Music education doesn't end in the classroom; for many teachers, it's crucial to engage on the home front as well. Parental involvement can have an enormous impact on a music program. Mothers and fathers--as well as other family members--can act as strong advocates, effective fundraisers, sources of invaluable help for performances, and…

The research described in this paper was carried out in an Australian early learning centre providing pre-school programs for children aged three years to six. The centre has specialist programs embedded and one of these is a music program led by a musician. A recent project, consisting of a staff singing group, was aimed at integrating the…

Although many amateur performers enjoy participating in master classes, we know little about what it means to them. The aim of this paper is to investigate learning in a master class with amateur pianists from an emic perspective in order to increase knowledge and understanding about older music learners engaging with instrumental tuition. The…

This article examines the workings of the music class at the Santa Ana Jail in Santa Ana, California. It gives us insight into a jail system and a music class focused on helping inmates position themselves to become productive members of society. In this article I examine how the facility encourages inmates' good behaviour and why the music class…

To address the question of musical identity, the research the author mainly draws on takes the form of qualitative, in-depth interviews with people about how music fits into their everyday lives and musical biographies. In this the author adopts a largely biographical and social constructionist perspective, asking people to reflect on important…

The creative music strategy is a dynamic and flexible seven-step model for guiding general music students through the music concepts of improvisation and composition, followed by critical reflection. These are musical behaviors that cultivate the development of our students' deeper conceptual understandings and music independence by helping them…

This article reports on a case study where a professional musician was assigned to a primary school as mentor in a project where 14 primary-aged children, with their teacher's direction, were involved in the composition of a piece of music that would act as prologue to the school's major production. The researchers were interested in aspects of…

This article considers the concepts of "learning style" and "learning strategy". The former connotes an inbuilt trait which tends to remain fundamental to the way an individual approaches learning. The latter refers to a set of consciously-acquired and applied approaches or tactics designed to achieve a learning task. The article relates these…

Despite its importance in the development of children's skills of social cognition and communication, very little is known about the ontogenetic origins of the pointing gesture. We report a training study in which mothers gave children one month of extra daily experience with pointing as compared with a control group who had extra experience with…

One of the most fundamental, ongoing debates in music education involves scholars who argue for a "performance-based" curriculum and those who promote a curriculum that is fundamentally "aesthetic-listening based." Rather than arguing for the primacy of either performance or listening as a basis for a music education curriculum, the paper attempts…

During the past 60 years, jazz music has slowly become recognized as a genre worthy of study in high school music programs throughout the United States. Only a few researchers have analyzed large samples of jazz-related instruction in instrumental music programs, and of these studies no data were collected to investigate the inclusion of jazz in…

Listening to music is an emotional and educational experience that has the potential to shape an individual's values, actions, and worldview. Widely used in elementary education, music can also be a fresh, innovative teaching tool in higher education. Although it can be applied to virtually any subject area, critical reflection and discussion of…

Teachers who conduct ensembles of any ability level know that many skills are required for students to successfully participate. Often neglected or overlooked are the skills that students must have to interact musically with their peers. This article focuses on listening as a way to help make successful ensemble collaboration a reality. The method…

The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to investigate adolescent choral singers' philosophical beliefs regarding music-making within three different, mid-sized, Midwestern mixed choirs in the United States. Eighteen participants were interviewed for approximately 40 minutes each. Audio files were transcribed and coded with four themes…

This article aims to increase our understanding of how amateur musicians become teachers as a change of career, how they use their musical and life skills in their teaching, and how their teaching impacts on their musical identity. The questionnaire responses of 67 career-change instrumental and vocal teachers showed evidence of their strong…