ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the strengths and limitations of 'aesthetic listening'; and describes the assumptions underpinning way in which listening has traditionally been taught. It identifies the ways in which listening activities can be 'opened up' to reflect and develop a wider range of musical learning, understanding and experience and thus become more inclusive. The chapter also identifies some of the reasons for, and strategies to address, young people's negative attitudes towards listening, and their consequent underachievement in this area of the music curriculum. The chapter discusses much richer relationship exists between music and the listener than that which is often promoted in formal music education, and that this richer relationship can lead to young people engaging positively and successfully with listening and responding activities. It looks at a skeletal plan of a sequence of three music lessons based upon the song 'Strange Fruit', which refers to the lynching of Black Americans during the first part of the last century.
