Explores a tentative typology of young children's invented notations proposed in a previous study transferred across another group of musically naive kindergarteners. Extends the previous study by including notation of known and original song material. A modal dissonance was found in the children's notations of known and original songs. (CMK)

Investigates the preferences of elementary students for 10 songs selected from the Music Educators National Conference published list of songs, "Get America Singing...Again!," and how song familiarity may be related to song preference. Finds a consistent relationship between song familiarity and preference; grade level, gender, and…

Offers a strategy from the book "Strategies for Teaching Prekindergarten Music" to help young children meet the achievement levels called for in Music Educators National Conference (MENC) Prekindergarten Music Education Standards. Explains that in the lesson provided children will become familiar with music as a medium for changing…

States that finding works to challenge the technique and stimulate the musicianship of young performers can be a difficult and yet rewarding task for music teachers, directors, and composers. Provides a list of annotated suggestions of works from the standard orchestral repertoire that may work well with young orchestras. (CMK)

Presents an interview with James Newton Howard, a film composer. Provides background information on Howard. Addresses topics such as his most challenging and rewarding scores, his musical background, and the benefits of being associated with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). (CMK)

The working relationship of two novice songwriters is examined in this ethnographic study, which highlights the importance of common goals and values in a songwriting collaboration. Stemming from this core there are a number of sub-themes: the pair saw a popular song as consisting of melody, harmony, and lyrics; they played on the strengths and…

This article reports on a project called, "Everyday life as a perspective on music education in the classroom." Part of this project involved the construction of texts and lyrics by a group of students from year 5, in weekly music lessons at a regular primary school from Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The article…

In this essay, the author describes her view of the concept of the aesthetic in music education as "essentially contested" and subject to reinterpretation. She attempts to expand "traditional" notions of the aesthetic in music education beyond a view of the aesthetic transaction as "passive," focused on audience-listening for traditional…

The Genesis Project is a multi-phase research project designed for the purpose of developing an in-depth understanding of the nature of musical creativity by investigating how composers compose. In this first phase of the project, an understanding of the four dimensions of musical creativity: (1) the "person", (2) the compositional…

For the last few years, the author has been implementing a pedagogy that infuses musical composition--specifically the recording of electronic music--into his first-year composition courses. The author and his students have been quite surprised by the theoretical and practical connections that exist between the production of popular electronic…

This paper builds on the concept that fusion--the blending of styles and traditions resulting in new or hybridised genres--takes place in social interaction in the "transformative zone" (Bresler, 2003). First I explore the issues surrounding the tension that can occur between the need, or desire, to maintain cherished traditions and the…

The image of the composer as a lone seeker of creative inspiration is embedded in popular views of the creative artist. This isolationist view ignores the "thought communities" on which composers draw in their development as musicians, composers and teachers, the relationships that hold between composer-teacher and student-composer, and the role…

This article profiles Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia, an outstanding musicologist, music educator, composer, and linguist. His countrymen, Ghanaians, know him best as a composer, and associate his name with his song "Yaanom Montie" and his choral compositions for unaccompanied SATB choirs--"Monkamfo No", "Nkyirimma Nye Bi" and "Monna N'ase". In…

The book contains information on musical activities which were field tested in Project PASE (Program in the Arts for Special Education, Pennsylvania) classrooms with a wide range of exceptionalities from preschool age to adolescence. Activities are seen to help children become more aware of their bodies, feelings, and themselves; feel important…

The case study of a 78-year-old music composer who had had a stroke revealed that he had a severe reading disturbance, a well-preserved writing ability, and no appreciable aphasia. He continued to read music and to compose. His text and music reading performance under different conditions suggested that this unusual dissociation (alexia without…