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discussions they were then told that they were going to learn in a totally informal way by listening to their own music and copying it. The teacher’s role was to establish behavioural ground rules and, having set the task, stand back and observe. This allowed teachers to be available for help, but not for musical instruction in the more formal way. The second stage presented students with a little known funk-hit number called Word Up by the band Cameo. This time the short repeated riffs in the song were broken down to form 15 separate tracks on a learners’ CD. The students were required to select riffs and harmonies from the CD and make up their own version as a band. By stage 4 students were encouraged to build on what they had learnt previously and use the skills to make their own composition. This was followed by a professional band (or a band of senior students) being brought into lessons to act as a musical model. The students then revisited the songs they were composing, and finally the informal learning process was used to work with classical music. Much of the book is taken up with transcriptions of recordings made as the students were working and with recorded discussions. These comments make very illuminating reading as students progress from rather incoherent beginnings: ‘They just play what they feel and stuff’ to ‘I learned how to put the keyboard inside the song – I tried to figure out if it really suited the song or not…’.

ConclusionIn her own words, Lucy Green’s book ‘has left many questions unanswered and many avenues unexplored’ and she agrees that if students followed this strategy ‘and nothing else, they would be likely to miss out …on some essential aspects of the music curriculum’. However, at times of apparent social fragmentation, many young people have an abiding passion for making music individually and together. The study concludes by asking us to listen to young people’s voices and, as music educators, to take their values and culture seriously. Viewed altogether, the Musical Futures initiative, the empirical authority and depth of this project, and finally this compelling and excellent book, make a major contribution to music education. Music, Informal Learning and the School should be on the reading list of everyone who believes in the power of music to transform the lives of young people everywhere.

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by Lucy GreenAshgate 2008

£16.99 paperback (online price)

Peter Stedman

This excellent book looks at the ways music is taught in classrooms across the country and suggests that maybe we are missing a trick or two. It sets out in detail the empirical research carried out by the Paul Hamlyn-funded Musical Futures project, which is regarded as one of the major advances in music-teaching pedagogy in this country since the turn of the century. Music, Informal Learning and the School looks at how young teenage musicians learn from each other when adult motivators are not present, and suggests that we might use some of the strategies observed to increase the range of our impact, as professional music educators, in the classroom setting. It does not set out to be the panacea for motivating youngsters, but it does suggest that we need to look again at the processes of informal learning to see how we can increase musicality, commitment and enjoyment within the mixed-ability context we all meet everyday.

The ethos of informal learningThe advantage of an empirical study, well-written and interestingly presented, is that we can all recognise our own situation and our own students within the details. For those who know the Musical Futures project, many of the outcomes and assumptions are familiar: that young people need a variety of

Music, Informal Learning and the School:

A New Classroom Pedagogy

Peter Stedman has 36 years’ experience as a music teacher in schools. He is currently director of music at Callington Community College in Cornwall, which is a specialist sports and music college.

stimuli and situations to feel they have ownership of their music education, that the music teacher at all key stages might be better regarded as a music facilitator, that professional musicians can have a profound impact on students if brought into the classroom, and that most musical learning goes on extensively outside the classroom situation. So, where does that leave the 21st-century music teacher?Lucy Green, in her introduction, highlights the various ways in which young popular musicians learn in an informal context. While fully accepting that many rock musicians do access more formal tuition, and that enculturation (immersion in the musical practices of one’s environment) is a common factor in much musical learning, there are some interesting and significant differences. She highlights the amount of solitary learning that young popular musicians engage in and the absence of the ‘master musician’ in the peer learning environment. The transmission of skills and knowledge in this environment is ‘largely in the hands of the young learners themselves’ and the essential learning practice is that of learning ‘to copy recordings by ear’.

The role of the schoolHowever, schools still play a vital role as young bands begin to form, positively assisting the haphazard, band-forming process by providing resources, instruments and practice spaces. Also highlighted is the lack of the apparent need for notation, as most of the learning is done by listening to recordings and each other. A critical observation made is that young musicians only interact effectively with music ‘so long as they enjoy it’ – surely an essential point of understanding for classroom-music practitioners. Green points out that ‘cooperation, sensitivity to others, commitment and responsibility are explicitly highly valued by the young musicians’ – all of the things we know about engagement with the musical process, but seldom have chance to say to senior managers.

The research projectThe core section of the book discusses the empirical research that took place at 21 secondary schools in London and Hertfordshire between 2002 and 2006. The project started off at stage 1 entitled ‘Dropping pupils into the deep end’, where students were asked to bring in their own music to the lesson. Following

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