"Musical Futures" is an approach to music education grounded in the principles of informal learning. Research has shown that "Musical Futures" has profoundly impacted teaching and learning in music, pupil engagement and educational strategies for music (Green, Lucy. 2002. "How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music…

In this article Leon Mones expresses his deep interest in the functional role of music in Western culture and particularly in the system of public education that has been designed to assure the survival and advancement of Western culture and the people who will live within it. In other words, he is interested in music as a dynamic experience in…

Students pursuing college degrees in fields other than music must often take a music or arts course. Teaching these non-majors has been a traditional responsibility of college and university music departments. While experts agree that a single, widely accepted approach to teaching the non-major is unavailable, many experts concur that developing…

Only a few of the author's music students are dedicated to music as a possible career. Most squeeze their lessons in between soccer tournaments and play practices, homework and a social life. As their only musical outlet, the author feels a double responsibility. Her goal is to open children's minds and hearts to the world of music--for them to…

Music education should be conceived as aesthetic education which is devoted to the systematic development of musicality. Music education curricula should incorporate contemporary psychological methods which encourage creativity while focusing on the nature of music meaning and expression and the development of the capacity for musical response.…

The "music appreciation as contemplation" paradigm of traditional aesthetics and music education assumes that music exists to be contemplated for itself. The resulting distantiation of music and music education from life creates a legitimation crisis for music education. Failing to make a noteworthy musical difference for society, a politics of…

The job of college music programs is not only to teach the classics but also to teach and encourage appreciation of the relative merits of all forms and periods of music, and to teach methods of evaluating musical quality. (MSE)

The author reviews the problems of providing a comprehensive music literature program to general music students and suggests objectives and activities for such a program at the elementary and secondary grade levels. (SJL)

Electronic music can be used to give nonmusic majors an appreciation of musical culture. As final projects, students complete compositions and make the same musical decisions that composers make. Emphasis is on understanding of the electronic medium and on aural analysis. (CS)

Presents arguments for and against teaching music reading skills. Opponents say that students rarely use music reading skills after high school and that this music reading objective has never been successful. Proponents claim that a major objective of music programs is to produce musically independent students. (AM)

Recounts teaching experiences of a junior high school music teacher and his attempt to organize his experiences meaningfully. The discussion covers dimensions of student-teacher relationships, the importance of musicality, and the distinction between music training and music education. (AM)

Music study should be construed primarily as an experience of its feeling content. Taught so, it can reach for the inner core of the early adolescent, to pierce that sometimes hard outer surface that protects the vulnerable inner life. Attempts to intellectualize music with young teens are doomed. (Author/SJL)

This essay explores the contingency of music's value, and the significant ways that contingency qualifies (or should qualify) our understandings of the utility of instructional method. More specifically, it raises the possibility that the altruistic pursuit of methodological purity may serve ends dramatically different than those espoused by…

Inclusion of music in public school programs was originally justified on the utilitarian grounds that it fostered social and academic skills. Later an aesthetic rationale emphasized an intrinsic value of music in childrens' development. The position of music education will be precarious until educators provide strong evidence for their positions.…

Reviews the history and state of general music education for K-12 students. Points out that the goals of the Music Educators National Conference were to have music education available to all students and to have all schools and universities require music by 1990. Examines the present situation to determine whether these goals have been attained.…