Society, Schools, and Music Learning
This chapter examines how music education can benefit from the use of new electronic tools and materials for music making that allow learners to combine their interests and prior understandings toward deepening their engagement in music. By exploring how rhythmic videogames like Rock Band bridge the large chasm that exists between youths’ music culture and traditional music education; how inexpensive recording hardware and software such as Audacity and Apple Garageband has provided youth with opportunities to compose and perform as only professional musicians could in the past; and how software like Impromptu successfully engages youth in music composition and analysis by enabling users to create and remix tunes using virtual blocks that contain portions of melodies and/or rhythmic patterns, this chapter argues 21st-century music education, with the help of new technology, has the potential for engaging greater numbers of young learners in authentic music making and performance.