ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the some more specific research around music education at Key Stage 3 (KS3), going into some detail about the demands and specificities of the current National Curriculum for music. An issue is that many children come to feel that the core requirements of the KS3 National Curriculum – singing, in particular, but also the clumsy expressiveness which tends to be a necessary first step when a person begins to make music – are an embarrassment. The child-centred approach which engages with contemporary urban music/Electronic Dance Music (EDM) in general and which integrates DJ decks in particular can aid us in the struggle against disengagement from music at KS3. The new National Curriculum proposes that pupils should be taught to 'improvise and compose; and extend and develop musical ideas by drawing on a range of musical structures, styles, genres and traditions'.
