Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children's identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children's natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I'm working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children's lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.

Can music really arouse emotions? If so, what emotions, and how? Why do listeners respond with different emotions to the same piece of music? Are emotions to music different from other emotions? Why do we respond to fictional events in art as if they were real, even though we know they're not? What is it that makes a performance of music emotionally expressive? Based on ground-breaking research, Musical Emotions Explained explores how music expresses and arouses emotions, and how it becomes an object of aesthetic judgments. Within the book, Juslin demonstrates how psychological mechanisms from our ancient past engage with meanings in music at multiple levels of the brain to evoke a broad variety of affective states - from startle responses to profound aesthetic emotions. He also explores why these mechanisms respond to music. Written by one of the leading researchers in the field, the book is richly illustrated with music examples from everyday life, and explains with clarity and rigour the manifold ways in which music may engage our emotions. Advance praise Musical Emotions Explained is a magnificent publication that has been painstakingly researched to illuminate the many, varied ways music can express and arouse emotions. It provides the most authoritative single authored text on the topic so far. As a highly readable and informative publication, it superbly unlocks the secrets of musical affect for experienced researchers through to lay readers alike. Gary E. McPherson, Ormond Chair of Music and Director, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Australia Anyone who wants to understand more about the most essential quality of music - its ability to move us - needs to read this book. Juslin's writing is gripping and thoughtful as he takes us on a journey through the latest research on this most interesting intersection between science and art. Daniel J. Levitin, Author of This Is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs. Music Emotions Explained is a tour de force. In this extraordinary book, written with passion and humor, Patrik Juslin shares insights gleaned from decades of ground-breaking research. Breadth and depth are nicely balanced as grand, over-arching themes are richly supported by systematic and detailed research findings. This book will serve as an inviting introduction to students or interested laypersons but also as a touchstone to which professionals will return frequently for guidance and inspiration. Donald A. Hodges, Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA Patrik Juslin here deftly synthesizes several decades of psychological research, much of it his own, on how music both expresses emotion and moves us emotionally, in the course of developing an empirically grounded, evolutionarily based, philosophically informed theory of the phenomenon in question, doing so with style and wit. Musical Emotion Explained is wide ranging, engagingly written, full of arresting claims, and studded with telling anecdotes. It is a book that everyone who has ever marveled at the affective power of music should read. Jerrold Levinson, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, USA Musical Emotions Explained is essential reading that sets the new gold standard resource for understanding the delicious pleasures of music experience. Using lucid, witty and compelling arguments, Patrik Juslin illustrates a set of core mechanisms that collectively account for music-evoked emotions. Scholars, general readers and musicians will be inspired by this landmark work, which will stimulate research for decades to come. Bill Thompson, Distinguished Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia It goes without saying that Patrik Juslin is one of the world's top experts on the science of musical emotion. What this book reveals is that he is a hugely persuasive and accessible interlocutor. It really feels as though one is in conversation with a friend who is thinking issues and arguments through with the reader, step by step. Of course all the important literature is covered, but this is far from a dry literature review. Juslin's book should excite and stimulate layreaders and professional colleagues alike to deepen their understanding of what makes music emotional. John Sloboda, Research Professor, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, UK The best comprehensive and critically explanatory tome to-date on one of the most fascinating and still poorly understood topics in music research, written by the foremost international expert on music and emotion. A treasure for decades to come. Michael Thaut, Professor of Music, Neuroscience and Rehabilitation Science, University of Toronto, Canada In Musical Emotions Explained, Patrik Juslin probes and proffers many psychological and philosophical concepts of musical emotions toward unpacking numerous mysteries surrounding the arousal and expression of musical affect. The results of his meticulous research have profound implications for experiencing, creating, valuing, and teaching music. Written with great care and passion, this brilliant book is a must-read for anyone who takes a serious interest in the nature and values of music in people's lives. David Elliott, Professor of Music and Music Education, New York University, USA Patrik Juslin has been at the forefront of research into music and emotion for more than 20 years. Adding to what is already an astonishing body of work, this hugely impressive monograph is the culmination of that remarkable programme of research. Witten in an accessible and engaging style, and covering a huge range of perspectives, this is a book that will undoubtedly become a classic in the psychology of music, an indispensable resource for researchers in the field, and a fascinating read for those who may be new to the topic. Eric Clarke FBA, Heather Professor of Music, University of Oxford, UK

The Routledge Companion to Teaching Music Composition in Schools: International Perspectives offers a comprehensive overview of teaching composing from a wide range of countries around the world. Addressing the current state of composition pedagogy from primary to secondary school levels and beyond, the volume explores issues, including different curricular and extracurricular settings, cultural aspects of composing, aesthetics, musical creativity, the role of technology, and assessment. With contributors from over 30 countries, this volume encompasses theoretical, historical, empirical, and practical approaches and enables comparisons across different countries and regions. Chapters by experienced educators, composers, and researchers describe in depth the practices taking place in different international locations. Interspersed with these chapters, interludes by the volume editors contextualize and problematize the teaching and learning of composing music. The volume covers a range of contexts, including formal and informal, those where a national curriculum is mandated or where composing is a matter of choice, and a range of types, styles, and genres of musical learning and music-making. Providing a wide-ranging and detailed review of international approaches to incorporating music composition in teaching and learning, this volume will be a useful resource for teachers, music education researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and all those working with children and young people in composing music.

Featuring chapters by the world's foremost scholars in music education and cognition, this handbook is a convenient collection of current research on music teaching and learning. This comprehensive work includes sections on arts advocacy, music and medicine, teacher education, and studio instruction, among other subjects, making it an essential reference for music education programs. The original Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, published in 1992 with the sponsorship of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC), was hailed as "a welcome addition to the literature on music education because it serves to provide definition and unity to a broad and complex field" (Choice). This new companion volume, again with the sponsorship of MENC, explores the significant changes in music and arts education that have taken place in the last decade. Notably, several chapters now incorporate insights from other fields to shed light on multi-cultural music education, gender issues in music education, and non-musical outcomes of music education. Other chapters offer practical information on maintaining musicians' health, training music teachers, and evaluating music education programs. Philosophical issues, such as musical cognition, the philosophy of research theory, curriculum, and educating musically, are also explored in relationship to policy issues. In addition to surveying the literature, each chapter considers the significance of the research and provides suggestions for future study.Covering a broad range of topics and addressing the issues of music education at all age levels, from early childhood to motivation and self-regulation, this handbook is an invaluable resource for music teachers, researchers, and scholars.