This study aimed to determine the significance of music and music education to middle and high school adolescents, including those enrolled and not enrolled in school music programs. Of particular interest were their expressed meanings of music both in and out of school, with attention to adolescent views on the role of music in identity formation, the musical and nonmusical benefits for adolescents of their engagement with music, the curricular content of secondary school music programs, and the qualities of music teachers in facilitating music-learning experiences in middle and high school classes. An examination of essays, statements, and reflections in response to a national essay content was undertaken using an inductive approach to analyze content through the triangulation of interpretations by the investigators. Five principal themes were identified within the expressed meanings of music by adolescents: (a) identity formation in and through music, (b) emotional benefits, (c) music's life benefits, including character-building and life skills, (d) social benefits, and (e) positive and negative impressions of school music programs and their teachers. Overwhelming support was expressed for music as a necessary component of adolescent life, with support for and comments to probe concerning the work of music educators in secondary school programs.

This paper explores systems of music transmission, teaching and learning in evidence within the rehearsals of rock bands. Informants were nine musicians in two Seattle rock bands, all white males, ranging in age from fourteen to sixteen. Through interviews and observations of practice sessions, 'song-getting' and' skill-building' processes were noted. Attention was given to the young musicians' analytical listening behaviours, their evaluative remarks, and the social interactions of the groups' leaders as 'expert' musical models with other members of the group. Early home and school musical musical influences were examined, and ways in which the school music curriculum might be made more relevant to the needs and interests of young rock musicians are discussed.

What causes some children to want to play a musical instrument? Why do some children always have melodies running through their heads? In her book, Songs in Their Heads: Music and Its Meaning in subChildren’s Lives, Patricia Campbell addresses these types of questions while exploring how children of diverse ages, classes, and cultures use music in their daily lives, how ethnomusicology, the study of music through cultural influences, shape their musical experiences, and how recent advancements in technology and the influence of popular culture affect their musical choices.

Progress has been made in bringing the ollowing a month of Brazilian samba drumming and then a few weeks of Irish/Celtic melodies, the general music teacher announced to the fourth-grade children that Africa would be the next stop on their musical journey In a series of eight sessions, they would learn to drum a polyrhythm from the Akan of Ghana, play a Shona four-part xylophone piece from Zimbabwe, move to a Yoruba juju piece out of Nigeria, and sing a South African freedom song. When discussing her plans with other educators, the teacher enthusiastically stated: "I consider it my responsibility to expose children to the world of musical possibilities. It fits well with their social studies curriculum, too, because music is a way of knowing culture." The children's musical tour would thus continue into a pan-African fusion of experiences from the corners of the continent, where rhythms and melodies, instrumental techniques, and songs would be featured, and stories and artifacts would help to contextualize the music.In another school-a high school long known for its exceptional concert, marching, and jazz bands-the district's mandate to multiculturalize was all but dead-in-the-wind as subject-specific skills and understandings took precedence. The band director's MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL 28 SEPT E M B E R 2 0 0 2