The article supports the following thesis: that creative problem-solving approaches to learning can be incorporated into any methodology; can, and perhaps, should become an essential component within a music programme because, creative problem-solving is a direct route to understanding fairly sophisticated musical manipulations or procedures; it involves students in decision-making activities and the responses are sources of feedback to student and teacher; it permits multiple results; hence, it reflects needs, interests, and abilities of students; it enhances learning and makes more relevant the things that have to be learned; it encourages direct contact with the expressive character of music.

The unit for Research into Applied Musical Perception (RAMP) was set up in the Music Department of Huddersfield Polytechnic in October 1985. Led by Professor George Pratt, then newly appointed as Head of Department, it was supported generously by the Polytechnic which made available a full-time Research Assistant post, filled by Michael Henson. Dr John Sloboda of Keele University, musical psychologist and author of ‘The Musical Mind’, agreed to be an Associate of the Unit and to co-supervise the first postgraduate students registered for research degrees.

The Unit spent a year enquiring of other institutions about their attitudes to teaching musical perception, and trying out a first-year course which this article describes.

As an experiment, a Balinese gamelan was integrated with a summer music course for the physically handicapped. Two ethnomusicologists were invited to demonstrate playing techniques and to teach pieces of gamelan music which were later performed. This article documents the success of the experiment and describes the very considerable potential of the gamelan in general recreational and educational music therapy. More particularly, the essentially non-Western methods of learning and practising adopted on the course encouraged and engendered a broad range of skills in those with little or no previous musical experience, and significantly extended the abilities of the musically trained. The results of this experiment suggest that both music therapists and music educators may be able to extend the range of their work by drawing on certain non-Western musical traditions.

The place of music in the general school curriculum has undergone considerable change in the last few years. During the 1970s, the Schools Council Project ‘Music in the Secondary School Curriculum’ identified a number of approaches, all having a common philosophy – to engage all children in practical musical activity of an expressive, aesthetic nature. More recently, the HMI document ‘Curriculum Matters 4 – Music from 5 to 16’ has brought many of the ideals of this project into sharp focus, with its emphasis on composing, performing and listening as practical, integrated activities. The aims of music education, as stated in this document, highlight the changing direction of music in the curriculum; and the new GCSE should reflect this, so becoming a more relevant examination for a broader cross-section of pupils than has hitherto been possible.

With this changing emphasis in mainstream education, it is worth considering if any developments are possible in terms of general music activities for children with special needs. Is it possible for them to experience a more practical music curriculum; to engage in the process of composition and have heightened listening experiences as a result? Here microelectronics can make a significant contribution, just as it is beginning to do in mainstream education. By using some of the new technologies, pupils with a variety of handicaps are able to explore, create and perform a wide range of music.

Percy A. Scholes' (1877–1958) defence of music appreciation remains one of the most clearly articulated among the twentieth-century approaches to school music. His published work is eminently readable, spiced with wit, and attractive to non-musicians. Scholes has gone beyond philosophical argument to practical strategy, as his published work attests. Nevertheless, his ideas ought not either be accepted at face value or ‘written off’ as a ‘failure’ without careful examination of them.1

This paper attempts to reconstruct Scholes' ideas about music appreciation evidenced in his published work; to examine his assumptions about the rationale, objectives, instructional methods and curriculum for music appreciation; and to suggest implications of this analysis for future research and practice.

Music education struggles to survive in countries such as England, United States and South Africa because of the lack of financial support, particularly during economic recessions. To counter this unfortunate situation, well-written books and articles have been appeared over the years, propounding the truth that the arts do have an essential place in the balanced education of children, but these well-founded and constructed arguments continually fall on deaf ears. During economic recessions government planners and educational authorities rationalise that they can afford to do away with the arts because these subjects make little or no difference to the economic welfare of the country.

Information from the best-seller by Peters & Waterman, In Search of Excellence, reveals that the principle characteristics of the managers of excellent companies in the United States are characteristics that concern the creative process of thinking, creative aspects of personality, creative products and environmental conditions. These companies have a positive effect on the United States economy. As the aspect of education which is best equipped to nurture these characteristics is the arts, then it is reasonable to argue that we can not afford to ‘phase out’ music education.

Because education in the United States, England and South Africa is closely linked to the economy, music educators in capitalist countries should begin to argue for the arts from an economic standpoint, as capitalistic societies are orientated primarily toward capital gain. Failing this, we shall have to argue for more fundamental changes in political and economic systems.

Although not developed specifically with musicians in mind, Alexander Technique has come to be associated with musical performers and with the problems of tension they may experience. In this article the author, a cellist and a cello teacher who has herself been helped by therapy based upon Alexander principles, acknowledges the special value that the technique has for musicians and demonstrates this by reference to the needs of string players. She goes on to show how other performers may benefit, and how F. M. Alexander's ideas can be particularly important for singers. She enlarges this view to take in a wider range of musical education and, arguing that singing has, of late, been sadly neglected in schools, illustrates the potential of the Alexander principles through a detailed account of how one child was helped to ‘find her voice’and how, in succeeding, she was able to increase her confidence in many other areas besides music.

In this article the author opens up some of the issues involved in teaching composition to individual pupils of the upper Secondary School age range. To do this he studies the work of two boys over two terms in detail, including many of their sketches, and pays particular attention to the role of the boys' teacher. This study leads to some general considerations: syllabus design, the relationships between composing, performing and listening, and methods of assessment.

The arts pose some particular problems in the field of assessment. In the study reported here, we examined some of the problems performance presents to assessors especially in the context of the GCSE examination, and with reference to the model for assessment given in the APU Report on Aesthetic Development.

A small-scale experiment was devised with the aim of investigating the reliability and different perceptions of judges of musical performances. As well as assessment by professional musicians, we investigated self assessment and assessment by peer-group members. There was a generally high measure of agreement between judges, both in terms of their individual comments and the rank order they each devised. This suggests that there were some objective criteria at work in their assessments. Self-assessments proved very realistic, although those of the peer-group were slightly less so.

A project is described which involved making and working with marionettes in a Tokyo school. Through this and other related activities, children were introduced to the world of opera, in particular, The Magic Flute, by Mozart.

Since January 1984 a thoroughgoing reform in Soviet education has been under discussion, and decisive steps have already been taken. The ‘Guidelines for Reform of General and Vocational Schools’, approved by the Supreme Soviet on 12 April 1984, indicated a firm intention to improve curricula, teaching methods and materials in all subjects. The arts figure prominently in the new proposals, and it is the purpose of this article to examine what is happening in music education, which has been a leader in the field.

Possibly because very few teachers in Britain are fluent readers of Scandinavian languages while, on the other hand, the majority in the academic professions in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland speak and read – not infrequently write – English, the flow of thinking about music education and its developments often appears to be one way.

Yet although it may be true to say that, over the last twenty years or so, music educators in the Nordic countries have drawn quite a lot of inspiration from beyond their own borders (Finland and Sweden tending to look towards Hungary; Norway, Iceland and Denmark perhaps turning more often to Britain and the United States), it would be a serious error to imagine that they have no significant ideas of their own! Indeed, an enormous amount has been achieved in these countries from which the rest of us can usefully learn.