ABSTRACT
Music with children should feel creative. It should feel creative for both children and
teachers, since if musical creativity is lost then the music is lost too. Yet the sense of
music as a creative art can become very tenuous in the classroom situation. It is all too
easy for it to become submerged in the rush to move on as fast as possible, or in a
style of teaching in which any creative aspects of the work, the choice of instruments
to accompany singing, for example, are controlled entirely by the teacher. Key
questions for the quality of music in a school are those of how to encourage children
in working creatively and how to sustain an immediate and vivid sense of music as an
art.