ABSTRACT
This chapter will first examine the experiences of those musicians who took instrumental tuition in popular music, dating back to Bernie’s lessons in the early 1960s and going up to the end of the century. Then I will look at the younger musicians’ experiences of what I will refer to as the ‘new classroom music education’, in which a vast increase in the diversity of curriculum content, along with a broadening of teachers’ perspectives, occurred during the 1990s. This will be followed by a brief discussion of some aspects of the musicians’ encounters with post-schooling courses in popular music. At the end of the chapter I will consider the musicians’ stated views of the advantages and disadvantages of including popular music in formal education.
