Popular musicians acquire some or all of their skills and knowledge
informally, outside school or university, and with little help from
trained instrumental teachers. How do they go about this process?
Despite the fact that popular music has recently entered formal music
education, we have as yet a limited understanding of the learning
practices adopted by its musicians. Nor do we know why so many popular
musicians in the past turned away from music education, or how young
popular musicians today are responding to it. Drawing on a series of
interviews with musicians aged between fifteen and fifty, Lucy Green
explores the nature of pop musicians' informal learning practices,
attitudes and values, the extent to which these altered over the last
forty years, and the experiences of the musicians in formal music
education. Through a comparison of the characteristics of informal pop
music learning with those of more formal music education, the book
offers insights into how we might re-invigorate the musical involvement
of the population. Could the creation of a teaching culture that
recognizes and rewards aural imitation, improvisation and
experimentation, as well as commitment and passion, encourage more
people to make music? Since the hardback publication of this book in
2001, the author has explored many of its themes through practical work
in school classrooms. Her follow-up book, Music, Informal Learning and
the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008) appears in the same Ashgate
series.
