Musical Instruments in Japanese School Education: Ideas, Policy, and Reality

At the last meeting of the Study Group on Musical Instruments in Lisbon (2019), my discussion focused on teaching and learning musical instruments in Japanese schools. I reported about the musical instruments applied for educational purposes from a historical perspective. Examining the introduction and development of instrument education in music classes revealed that various musical instruments have been used as teaching tools. On the one hand, some of them are a reinvention or an improvement of already existing musical instruments. On the other hand, cultural and socio-economic factors always play a vital role in adopting and mastering musical instruments in formal education. In this paper, as a follow-up study of the topic, I will give due emphasis on the musical instruments recommended in the educational guidelines. Consequently, I will examine their organology and the ideas behind applying specific musical instruments in school education.