Between 2007 and 2017, El Sistema -- Venezuela's national system of youth orchestras -- enjoyed a seemingly unexplainable meteoric rise, followed by an equally spectacular sunset. Although it would be easy to dismiss this Sistema decade as being no more than a peculiar aberration of music education history, I assert that El Sistema more accurately…

This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and…

While Instrumental Music Education (IME) is offered to students in most developed countries, its rationale and implementation differ significantly due to the sociocultural values and expectations of each society, which tend to remain implicit within educational policies. In this article, we argue that each society should be fully aware of the…

Early nonsectarian Sunday Schools provided instruction in spelling, reading, writing, and singing in the years prior to the introduction of free, public education in the United States. This study explores the Sunday school as a laboratory for public school music education. Several of the first Sunday school tunebooks included theoretical…

While research abounds on musicians' precarity, emerging student musicians remain understudied, especially amidst migration for opportunity. This timely study addresses critical gaps by qualitatively exploring the experiences of popular music students who migrate to London for education and prospective careers. Set during the UK's recent…

This study investigated the perceptions of piano performance programs in higher education from current collegiate students and faculty members' perspectives in China and the United States. Participants were from representative university-level institutions in the U.S. (n = 41) and China (n = 130). They were sent a questionnaire concerning (a) the…

Virtual exchange emerges as a high-impact practice in global learning. Leveraging online technology, this pedagogical approach offers intercultural learning opportunities among students across borders. This study explored collaboration between U.S. and South Korean college students by examining student learning and engagement in virtual exchange.…

Purpose: The aim of the article is to develop a framework for assessment for contemporary commercial music (CCM) in a music department that is still organised in a traditional way. Assessment of CCM in tertiary institutions and external graded music exams were described and analysed, followed by the presentation of an assessment framework.…

This article develops the concept of "low-end phonographic pedagogies" through a life-long engagement with vinyl records and the Afro-diasporic music practices of reggae, dub, and dancehall. Approaching my record collection as a counter-archive of vibrational feeling and learning, I explore everyday practices of playing and listening to…

This study sought to investigate how a cohort of American preservice graduate students in music education reconceptualize their pedagogical lens after participating in an immersive cultural music exchange program in China. By embracing a critical ontology framework, we interwove Western ways of knowing alongside local knowledge to examine the ways…

Employing Stephen Ball's notion of network governance, this study examines the relationships between private companies, non-profit organizations, and public institutions involved with music education in the United States (US) and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. To identify which public and private actors had a hand in shaping music education…

This position paper aims to raise awareness among educational policymakers, teacher educators, and school leaders around the world about the urgent need to better prepare Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers in music education. Most countries fail to sufficiently train teachers to meet the music-related expectations of contemporary ECE…

This study explores the impacts of popular music education in classroom practices from different aspects such as learning by ear, motivation, musicianship, peer learning and creativity. The Sing by Ear approach was created based on the concepts of informal learning in singing a cappella. A total of 323 participants aged 11-14 were invited to…

In this article, we apply the concept of systemness to music and arts teacher professional development (PD), arguing that to address perennial issues of access and scale, PD policy should be understood as a systems issue. Using systems theory as a lens and the robust and integrated PD system in Singapore as an exemplar, we address the following…

Online distance learning, a modern educational practice, has influenced music pedagogy in the past several decades. It involves synthesizing interdisciplinary studies in philosophy, music, technology, and sociology. In this study, an integrated approach has been developed to create a unique curriculum for an online group piano course in a…