Most young people these days enjoy listening to music. It may well be their main interest and one of their favourite pastimes. Some may express a preference for classical music, others for minority interests, such as folk, country, blues, jazz, or big band. For the vast majority, however, it is likely that their taste will be partly, if not exclusively, for pop, i.e. that brand of music which originated with Bill Haley'1956 recording of ‘Rock Around The Clock’, and which now applies to all music loosely associated with the Top Forty charts. In this article the author describes a course, with 10 and 11 year old pupils, which examined the history, styles and social significance of pop music.

This article gives an account of a study in which the practice of music consultancy in primary education was examined. Its aims were to discover to what extent the claims made for music consultancy can be substantiated by empirical evidence, and to identify the factors which contribute to its success. The trends indicated that schools having a music consultant tend to achieve a slightly more favourable standard of music education, in terms of frequency of activities undertaken, than schools with no postholder for music. Little evidence was found, however, of the qualitative benefits thought to be conferred by the classteacher, supported by the consultant, being responsible for music teaching. Several interrelated factors were identified as having possible influence on the efficacy of music consultancy in promoting a satisfactory standard of music teaching among class teachers.

Music examinations frequently require students to harmonise chorale melodies ‘in the style of J. S. Bach’, but the manner in which the skill is taught generally emphasises the adding of chords below the melody note by note ‘arithmetically’, and may thus fail to develop inner hearing and a sense of overall harmonic direction. Using the system of ‘harmonic sketching’ which she developed originally as an approach to keyboard harmony and described in detail in her book Sketching at the Keyboard, Laura Campbell extended the technique to the harmonisation of chorale melodies, in the process comparing her students' choices of outline harmony with those employed by Bach in four settings of the same chorale. In this article she describes the experiment and comments upon its results, showing how the ‘sketching’ method, which reveals the fundamental ‘harmonic landscape’ of a melody, is an especially valuable tool in the acquisition of written harmony skills.

After a brief summary of the development of ‘Creative Music’ in schools in the U.K., the author suggests that the emphasis on Improvisation, advocated by Orff and others, has been lost in favour of the Composition/Product model.

An attempt to define ‘Improvisation’ leads to various considerations of its value and purpose in various educational settings, and in Music Therapy. Links with ‘play’ in young children, and with practices in Movement/Dance education are drawn.

Practical examples are suggested, and a ‘spectrum’of degrees of ‘improvisation’ opportunity are suggested. Participants perceptions of improvisation and composition are described, and finally the case for improvisation as an essential part of any music curriculum is made.

This article studies the compositions of two 15–16 year olds over a period of 12 months: following a similar study by the same author in BJME (1987) 4.1. Identifying traits common to the work discussed in both articles, the author points the way towards some new models for assessing pupils' progress: one of composing as a design process, the other describing musical ability as a style of thinking rather than a set of technical skills.