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.

For the last ten years or so educational researchers such as Bloom, Sosniak, Sloboda and Shane have been dissecting and documenting the lives of successful musicians, their parents and teachers. In every study, parent and teacher commitments feature prominently, and music can be seen to be an integral part of home life. In their early years the most successful musicians often had strong parental support and practice supervision in some form. They heard recordings and/or live performances regularly and naturally. In addition, Sosniak (1985) identified the type of dedicated instrumental teachers who worked assiduously to provide these musically-able pupils with expertise and a wealth of musical opportunities. For pupils up to the age of 14 listening and appraising music is now, and will continue to be, a significant proportion of the national curriculum for music. Conscientiously and imaginatively delivered, it should provide a broad experience of musical listening.

Under current legislation, the history of music forms a specific strand of listening and appraising at Key Stages 1 to 3. This article discusses some philosophical and practical aspects of these current requirements, together with their implications for further and higher education, as well as attempting an anticipation of future developments in the light of the recent review of the National Curriculum as a whole.

This paper describes how a teacher explored her teaching of an introduction to recorder playing to children, and how she tested her belief that music notation was an essential component of that teaching.

Two roughly parallel classes of 7 to 8 year-olds were introduced to recorder playing. One group was given tuition accompanied by music notation, the other group learned to play by ear. An interaction was found between the ability of the child and the relative success of a method of teaching. More able pupils became demotivated without access to written music, whilst less able pupils retained their interest when playing by ear. An intermediate strategy, using notation with the names of the notes written below, proved effective for those of average ability.

An holistic assessment of the quality of performance created by the two groups was independently assessed. Contrary to expectations the playing by ear group produced better quality sound than that of the group exposed to music notation.

The implication for the introduction of music performance to young children is discussed.

An interest in listening to nursery age children spontaneously making music on percussion instruments led to re-thinking the role of adult as listener to children's music making. It is suggested that this role is not a passive one but active. The adult playfully participates with the child and takes responsibility for ‘scaffolding’ the child's emerging music making. Participant listening challenges conceptions of the listening act itself.

Incidental Music describes the early stages of the development of a new approach – sound therapy – for children who have severe learning difficulties (SLD) and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). Sound itself, including what we call ‘music’, in combination with aspects of new music technology, provide the basis for this approach. Sound therapy acknowledges the expressive potential of all sound with the aim of enabling and developing additional ways of communicating and expressing. A research methodology has been developed to enable a detailed, rigorous analysis and evaluation of observed phenomena. This is briefly described and a case study, based on the use of Soundbeam, reveals some aspects of sound therapy. I am grateful to the staff and pupils of the Lambert School for their help, encouragement, co-operation and warmth in enabling this project.