The question of when it is convenient to start with vocal and instrumental lessons is a much-debated issue. This article studies a group of conservatoire students and looks at the relationship between their current level of vocal and instrumental performance and the age when they started formal lessons. It concludes that, for the whole student population, those with highest grades started earlier. Looking at separate instruments, however, we see both a positive and a negative relationship between an early start and a high level of performance in the conservatoire. Additionally, there are large differences between students. The findings are discussed in the context of expertise theory.

This article tries to answer two related questions: (i) what do children hear while listening to and making sense of music? and (ii) what kind of representational tools can be used to assess this sense-making? To answer these questions, we set up two empirical studies in which 89 children – 8–9-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds (first study) – and 331 children – 8–10-year-olds and 11–13-year-olds, with and without extra music training (second study) – were exposed to a music listening task. The aim of the studies was to get an overall picture of the variety of children's musical representations by means of their graphical notations, and to investigate the impact of age, formal musical training and the characteristics of the musical fragment on these notations. A major finding of the first study was the emergence of two main categories of notations, namely ‘global’ and ‘differentiated’ notations, with a very strong dominance of global over differentiated ones and a negligible impact of subject and task variables. The second study, in which we presented researcher-generated instead of existing musical fragments, yielded a larger number of differentiated notations, and a considerable impact of age and formal musical education as well as of the musical characteristics on these notations. Both studies were ascertaining studies with the aim to describe and analyse the development of children's graphical notations under given instructional conditions. To account for some of the limitations of these studies, some additional design-based research is suggested. Extensive findings/exemplars of both studies can be found on the Cambridge University Press website.

The aim of this research was to investigate the value and purpose of Master Classes, from the perspective of Conservatoire students. Thirty-seven UK Conservatoire students responded to a questionnaire, providing information about their prior experiences of Master Classes, the factors that they considered to be important in a successful Master Class and any possible barriers to learning in Master Classes. The students considered Master Classes to offer valuable performance opportunities, fresh ideas for approaching musical interpretation and technique and access to a professional community of practice. Performance anxiety was noted as a barrier to learning for those who performed in Master Classes and students raised several issues relating to the problematic notion of ‘participation’ as an audience member. Whilst the sample was clearly limited, these findings contribute to an understanding of how students might best be facilitated in capitalising on the opportunity to learn in Master Class contexts.

Although it is widely acknowledged that composition has a part to play in general musical education, some critics have argued that its place in the school curriculum is not justified by the results. John Paynter finds the evidence still on the whole encouraging and suggests that, where there are shortcomings, these should be seen, not as criticism of classroom composing, but as indications of uncertainty about how to help pupils make progress – a dilemma which, perhaps, reflects lack of conviction about the value of creativity in a curriculum based upon a theory of knowledge and progression more helpful to other subjects than it is to the arts in education.

A survey of final-year music students at the University of York for the Investigating Musical Performance research project found that 45% (23 of the 51 students in the year group) regularly gave instrumental or vocal lessons. Semi-structured interviews with 16 students revealed a range of teaching activities including workshop leading, one-to-one lessons and group teaching. This paper examines the attitudes of the nine students engaged in giving instrumental lessons and explores their development as teachers and their understanding of some of the key concepts of teaching and learning. Findings suggest that students learned to teach through increased experience rather than formal training, and although they were enthusiastic, reporting benefits to their own learning and performing, they could have been more pro-active regarding their development as teachers and more resourceful in their approaches towards lesson content and materials, strategies relating to modelling and motivation and the teaching of practice techniques. Increased provision of support and training opportunities could be made by Higher Education institutions, by giving students feedback regarding their effectiveness as teachers, opportunities to discuss their teaching, and enabling learning through mentoring partnerships with more experienced teachers.

This paper reports on the compositional processes of an Italian rock band whilst composing a new piece over seven group composing sessions. The band members were videotaped during the group composing sessions in their rehearsal room. A qualitative analysis of the video recordings was performed using the Constant Comparative Method. In the analysis, 59 different behaviours emerged, which were subsequently reduced into 13 categories. When analysing the categories, five themes (activities) were defined. The five activities were: context definition, experimenting, constructing, playing and evaluating. The activities were employed as a coding technique for time coding the videotaped data, which revealed the time percentages spent by the musicians in each of the group composing activities. Results from the joint qualitative and percentage time analysis indicate the importance of the strategies adopted by the musicians during group composing. The results are discussed by taking into account the impact of the processes employed in a group composing setting as well as suggestions for future research. The implication for music education involves the possibility to apply approaches based on the development of cognitive processes rather than the product of collaborative composing activities.

Two parallel samples of secondary music teachers in England, taken from 1982 and 1998, reveal similarities and differences in their evaluations and uses of twentieth- and pre-twentieth-century Western classical music, folk music, popular music, jazz and ‘world’ music. Least change occurs with relation to folk and pre-twentieth-century classical music; most with relation to popular and world music. The status of classical music is high in each of the two time periods, but in different ways. By the end of the century, teachers' views of musical value had, overall, shifted radically towards more global perspectives, and their classroom approaches included far more integrated practical work involving performing, composing and listening, with an emphasis on cross-stylistic comparisons and musical universals.

Composing is an obligatory activity at Key Stage 3 in the present National Curriculum in music for England and for Wales. The research programme, based on field visits, seminars and questionnaires, seeks to identify a basis for effective classroom practice through direct observation of experienced teachers and their pupils in twenty-six State secondary schools across England. Visits have also been made to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Group-work is the dominant working method in most secondary schools. Much time is at present wasted in group-work and it contributes significantly to stress in both teachers and pupils. Composing is largely an individual activity and this is insufficiently acknowledged or planned for at Key Stage 3. Too many teachers use methods inappropriate to the resources available to them. There are problems of progression and preservation of pupils' work. Despite these problems there is strong evidence that many children enjoy composing activities in school and compose music in and out of school for a variety of reasons and occasions. Composing is firmly established in our music education curriculum and provides a unique feature of practice in the United Kingdom. When composing is taught well, pupils look forward to their music lessons in the secondary school and approve of and enjoy composing activities.

This article reports an exploratory study into applied music teaching at a tertiary level. The study was staged as a case study where the case comprises one performance lecturer of clarinet and eight of her students. The focus of the study is how a performance teacher with no formal teacher training fares in the training of musical performers, how students respond, and what are the particular successful or unsuccessful issues in ‘commonsense teaching’. The data were gathered through participant observation and questionnaires. The findings suggest that the distinction between the role of the pedagogue (skilled in the dynamics and principles of teaching and learning) and the role of the expert performer (skilled mainly in the domain of performance) is an essential distinction to make. However, it is also a distinction that traditional performance teaching at a tertiary level seldom makes. The article concludes by tentatively proposing some pedagogical considerations for applied music teaching, as drawn from the case study.

In 2008, 201 beginning generalist teachers throughout Queensland, Australia, responded to a questionnaire intended to create a snapshot of current self-efficacy beliefs towards teaching music. Beginning teachers were asked to rank their perceived level of teacher self-efficacy for music, English and maths. Results were analysed through a series of repeated measures ANOVAs to compare the mean scores for statistical difference. Findings suggest that generalist beginning teacher self-efficacy for music declines as years of teaching experience increase, while teacher self-efficacy for English and maths increases during this period. Results provide key insights for teacher educators, school administrators and policy makers into the likelihood of long-term music teaching in the generalist classroom. Greater support is required to reverse the documented snapshot of low teacher self-efficacy for music education in Queensland generalist teacher classrooms.

This article presents evidence of the value of collaborative learning for students working in small heterogeneous groups within first year music practice courses in an Australian university popular music program. Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat’s framework for promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks was used to gather and analyse data from students throughout one academic year. Collaborative learning created value for students through peer-to-peer learning which cultivated new skills and improved performance, causing students to reframe their criteria for musical and personal success. The value of collaborative learning promotes its use both within and beyond popular music degree programs.

Literature on children's singing development is largely skewed towards findings based on English-speaking children. The present study aims to fill the gap in research through an investigation of the effects of age, gender and language on the singing competency of Cantonese-speaking children. One hundred and twenty children aged 7 and 9 years participated in the study. Sixty children were Cantonese monolinguals and 60 were English bilinguals. Each child performed individually a criterion song and two independent judges rated the recorded singing performance. Welch's model of Pitch-matching Development (2000) and Rutkowski's Singing Voice Development Measure (1998) were used to evaluate singing competency. Results suggest that melodic singing achievement and the ability to use a singing voice are moderately related singing behaviours. Evidence also suggests that gender and language but not age affects singing competency.

The writer offers an analysis of examples of music (which can be heard on the accompanying cassette tape) composed by pupils as part of their ordinary class music lesson. He suggests that, like any other music, children's compositions can be approached as a quasi-symbolic image of consciousness. The process of skill learning and the act of musical creation are closely connected, even in some sense identical. This way of understanding children's music has implications for the initiation of composition work in class, and for the assessment of that work.

This article describes an innovative approach to analysing, describing and evaluating the careers of musicians, and applies it in the case of 37 ‘professors’, that is, instrumental teachers, working at a conservatoire in the UK. The professors emerge as flexible and committed musicians who enjoy teaching conservatoire students, and who nearly all feel that they benefit musically and personally from this work.

Instrumental teaching methods in schools have resulted in a near total reliance on notation. Playing by ear has been undervalued by instrumental teachers, yet it is through such playing that some of the aims of music education can best be achieved.

In this article different ways of playing without notation are distinguished theoretically and exemplified through the experiences of some players who have learned in this way. A case is made for all musical playing to be viewed as ‘by ear’, including when notation is involved, so that the aural basis for musicianship is maintained and a wider view of performance encouraged. A possible model for teachers is offered based on imitation and invention.

In the two years following the proposed and trials of Sound Therapy (see Ellis, ‘Incidental Music’, BJME 12, 59–70) the approach has been further developed. Working in conjunction with a local special school a non-invasive therapy has been evolved which depends upon the use of music technology. This paper describes the background, development, and modus operandi of Sound Therapy and the ways in which music technology contributes to the programme. An account of the qualitative research tool, by means of which progression and development can be monitored and assessed, is also given. In conclusion, one case study, extending over two years, illustrates the results of this approach.

The positive role of metacognition in music learning and practice is well assessed, but the role of musicians’ metacognitive skills in such a context is not yet clear. Teachers often state that they apply a metacognitive approach during their lessons, but students fail to acknowledge it and report that they become metacognitive learners thanks to their own practice. In this multiple case observational study the spontaneous metacognitive behaviour of a teacher during four piano lessons with expert and novice students was analysed. Data supported the notion that teachers use metacognitive strategies during their teaching practice, but students are not aware of this because a metacognitive focus on strategies, as well as a strong emphasis on monitoring, appears to be lacking. Teachers are also able to differentiate their teaching behaviour between expert and novice students. Students’ age, however, affects teachers’ behaviour more deeply than expertise. Implications for music education are discussed, highlighting the main issues that can be derived from the results and how they can be effectively used to enhance professional development and improve practice in music education.

The link between voice and self-image is so fundamental it is often overlooked or taken for granted. Yet the knowledge of this relationship has much to teach singing teachers and choral directors in making communication with singers more effective, in choice of repertoire, technical development and rehearsal strategies. This study set out to explore the way adolescent singers think about their voices and express themselves through singing. The results produced a rich diversity of evidence which suggests that vocal change is a fruitful area for exploring in greater depth the relationship between the voice, musical expression and the human psyche.

The importance of a cultural context for musical instrument teaching and learning is analysed in terms of situated cognition and cultural validity. It is suggested that the current cultural location of instrument teaching is often associated with a view that confines success to a minority of children, partly by retaining the notion of the concert player as the goal. The nature of this goal and its implications are discussed and compared with traditional instrument learning and playing. Given that recent research suggests that virtuoso players are the product of practice rather than innate talent, the authors argue that a more relevant cultural framework for instrument teaching would result in competent players whose facility with an instrument would be appropriate to their social context.