The purpose of this study was to estimate, at a national level and over time, the participation rates of males and females among those students who formally enrol in American high school music ensembles. Ten cohorts of nationally representative samples of students from 1982 and 2009 were analysed using data from High School Transcript Studies…

This paper evaluates three teaching approaches to improving sight-reading skills against a control in a large-scale study of advanced pianists. One hundred pianists in four equal groups participated in newly developed training programmes (accompanying, rhythm, musical style and control), with pre- and post-sight-reading tests analysed using…

There is now an accepted need for initiatives that support older people's well-being. There is increasing evidence that active engagement with music has the potential to contribute to this. This paper explores the relationship between musical possible selves and subjective well-being in later life. The research reported here formed part of a…

Folk music programmes have been a major feature of higher education music departments across the Nordic region for several decades. Still, programmes that offer the opportunity to deeply study non-European music (other than jazz) are very rare in most of Europe, and programmes in music "education" that offer such opportunities at…

Based on Bourdieu's idea that cultural capital is strongly related to family context, we describe the relations between family musical cultural capital and optimal experience during compulsory primary school musical practice. We analyse whether children from families with higher levels of musical cultural capital, and specifically with regard…

This longitudinal study investigated self-invented notation systems created by young children aged four to six. The researcher showed the children how to feel various pitches and rhythms through singing, eurhythmy, instrumental playing, rhymes and music appreciation. The children were then provided with opportunities to create music notations and…

The purpose of this study is to explore the verbal communication that three 7-year-old children are engaged in when given the task of composing music together. The data consist of a video-observation of the activities that unfold when they try to manage a composition task using a keyboard and two novel technologies called "MirorImpro"…

The purpose of this research study was to explore how one rural elementary music programme deepens students' sense of place. Place-based educational research has explored the implementation of such programme in the areas of social studies and visual arts, however, more research is needed to examine how music education can deepen…

This article reports on a study of student music teachers' learning experiences whilst practising their teaching skills in a community music project in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. I will be discussing findings that relate those experiences to the student teachers' competence development as professional music teachers. In 2010,…

This study attempts to enhance the understanding of a music curriculum that represents holistic and meaningful learning for young children at a developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) classroom in Taiwan. The study participant implementing DAP was selected through purposive sampling by the Classroom Practice Inventory and pilot study. A…

Despite the growth in number and popularity of collegiate a cappella ensembles in the USA over the past 20 years, few researchers have studied these self-governed, student-run, popular music ensembles. This ethnographic case study examined the music making and culture of the "Accafellows", an all-male a cappella group at a mid-western…

This article focusses primarily on the findings relating to the musical participation of boys in one Melbourne school. As part of a project that investigated boys' attitudes and participation at fifty-one schools, several contextual features were identified that set "Balton Boys" High School' apart from other participating…

The research on which this paper is based was a mixed-methods investigation into the factors affecting rates of singing participation amongst early adolescent boys and girls in schools in the UK. The academic outputs that resulted presented the findings of a large-scale survey and in-depth interviews using, respectively, conventional quantitative…

The purposes of this study were to investigate the musical backgrounds, self-expressed reasons for participation and possible implications for music education of collegiate recreational music makers ("N"=19) and their practices as they exist in two contrasting modes of musical engagement on the campus of a large urban research…

Group piano courses for undergraduate music majors have been charged with developing the piano skills used by professional musicians; however, the only information available on the use of piano skills by professional musicians has been limited to one profession: public school music teachers. No one has attempted to identify the piano skills used…