ABSTRACT
Elijah’s narrative demonstrates the potential for school class music to shape and support “musical men.” Elijah has excelled at music learning and achievement and has diverse musical interests and performance skills across classical and contemporary genres. Elijah’s favourite musical activity is experimentation through composition, as it provides him with a means for self-expression. While his mother, Ella, values music learning, greater value is given to school academic results. Ella initially did not support Elijah’s study of senior music due to her belief that other subjects would produce higher overall results and a higher tertiary entrance score. While Ella may have been unable to deter Elijah from studying senior music, she was determined to influence his post-school career pathway decisions. The result is a change in the role of music in Elijah’s identity from “music is everything” to music is “my biggest hobby.” Elijah describes the most valuable lesson he learned from class music as understanding people. He says class music is not just about learning music but also making people; these “life lessons” produce “musical men.” Elijah says he will take and value these lessons from class music with him into the future as an aspiring medical doctor.
