This study examined 44 students' engagement in the composition of popular and classical music in a computer-mediated environment. The study took place over the course of one school year at a government-funded secondary school in Hong Kong that had 30 iMac music workstations. Participants were 22 Form 3 students (aged 14-15) and 22 Form 4 students…

The purpose of this study was to apply Fautley's model-- [Faultley, Martin. 2005. "A New Model of the Group Composing Process of Lower Secondary School Students." "Music Education Research" 7 (1): 39-57. doi:10.1080/14613800500042109]of the group composing process to the analysis of a collaborative composing project in a lower…

This article explores the ways in which a musical learning project acted as a space for critical artistic and relational engagements in two middle school (ages 11-14) music programs. Drawing from work on cultural production and border crossing pedagogies, this project invited students to create soundscape compositions that explored the question…

Persuasive arguments have been made for the existence of pedagogical discourses that invoke gender as a factor in the ascription of quality to musical compositions, and previous research has shown that some music teachers ascribe "maleness" to the characteristics that they regard as markers of high quality. Drawing upon Lucy Green's…

The seminal conceptualisation of the varying forms of authorship associated with different creativities developed as social practices has deep implications for research into music education in secondary schools. One such type is 'participatory creativity', which is explored through a cross-cutting secondary school study. Aimed at the creation of a…

This study was carried out within the framework of a pedagogical project. It compares the results obtained from the application of two different didactic models for learning and practicing musical composition in a Secondary Education class: the traditional teacher centred method (designated as the control group, CG), and an interdisciplinary model…

In this study, I explored children's development of rhythmic music literacy using a language acquisition paradigm. An emergent, constructivist curriculum was implemented over one academic year with 39 children, 5-8 years old. Children were involved in audiation-based active listening, singing, moving, chanting, and playing instruments and engaged…

Ensembles such as rock and pop bands are places of exciting creativity and intense, enjoyable music making for young people. A recent review of New Zealand's secondary school qualification, the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA), has resulted in a new composition assessment of individuals' achievement in groups. An analysis of…

This case study investigates how secondary students (three individuals and three groups) engaged with music and acted as musicians in a Songwriting and Technology Class (STC), a course involving the creation, performance, recording and production of original music with instruments and music technology. The following research question guided the…

This qualitative case study explores how students' perceptions of sexual identity affect how they participate in popular music processes used in school. Seventeen high school students were invited to form five single-gendered and mixed-gendered rock bands. The data collected included fieldnotes and audio recordings of observed rehearsals and…

Having previously been employed to investigate science and English classrooms and listening in the music classroom, theories of multimodality would appear to have much to contribute to an examination of group composing using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), owing to the multimodal nature of music software and group discourse. This…

This article investigates computer-based music composition using the CD Rom "Dance eJay" with pupils from a secondary school setting (13-15 years). Three issues are explored: the extent to which participants adopted different strategies during the composition process, how the strategies differed with respect to prior experience of formal…

Much composing that takes place in the lower secondary school is undertaken as a group activity. This paper investigates what is involved when pupils work in this way, and offers a model of processes and phases, which can be used to account for group composing. The model describes what is taking place, and charts the ways in which groups of pupils…

Although music was established as a compulsory subject in Spain by the 1990 constructivist reform, the 2002 counter-reform restricted it to lists of concepts, in a renewed encyclopaedist model for secondary schools that ignored authentic musical procedures, such as performing or composing. Contemporary adolescents, accustomed to the transmission…