ABSTRACT
I finished writing this chapter on the day (10 October 2000) when it was announced that two-thirds of secondary school students thought that their Music lessons had either had little or no relevance for them, or had not taught them anything, depending upon the way particular programmes presented the news. Of course such headlines always miss out much of the interesting detail and paint a picture rather bleaker than is the case in reality. However, they do remind us to know why we construct curriculums and syllabuses in particular ways, and to be able to communicate the essence of that to those we teach at all levels of education. In the light of this, my basic premise is that music is a route to knowing the self, and simultaneously reifying senses of community. It is a way of giving substance to enculturation and empowerment in education. The discussion that follows looks at such issues through the example of ‘world musics’. We have become very aware of ‘world musics’ in educational circles in recent years, with a great many animateurs, stimuli and learning materials appearing in many forms and guises, looking at musics from many parts of the globe. Some look at the music per se, in terms of its structures and modes of operation. This now seems to me to be insufficient, and allows for the unauthorized appropriation of techniques, timbres and, perhaps most perniciously, samples without acknowledgement. However, most of these resources do acknowledge an originating culture and attempt to provide a socio-cultural framework for understanding the music. Nevertheless, I think there are further steps that should, and could, be taken for schools and others to draw more fully on the significance of music in the lives of people.
