This year the Jamaica School of Music is celebrating its twenty-first anniversary. The period under review coincides almost exactly with that in which Jamaica has been an independent nation and inevitably there has been a great deal of social, cultural and economic upheaval that has been reflected in the school.

During the first ten years (1961–1972) British influence was strong and the school was modelled on the Royal Schools of Music, with few gains in terms of trained professional skills.

In the period 1972–1983 the school was completely reorganized as a pluralistic and identifiably Jamaican institution with the introduction of full-time curricula designed for training specialists in African–American Music, Western (classical) Music and Music in Education, with due emphasis on Jamaica's rich folk tradition: in educational terms an innovation that often placed the school in conflict with society.