The increasing interest in children and young people as composers, as evidenced by the growing literature on the subject in recent years, has tended to overlook at least one important aspect of young composers' development: their sense of tonal thinking, its emergence and consolidation. This article traces these characteristics through the compositions of one boy, showing how he ‘progressed’ from pre-tonal operations to fully-established tonal procedures. The discussion of his development is deliberately limited to the examination of harmonic thinking, which manifests itself before long(er)-range tonal planning (in the form of tonality or key schemes) becomes a focus of concern.

The teaching of musical notation is now a legal requirement of the National Curriculum for music in England and Wales. Far from settling the debate over the desirability, or otherwise, of teaching notation, this aspect of the legislation seems to make a review of the problem imperative.

This article examines theories of music as a language analogous to the spoken or written word, and then considers the practical and sociological arguments for and against the teaching of staff notation.

In this article, I discuss the importance of movement in music education and suggest an effective way to approach this particular area of music teaching for younger children. The most important characteristics of movement to music activity in musical experience would seem to be in the role of developing in the mind of the participants ‘music schemata’, an active, developing organization of past responses to music which play a vital role when we listen to music and comprehend its expressive character. This hypothesis was tested in the teaching-experiment which was carried out in an English primary school and a Japanese primary school with the children of 7 to 8 years of age.

The effects of London Sinfonietta education projects on their participants are identified and analysed, through questionnaire and interview, and then measured against London Sinfonietta policy itself. To a great extent the aims of the policy are being met: the work is found to be an enjoyable and valuable experience leading towards an understanding of contemporary art music. Some problems identified concern the integration of the teachers, appropriate training for the players and composers, and the elitism of the concert hall. The fieldwork was undertaken with the kind co-operation of the London Sinfonietta education team and the schools involved.

The longstanding debate within Islam about the legitimacy of performing and listening to music is now being heard within the British Muslim community, and some parents are expressing misgivings about the compulsory status of music within the National Curriculum. The paper explores the diversity of Muslim attitudes towards music and argues that teachers in Britain have a responsibility to respond to Muslim sensitivities as far as possible.

‘Creative music-making’, as developed in recent years in Great Britain and other countries, has also become popular in Japanese music education; for many music teachers have come to think seriously about the significance of child-centred music education instead of teacher-centred music education. Such a trend seems to be new. However, as in the United States and Great Britain, child-centred music education has been implemented previously – during the 1920's, in Japan's case. This development began in the Elementary School Attached to Nara Women's Higher Teachers College. The author describes the ideas and practices of creative music education in this school, and its historical background, comparing them with creative music-making today.