“How do children learn when they learn music?”

For nearly fifty years, Edwin E. Gordon has been searching for the answers to this question using his research-based Music Learning Theory. In The Development and Practical Application of Music Learning Theory, 31 authors, all experts in their fields, take up the challenge raised by Gordon—to continually improve classroom music instruction in truly practical ways. Some of the questions addressed include:

• How can Music Learning Theory and Orff Schulwerk be combined in the general music classroom for maximum learning?
• Why are healthy singing techniques so important when introducing Gordon’s solfege system?
• How can Music Learning Theory be applied to beginning senior citizen musicians?
• In what ways can a better understanding of rhythm and sight-singing methods improve even college-level aural skills and theory instruction?
• What does world music offer proponents of Music Learning Theory?

The Development and Practical Application of Music Learning Theory is a must for anyone interested in further exploring how children learn music and what the implications are for day-to-day classroom instruction. This is a revision of the book Readings in Music Learning Theory.

Maria Runfola is Department Chair and Associate Professor for the Graduate School of Education at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Cynthia Crump Taggart is an Associate Professor of Music Education at Michigan State University School of Music where she also directs and teaches in the Early Childhood Music and Young Musicians Program of the MSU Community Music School.

Foreword by Edwin E. Gordon.