Creating in Music Learning Contexts

This article, which focuses on learners' composing original music in classroom contexts because, in the past 50 years, classroom composing has become an important part of music curricula, considers sociocultural and musical contexts that potentially foster and support music learners' creative work in school settings. It begins by sharing some perspectives on the nature of music and the nature of learning, and how they inform music teaching, and then considers what researchers say about learners' collaborative creative work in music classroom settings. Finally, the article looks at some instances of music learning in the context of collaborative composing in elementary and primary classroom settings.