti (2450 BC) as the first woman composer to have been mentioned by name in musical history. This paper examines the status of professional women musicians in Ancient Egypt, their role in society and their contribution to various aspects of life and death. Reviewing the range of styles, practices and variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles in which women took part as composers, performers and instructors, the author traces the development of a musical tradition which would appear to throw light upon some long standing prejudices, and to have important implications for music education in multi-cultural schools today.

We have become used over the years to a growing literature addressing the question ‘What's wrong with school music?’ Recently there has been a well-publicised addition to the debate in the form of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's Royal Philharmonic Society lecture, given on 24 April, 2005, and entitled ‘Will serious music become extinct?’

The Percussion Band method is part of our methodological heritage. The method was carefully based on contemporary educational theory and its advocates argued convincingly for its inclusion in kindergarten and school curricula. Critics of the method were heard from the first. This article seeks to examine the arguments for and against the method, the educational beliefs that underlie these positions and to note the influence of the method in the Australian school curriculum.

In this paper, we provide a reflection upon the influence of the Swanwick–Tillman (ST) model (1986) from the perspectives of music research in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this paper we take stock of where music education in New Zealand currently sits in relation to the Swanwick Tillman theory of musical development. We examine the strengths and the weakness of the model 35 years on to ask what it might still offer music educators in a context where issues of culture and colonisation have taken centre stage. We also reflect upon the impact of a visit to New Zealand by Keith Swanwick in 1989. Despite the postmodern or colonial critiques we might make now, we consider if the model may still signify a holistic way of conceiving music development and might still have implications for curriculum design and curriculum making in the 21st century.

The value of playing by ear in instrumental learning has recently been well documented. By-ear reproduction of music is an activity which commands a high level of motivation from people of all ages, but it is seldom pursued in the classroom as an exercise in its own right, independent of improvisation. It is, in fact, ideally suitable for group work in the classroom, where it can be both satisfying for its own sake, and a means by which pupils gain essential aural skills.