‘The Sequence of Musical Development’ by Swanwick and Tillman was published in the British Journal of Music Education (BJME) in 1986. This year marks its 35th anniversary and provides an occasion to look back on the article’s content and legacy. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the antecedents for the article’s underlying concepts, as well as how our understanding of children and young people’s musical behaviours and development has evolved. Alternate and more nuanced perspectives, both available at the time and since, draw on an expanding, diverse, multidisciplinary research base. These enable us to have a better grasp of the strengths of the original, as well as what continues to need investigation.

The sequence of musical development is revisited. The origins of the underlying and evolving theory are considered, along with organisation and classification of the data of children’s compositions. The cumulative and recursive nature of the spiral is re-emphasised, and the dynamic relationship between the left and right side is clarified. The essential qualitative nature of the study is asserted and some possibilities for the future are considered, along with a two-dimensional model for curriculum and student evaluation based on spiral-related outcomes and the musical activities that promote and sustain them.

In this paper, we provide a reflection upon the influence of the Swanwick–Tillman (ST) model (1986) from the perspectives of music research in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this paper we take stock of where music education in New Zealand currently sits in relation to the Swanwick Tillman theory of musical development. We examine the strengths and the weakness of the model 35 years on to ask what it might still offer music educators in a context where issues of culture and colonisation have taken centre stage. We also reflect upon the impact of a visit to New Zealand by Keith Swanwick in 1989. Despite the postmodern or colonial critiques we might make now, we consider if the model may still signify a holistic way of conceiving music development and might still have implications for curriculum design and curriculum making in the 21st century.

Swanwick and Tillman set out three levels at which their “Sequence of Musical Development” may implicate music teaching: general curriculum planning, individual development, and the role of the teacher. From the perspective of a practitioner working as a secondary music teacher in England, this article critiques the practicalities of adopting an approach inspired by Swanwick and Tillman’s theory. Although recognising the challenges that music teachers face in the current context for music education, this article argues that educators should carefully consider how musical learning is structured, both in curriculum planning and approach.