School and Music-school Collaboration in Sweden

How do we channel teenagers' interest in music? What guides our music teaching today, and what possibilities are there for development and change? These questions have given me occasion to take a closer look at the situation of music teaching today.Many teachers have asked themselves how we in the comprehensive school and the music school can look after the zest and creative power which are often exhibited by teenagers when they perform music freely, not under the direct control of a teacher. I have also, on quite a number of occasions during lessons, registered resignation and tedium on the part of pupils.The consequence has been drop-out from music school – sometimes experienced as a relief both by teacher and pupil. Despite the fact that the educational orientation has been based on a ‘musical encounter’ between teacher and pupil, this encounter has not occurred (or has sometimes occurred with a difference which certainly might have been corrected). But the pupil's great interest in music has not diminished – great interest, that is, in music as the pupil understands the term!