The Millennials, today’s pupils and students, is the first generation to grow up with tools for interactive communication and media production. Many students choose to study music production in higher education establishments. Therefore music production is an emerging subject and important research topic. The aim of this thesis is to develop knowledge of music production and to identify key skills necessary for music producers and music production teachers. Three sub-studies were performed to investigate what characterizes music production, both in an educational context and as a professional activity. In the first study, a Desktop Music Production project in a municipal music school was investigated. Observations and interviews were used as data collection methods. The results show that teachers need to be multi skilled to teach musicproduction. In addition to standard teaching skills they need to have extensive knowledge of music technology and relevant contemporary knowledge about trends in youth culture and popular music. In the second study students' views on important learning outcomes in music production were investigated. Questionnaires and group interviews were used to collect data. The results show that music production is a topic that includes various types of content. Issues regarding music, technology, music industry, personal development and employability were of central importance to the students. In the third study eleven professionals were interviewed, all music production teachers or active music producers. The main result was that the skills required for both music producers and music production teachers are varied and extensive. Psychology and leadership, music, technology, ethics, law and copyright, entrepreneurship and cultural timing are particularly relevant to music production. Based on these results, a model for education in music production is presented. Music production also differs from traditional music education. In addition to traditional musical and pedagogic skills it requires technical competence from the teachers. Men dominate music production teaching, and the vast majority of professional music producers are also men. Technological developments are affecting young people's musical skills, and therefore it’s a challenge for music teachers to meet pupils and students who already have advanced knowledge of music production and are eager to learn more.

This dissertation has the main purpose of analysing the biggest single musical educational project in Sweden, so far, Radiokonservatoriet (the Radio Conservatory) from an educational perspective. The project was planned and carried out in 1965–68. This was a time of change in Swedish society. The economy was stronger than ever which had made it possible to let education expand explosively.

At the same time, the subject of music in schools was in trouble since the previous and obvious religious legitimacy had faded with secularisation. A lack of music teachers and a lack of relevant higher education in music were well known problems. The expectations were high on an educational project that was going to use media and new methods. Musicology was supposed to build the core of music teaching. In spite of the tough education with three new programmes every week, 132 students managed to conclude all the three courses and were awarded a diploma.

In the analysis, I have used concepts from the theory of distance education. With great distance between teacher and pupil, the former has to create strong ”structure” and explicit declarations of how the material is formed in the sense of selection and progression. On the other hand, great distance creates a free space where the pupil can choose autonomously: where, when, and what to study.

The Radio Conservatory was well aware of the pedagogic imperatives of the time: ”activity” and ”integration”. The included exercises show different activities of registering, analytic and creative kinds. Singing and playing instruments were not included as ”activities”. The integration of the project consisted of the fact that the three courses were given simultaneously. This gave advantages, but made the education extensive and disregarded the intention of blending different school subjects, which was the established pedagogic intention.

The essentialistic striving to create a music subject built on musicology was fruitless. In the 1970s the interest in material theories and teaching content was marginalised in favour of formal theories. My proposal is that both these sides of interest, the material and the formal side of music education, should be balanced.

The thesis contains an analysis and interpretation of the school music debate that was particularly lively during the 1930s. The debate started with an article in Stockholms-Tidningen – Stockholms Dagblad entitled Why not sing popular songs in music classes? The author was Knut Brodin, a music teacher at Olofskolan, a school run in accordance with the principals of educational progressivism, inspired by John Dewey.

The debate developed into a confrontation between tradition and renewal. The foundations of music teaching, indeed of school education as a whole, both form and content, were at stake. The debate also raised questions about values in view of the increasing popularity of popular music and its potentially harmful effect on morals.

The purpose of the thesis is to describe and interpret the Swedish discourse on music teaching during the 1930s. The main question is: What educational and other ideas were expressed in this discourse and what was their origin?

The theoretical and methodical framework of the thesis is discourse analysis. The material studied consisted of texts in the form of statements about music and music teaching. The analysis reveals a struggle for power, i.e. the power to win the right to interpret and define the basic elements of the discourse.

Music and music teaching emerge in a broader social context in connection with the analysis of the discourse. The terms music and music teaching turn out to be variable and ambiguous. The same applies to other terms such as children and education. The period studied here witnessed a marked professionalization of music teachers which sharpened the ideological struggle between different groups. The discourse was marked by the incompatibility between traditional and progressive tendencies.

In a joint dissertation project, 11 brass instrument and guitar lessons, with 4 teachers and 21 students aged 9-35 years, were videotaped, transcribed and ana­lyzed. Two were group lessons and 9 were private lessons. The object of the pro­ject was to study how music teaching and learning can be under­stood from an institutional perspective by describing, analyzing and in­terpreting musical in­strument lessons. The lessons were viewed as social encounters in which the action of participants creates and re-creates social orders at different institutional levels, by means of communication rou­tines using speech, music and gesture.

Data were derived from micro-ethnographic transcriptions of speech, gesture and music of a total of five hours of videotape, supplemented by text analyses of 14 method-books. The transcripts were analyzed as text from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. At the analytical level the study applied the cognitive concepts of experiencing and learning music, as well as those of educational gen­res of speech and music use. The analyzed data were interpreted and discussed from the per­spectives of interaction-theory and institution-theory.

The results show how the music during the lessons was broken down into sepa­rate notes, as read from the score. Music was not addressed as phrases, rhythms, or melodies. Expressive qualities of music performance were not ad­dressed. The characteristics of the interaction were found to be asymmetric, with the teacher being the one controlling the definition of the situation. Student at­tempts to take initiative were ignored by teachers. This asymmetric pattern of interaction had negative consequences for students’ as well as teachers’ opportu­nities to learn. The organization of the teaching situation as well as teaching methods is discussed from the perspective of institution-theory. A major conclu­sion is that the way instrument teaching is organized leaves little room for stu­dents and teachers to discuss and reflect on the teaching process.