We have become used over the years to a growing literature addressing the question ‘What's wrong with school music?’ Recently there has been a well-publicised addition to the debate in the form of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's Royal Philharmonic Society lecture, given on 24 April, 2005, and entitled ‘Will serious music become extinct?’

The publicity material for the British Journal of Music Education states that the journal is ‘written by professionals for professionals’, and that claim is certainly true of this Special Issue, in which teachers in British conservatoires have taken up the challenge of becoming practitioner-researchers. By carrying out small-scale investigations in their home institutions, these authors demonstrate the multiple functions of educational research: to inform practice, to increase understanding of teaching and learning processes, and to develop the researcher him- or herself through critical reflection on students' and teachers' experiences.

In her contribution to our Special Issue in 2003, Estelle Jorgensen called for ongoing conversations between university lecturers and school teachers, to avoid the danger of music educators, historians and theorists being ‘like ships sailing past each other in the night’. We believe that one of the functions of BJME is to develop such collegial relationships and thus help to establish a strong music education community at all levels, both nationally and internationally. Certainly this present issue reflects a range of contexts from nursery schools to universities, with papers from researchers in Australia, England, France, Italy and Scotland.

The cultural contexts of home, school and community all have important parts to play in the music education of children, but at present in Australia, these three entities are insufficiently connected on a number of fronts, not the least being an understanding about the purpose(s) of young people's engagement with music. This paper puts forward two specific proposals for action aimed to help build linkages among the three cultural contexts and ensure young people's on-going engagement with music. These proposals, which call on the education sector to assume leadership for action, have implications for policy makers, school personnel, as well as parents, individual artists and community arts organisations.

The new millennium has brought a number of research articles and books that relate to instrumental (including vocal) teaching in higher education (Hunter & Russ, 2000; Jørgensen, 2000, 2001; Ritterman, 2000; Davidson & Da Costa Coimbra, 2001; Davidson & Good, 2002; Froehlich, 2002; Mills, 2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2005, in press; Nerland & Hanken, 2002; Nielsen, 2002; Federation of British Conservatoires 2003; Kokotsaki & Davidson, 2003; Mills & Smith, 2003; Mills et al., 2004; Burt & Mills, in press). Many of these publications have been written, at least to some extent, from a distance. The researchers have looked at instrumental teaching in higher education from their experience of schools, ‘academic’ teaching in universities or institutional management, for example, and have set their research questions, and sought the answers to these questions, accordingly.

This article derives from a research project investigating the singing behaviour of a group of Australian boys in their first year of school. The project showed that the genesis of the ‘missing male’ trend in singing at school may be occurring in early childhood. The impact of hegemonic masculinity in early childhood is explored here by examining the intersection between this group of boys' perceptions of masculinity and their singing behaviours. Peer modelling was found to be an effective motivational ‘tool’ for improving singing behaviour and illustrates the importance of finding strategies to support boys' success in singing long before adolescence.

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 study is based on interviews carried out with 13 adult learners of traditional fiddle playing. The average age of the learners was 56 and they had been learning to play for between 2 and 20 years. All of the interviewees had taken music at school but none of them had been stimulated to participate further in any significant sense. The aspiration to learn to play the fiddle had various sources. Learning usually took place through traditional workshops and through the medium of the tune rather than through scales and exercises. Only one of the participants took regular conventional individualised lessons. They tended to take a pragmatic stance with regard to technique, looking for technical advice when they came up against barriers to progress. The music they played was within an aural culture and most of them learned by ear although they tended to regard notation as a useful supplement. All of them played in some sort of social context and all of them described an immense sense of pleasure and achievement from their playing. It is suggested that this kind of informal learning may have implications for learning to play instruments at school.

The relationship between new technology and learning is gaining increasing relevance in the field of music education (Webster, 2002; Folkestad et al., 1998). However, only a few studies have considered the nature of the interaction between children and musical machines. This article describes an observation study of children aged 3–5 years confronting a particular interactive musical system, the Continuator, which is able to produce music in the same style as a human playing the keyboard (Pachet, 2003). The analysis of two case studies suggests that the Continuator is able to develop interesting child/machine interactions and creative musical processes in young children. It was possible to observe a ‘life cycle’ of interaction, as well as micro-processes similar to those observed in child/adult interactions (Stern, 1985; Imberty, 2002). The ability of the system to attract and hold the attention of children has been interpreted through Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) ‘flow theory’.

How can we use practice time in the best possible way? Do we, as performers, have a keen enough awareness of the workings of our mind and body to be sure we are learning in the optimum way for secure performance? If not, how can we readily convey to others good habits for learning and memorisation? By demonstrating aspects of how experienced solo instrumentalists prepare for performance, this paper makes some progress towards answering these questions. In order to extend existing piano based research and to establish possible instrumental differences in working patterns, this study is based on data from interviews with a guitarist and a 'cellist. Thematic analysis of the interview data reveals that despite some variation due to the respective nature of the instruments, most practice strategies are common to both and these strategies are always generated by interpretative goals. Firstly, the clear links between interpretative goals and the formation of playing techniques are demonstrated by the subjects' intuitive mental constructs involving imagery, giving considerable insight into their thought processes and working patterns. Among the forms of imagery identified, motor imagery was found to be unexpectedly significant. Next, there is some discussion of how imagery associated with simultaneous technical and emotional input can help to embed information securely in the memory. The value of creating idiosyncratic structures relating to learning and performance is then shown. Finally, advantages of introducing a more imaginative approach into practice at all levels are proposed, together with potential benefits for both motivation and memory retention.

This study investigated modes of communication adopted by six student jazz musicians during rehearsal and performance. Six one-hour rehearsal sessions and a performance were observed and videotaped for analysis. Results revealed six modes of communication that formed two main categories, verbal and non-verbal, each containing three distinct modes of communication: instruction, cooperation and collaboration. Non-verbal collaborative mode displayed empathetic attunement, which is a vehicle for empathetic creativity. Empathetic creativity is a theoretical concept proposed by the author based on the concept of empathetic intelligence (Arnold, 2003, 2004). Practical applications of empathetic creativity are discussed with reference to music education, focusing on evaluation of individual contribution to group creative performances.

This article discusses music service teachers' notions of pedagogical competence and occupational prospects as they approach mid-career. Respondents were drawn from a comprehensive life history study of 28 Local Education Authority employees. Of this larger cohort, 20 individuals contributed to findings discussed here. Data were collected and analysed between October 2002 and March 2004. Findings suggest a critical phase between 36 and 42 years of age. The episode entails reaching a professional apex, plateau or crisis in light of high pedagogical efficacy and career limitations. It culminates in a transformation of self-identity. Owing to respondents' unease about this period, the career structure of music service teachers is questioned.

This study addresses the baseline assessment of pupil composing competencies at age 11+. It asks whether it might be possible for these to be evaluated by the use of a whole-class listening task. A rationale for this proposal is discussed. Results from a pilot study which administered an original audiated puzzle-task to a cohort of pupils, followed by a related composing assignment, are presented, analysed and discussed. This methodology is shown to reveal information about pupil composing competencies.

While most of the students who graduate each year from the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London build performance-based portfolio careers that include some teaching, very few of them enter secondary school class music teaching. This article describes how young musicians' concerns about the career of secondary class music teacher develop as they move from sixth former to first year RCM undergraduate to third year undergraduate, and proposes some ways in which these concerns may be addressed. RCM students often agree strongly with statements consistent with a positive attitude to teaching, such as feeling a sense of achievement when pupils learn, and considering that teaching is about helping pupils realise their musical potential. However, they also tend to think that secondary class music teaching is not ‘doing music’. Successful secondary music teachers may take a different view, and the effect on RCM students of working with such teachers is reported descriptively.

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.

Popular Music Studies (PMS) is now taught in over 20 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and numerous others across the world. This article outlines the constituent parts of PMS in the UK and questions its status as a discipline in its own right. It concludes by arguing that, having established itself, PMS will need to deal with two key pressures in modern academic life – those of conducting research and widening participation. In the former instance, PMS might have to be pragmatic, in the latter lies potential for radicalism.

The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools is now commonplace and, for many, an unquestionable part of everyday teaching and learning. But detailed studies of the use of ICT in classroom-based music education are rare. This article explores how pupils aged between 11 and 16 used ICT to create and perform music in new ways. Working as a teacher-researcher, the author used the methodologies of action research and case study to investigate how pupils engage with and organise sounds with ICT.