During the last decades in most Western countries music education on all levels has undergone significant changes. In response to changes in the musical field in society at large, various popular music styles, previously almost totally neglected in institutional forms of music teaching based on Western art music, have been given increasing significance in the curricula of music education. This development has not, however, taken place without controversies. In most popular music genres the theoretical framework, learning principles and aims of musical practices differ in significant respects from those of the regulated activities of traditional institutions of music education, and the successful integration of popular genres into such institutions requires that these differences be acknowledged and resolved rather than ignored.

Since their beginnings, popular music studies have conducted an implicit (sometimes explicit) dialogue with musicology. To be sure, the musicological side of this conversation has more often than not been marked by insult, incomprehension or silence; and popular music scholars for their part have tended to concentrate on musicology's deficiencies. But musicology is changing (more about this later); at the same time, recent work on popular music suggests a new confidence, manifesting itself in part in a willingness to engage with and adapt mainstream methods. I believe each needs the other.