This study explores the musical content and human processes of improvisations of children and adults using the phenomenological lenses of time, space and responsivity. Paired improvisational performances of two late-career adult composers and two 7-year-old children were analysed considering a lifespan-related perspective involving the origins of spontaneous musical creativity associated with childhood dispositions and the musical expertise gained from practice, training and experience. Findings suggest that origins and expertise are operating in improvisational experiences of children and adults. Implications are drawn for musically meaningful research and evaluation of children's improvisations.

This paper presents findings from action research in a conservatoire (the Guildhall School of Music & Drama) which focused on teaching and learning effective breathing in playing the oboe. A range of approaches and techniques emerged from a literature review. These were implemented in practice with oboe students at the Guildhall School, and changes in their practice and perceptions of breathing were analysed. Participants' responses to the approaches used were diverse, emphasising individual learning styles. Considerable changes in their breathing practice as oboists were observed, and in addition it was noted that in several cases their approach to learning became more reflective and self-directed.

I undertook this project as a 12-year-old student while studying research methods at the Children's Research Centre at the Open University. It has already been shown that doing music improves children's Mathematics and English scores. The aim of this study was to find out if it also raises the aspirations of the children taking part. A questionnaire was given out to 80 Year 7 children at two schools in Milton Keynes. Questions investigated the children's musical participation and future aspirations as well as their parents' attitudes and education.

The most important findings are that the musical participation of the children is positively correlated with their future aspirations. Musical participation is most closely linked with parental enthusiasm for it. Parental pressure and education were found to have no link with musical participation, but families with low incomes may find affording musical activities hard to maintain.

It is recommended that more money be put into music education so children of low socio-economic backgrounds can have more of a chance to play musical instruments.

Attend a conference of music educational researchers and you will have entered a field of enquiry concerned to understand and explain the issues and problems identified by those who move within the field of enquiry. The inhabitants of this realm sometimes speak of young people, sometimes reveal the ways in which they have consulted them, probed their ways of seeing and allowed their voice to speak. In rare circumstances the researcher may have negotiated a relationship involving a shared interest enabling the young person to work alongside them as co-enquirer. However, in general, social enquiry has been slow to move from treating young people as objects of enquiry to co-enquirer. The researcher will be speaking from a position of power with the authority to make legitimate some knowledge and not other. It is the adult researcher who poses the questions and presents the problems and who works in response to data and findings that accrue from the efforts of other adult researchers. Beyond this the adult researcher engages in research activities with a particular view of childhood, with a construct of how children are and in what ways they can inform an adult world. While childhood is of course a contested concept, it is suggested that the notion of child as dependent remains the most enduring and durable.