Research has found that music facilitates learning in other subjects and enhances skills that children inevitably use in other areas. A music-rich education has displayed many benefits including language development, memorization, emotional development and creative thinking, not to mention the general benefits of music for music's sake. As one child expressed: "I don't know anyone who doesn't love music. You can't not like it."
Based on Professor Lucy Green’s extensive research into how popular musicians learn, Musical Futures believes music learning works best when young people are making music, and when their existing passion for music is reflected and built upon in the classroom. Originally designed to address the gap between student engagement with music in school and that outside of school, Musical Futures is a tried-and-tested innovative approach to music learning with the aim of bringing relevant and engaging music lessons to as many young people as possible. Bringing non-formal teaching and informal learning into the more formal music classroom, Musical Futures has helped many music educators across the world reshape their approach to music teaching, increasing their skills and confidence and enabling them to deliver high-quality music education.
Student choice is integral to the pedagogy, which means that rock and pop genres are often a starting point. However, as Musical Futures is an approach to teaching music, it can be applied to any content, not just to rock and pop! This means that it is sustainable and transferable to a range of learning contexts, both within the UK and overseas.
Musical Futures focuses on providing training, support and resources for teachers and practitioners to help them transform the teaching of music with students of all ages in school and in other contexts outside school. Teachers and practitioners can download a Teacher Resource Pack or via the Musical Futures App to support them in their work. The majority of resources available on the Musical Futures website are open source and include guides such as Getting started with Classroom Workshopping, Getting Started with Informal Learning and Getting Started with Find Your Voice. Musical Futures offers a range of training specifically designed for international teachers and practitioners in the UK, Australia and internationally.
A case study by UCL showed that by taking part in Musical Futures students believed that musical talent could be developed rather than being an innate talent they are born with.
