The power of one-to-one tuition in Higher Music Education is evidenced by its continuing place at the heart of conservatoire education. The need to examine this student–teacher relationship more closely has been emphasised in the last decades by increasing understanding of processes of student learning in Higher Education as a whole, and in particular the impact which student–teacher relations have on learning. Literature on PhD supervision, for example, has highlighted the depth of applied craft skills made possible in one-to-one interaction, and has also drawn attention to a range of potential difficulties encountered in the supervisory relationship. This paper draws on findings from a study at a conservatoire in the UK, which explored student and teacher perceptions of one-to-one tuition. It analyses student and teacher perspectives on the relationship and considers the match between their perceptions within student–teacher pairs. Findings demonstrate diverse characterisation of the relationship, and varied approaches to extending a social relationship beyond the confines of the lesson. Comparison of student–teacher pairs indicates that the students tended to mirror their teachers' opinions about appropriate social interaction. This was one example of the dynamics of power operating within the one-to-one relationship, although these were rarely discussed explicitly. Such dynamics of power made it difficult in some instances for students to articulate difficulties with learning and to change teacher. There was also evidence of a possible connection between dynamics of power in the relationship and students' reluctance to develop artistic and professional self-direction. The implications of these findings are considered in terms of conceptualising one-to-one tuition, and the need to review the professional framework of its delivery in Higher Music Education.

Undergraduate training represents a crucial stage of development for instrumentalists, including singers, as they begin to mature as independent musicians and learners. This paper asks how instrumental and vocal teachers in higher education approach this stage of student development. It focuses on the use of questions by teachers, as they cultivate the students' contribution to their own learning. The basis of the study is a research project in a UK University College, investigating the conduct of instrumental lessons through video evidence, interviews and questionnaires.

This article focuses on children's experiences of differences between improvising (i.e. creating spontaneous single-event performances) and composing (i.e. creating revised pieces). Eighteen self-selected children participated from a multi-ethnic, comprehensive Middle School in West London. Twenty-one weekly music-making sessions were conducted over a period of six months. A model mapping qualitatively different ways of experiencing improvisation and composition is presented using data drawn from the analysis of in-depth interviews, observation and recorded performances. The categories also form the arrangement of a model where improvising and composing are distinguished as being orientated towards (i) time, (ii) body, (iv) relations and (iv) space. These findings can be applied to the development of a pedagogy, which challenges some of the assumptions about what it is (and can be) to improvise and compose.

How do student teachers learn to use informal learning and pedagogy in their teaching? Through focusing on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England, this paper will explore the possibility of developing a meta-pedagogy which embraces informal learning and pedagogy in music. The paper is in two parts, the first of which examines the background to Informal Learning and Pedagogy (ILP) in English music education and some attendant issues surrounding initial teacher education. The second will report on some approaches to developing a meta-pedagogy for ILP in music, before speculating on future areas for research in music ITE. The concepts of ‘living’ and ‘excavating’ learning will be proposed as important meta-pedagogical tools in the process of student teachers learning how to teach music.

This study was designed to examine any links between the concept of flow or optimal experience and the creative output of student compositions. The creative products of group compositions by university students (n=45) were rated for creativity and on a number of standard criteria and compared with scores obtained from Experience Sampling Forms (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988) completed by each participant. A significant correlation was found between optimal experience or flow levels of students and the quality of their group compositions as measured by creativity ratings. Some implications for educators and learners in the music classroom are explored and a proposed self-directed learning tool is discussed. Some of the issues on the assessment of creativity in music raised by Sheridan & Byrne (2002) are also discussed. This paper highlights the subjective nature of existing assessment procedures, considering whether examiners need extended criteria as opposed to a single dimension of creativity. The formative assessment nature of the flow paradigm is also explored.

School music has a comparatively low take-up rate as a qualification among English secondary school pupils. Existing research on the issue has proffered possible reasons for this phenomenon but has generally been piecemeal and undertheorised. This paper sets out a fresh theoretical perspective capable of providing a basis for systematic empirical research, and discusses the results of two exploratory studies. Drawing on legitimation code theory, a new approach in the sociology of education that focuses on the basis of achievement within educational contexts, the paper analyses National Curriculum, GCSE syllabi and pupils' attitudes towards a range of school subjects, including music. The documentary analysis highlights that earlier stages of the music curriculum emphasise either musical knowledge or musical dispositions of knowers, but music at GCSE level represents an ‘elite code’ where achievement depends upon both possessing specialist knowledge and being the right kind of knower. The study of pupils' attitudes suggests this code shift is recognised by pupils and may play a role in the low uptake of music for GCSE study. This new framework offers a firmer foundation for future empirical research into attitudes towards school subjects and subject choices.

This paper examines how body movement within the frames of Dalcroze Eurhythmics can facilitate musical knowing. Merleau-Ponty's philosophical ideas seem to correspond with the specific empirical findings of Jaques-Dalcroze. Hence, our viewpoint is based on Merleau-Ponty's notions of ‘knowing the world through the body’ as well as of gesture, habit and reversibility. We argue, along with Merleau-Ponty, that the body is our primary mode of knowing. Furthermore, we suggest that body movement represents pre-reflective knowing and can be understood as physical metaphor in the process of musical understanding from the concrete doing/musicing to the abstract and (or) conceptual.

What makes instrumental teaching, including vocal teaching, effective? And is this the same in schools and in higher education (HE), including conservatoires? We asked 134 local education authority (LEA) instrumental teachers to state what they believe makes good teaching in schools and in HE, and to list the strengths and weaknesses of the teaching that they recall receiving as students. We found that many teachers believe that good teaching in schools differs from good teaching in HE. There are differences in the beliefs held by teachers with and without qualified teacher status (QTS), and also in those of men and women. Many teachers report that their teaching is influenced by the ways that they were taught, and the ‘peak’ lessons that teachers received often appear particularly influential. We explain the steps we have taken to enable LEAs to apply the findings when planning professional development for their teachers, and suggest further applications.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which professional musicians practise. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 freelance musicians spanning a wide range of age and experience and encompassing most of the instruments of the traditional orchestra. The interviews revealed considerable individual diversity in the ways in which the musicians approached and undertook their practice. The findings are discussed in terms of their educational implications.

This paper describes what improvising came to mean to a group of 12-year-old children who, as members of a weekly lunchtime ‘Music Creators' Soundings Club’, were watched, listened to, and invited to reflect upon the process of group improvisation. Focusing on musical interaction as it emerged in the earliest stages of this work, this paper shows the relationship between children's actions and their reflective talk. It identifies emerging principles in a sequence of musical examples that portray children making music together and shows the nature of group improvisation as socially and musically inclusive. These children valued group improvisation most for its immediacy and continuity. Ways of delighting in how children behave musically and reveal their musical learning through conversation are discussed.

Recent technological developments and the increasing impact of the media mean that listening to music and creative music making constitutes a major and integrated part of many young people's lives.

The aim of the present article is to describe the process of computer-based composition, and how this is perceived by young composers. This paper describes a three-year empirical study of 129 computer-based compositions by 15 to 16-year-olds. Computer MIDI-fti.es were system- atically collected covering the sequence of the creation processes step by step; interviews were carried out with each of the participants; and observations were made of their work.

All the participants succeeded in creating music, and in the subsequent analysis, six qualitatively different ways of creating music were identified which could be divided into two main categories: HORIZONTAL and VERTICAL. These categories, devised by the authors in this context, refer to compositional strategies, not to structures in the music itself. In the horizontal categories composition and arranging are separate processes, whereas in the vertical categories composition and arranging are one integrated process.

In this paper, I suggest that it is perhaps time to consider the pedagogy of popular music in more extensive terms than conventional rock band practices have to offer. One direction in which this might lead is the expansion of the informal pedagogy based on a ‘garage band’ model to encompass various modes of digital artistry wherever this artistry takes place. This might include: in face-to-face pedagogical situations, in other contexts of informal learning, and in such open networked learning environments as remix sites and musical online communities. The rock-based practice of learning songs by ear from records and rehearsing them together to perform live or to record is just one way to practice popular music artistry today. Such practices as DJing/turntablism; assembling of various bits and pieces to remixes; remixing entire songs to mash-ups in home studios; collective songwriting online; producing of one's own music videos to YouTube; exchanging and comparing videos of live performances of Guitar Hero and Rock Band game songs – all of these indicate a musical culture that differs substantially from conventional ‘garage band’ practices. The global eminence of digital music culture can be taken as one indication of the need to reconsider music as a transformative praxis. By examining the ways in which music is produced and used in digital music culture, we can prepare for new forms of artistry that have yet to emerge from the creative mosaic of digital appropriation. Thus, we expand and redefine our notions of informal music pedagogy. This paper concludes with consideration of several themes that Afrodiasporic aesthetics suggest to the understanding of this artistry.

This article examines the issue of self-assessment of musical performance and the role of the learner in this process, with particular reference to the Australian context. Initially, traditional methods of assessment are discussed and references made to alternative methodologies in action. Following this, the rationale for and structure of a new method of self-critical assessment is outlined. The initial trial is discussed along with the evaluative questionnaire. The resultant data are then analysed and discussed, as are the implications for adopting and for developing this method.

Music sociology has addressed the history of the musical canon, taste and social exclusion. It has also addressed issues of musical value and the perceptual politics of musical reputation. More recently, it has developed perspectives that highlight music's ‘active’ properties in relation to social action, emotion and cognition. Such a perspective dispenses with the old ‘music and society’ paradigm (one in which music was typically read as distanced from and ‘reflecting’ social structure) and points to core concerns in sociology writ large and to educational concerns with music's role as a socialising medium in the broadest sense of that term.

This article examines the special relationship between students and their instrumental teachers in UK conservatoires. Conservatoires in the UK provide a higher education for aspiring performers and composers and the students' choice of conservatoire will often be guided by their desire to study with a particular ‘professor’ who will teach them their major or ‘principal study’ instrument. Many such professors are visiting part-time staff whose teaching commitment represents only a small proportion of their wider professional lives. Here, the relationship between student and professor is revealed through the perceptions of piano students at a UK conservatoire and a picture emerges of partnerships which are remarkably productive, but vary widely in the degree and range of musical and personal support that students ideally hope to receive from them.

Distributing one's music and discussing music-related topics at dedicated web sites have become a common practice for today's young musicians. Technological advances allow both easy production of music at computer-based home studios and free distribution even at a global level. An online survey was conducted to shed light on the reasons for participating in an online music community. The results indicate that although social reasons existed, musical reasons were the most important motives for taking part in the community. The participants were on average fairly active musicians, but only a minority of them had formal musical training.

This article examines the musical structural processes used in songs invented by 32 children over a period of 18 months. It takes the view that the organisation and relationships of musical events in time are fundamental to music's meaning, and that we should expect structural considerations to be important as soon as a child begins to be musically articulate.

I have been continuing my study of young children's invented songs (Davies, 1986), analysing them in the light of recent writings on music as mind. If music is an activity of mind, the question arises, what are musical thought processes, and can we find them in the musical inventions of young children ?

The pathway to excellence is turbulent and aspiring musicians must cope with the ‘ebb and flow’ of development if they are to realise their potential. With this in mind, internationally renowned musicians were interviewed in order to identify the challenges of each stage of musical development and the psychological characteristics that can enable aspiring musicians to sustain this developmental process. Results suggest that while certain psychological characteristics are salient throughout the career and facilitate continued development, others are especially important at key stages and critically at key transitions. This research satisfies more than academic interest, as findings should sensibly inform music educators about the skills and characteristics required by aspiring musicians at key stages during the learning process.

In this short article I present a case for developing a new theory of music education, arguing that advances in music technology have undermined some of the most basic conceptual frameworks we currently possess. I describe some problems that might make the development of a new theory difficult and suggest some ways in which they might be overcome. My hope is that this paper will inspire people to consider the development of such a theory.

This study investigated the differences between the functions of music listening at home and at school, and the potential effects of age and nationality on these differences. 120 participants completed an individual structured interview schedule, which consisted of ten open-ended questions. These covered the role of music listening in young people's leisure interests as a whole, and more specific aspects of listening at home and at school. Sixty participants were from schools in the UK, and sixty from schools in Portugal: within each nationality group, thirty were aged 9–10 years and thirty aged 13–14 years. The findings showed that music listening was an important leisure activity, especially for the older children, and that most children showed moderate positive attitudes towards school music. Home music listening and school music fulfilled different functions: participants reported that home listening was linked with enjoyment, emotional mood and social relationships, whereas school music was associated with motivation for learning and being active, and particular lesson content. There were few clear-cut national differences, and music was generally undervalued in both countries.