Includes list of members in each volume.

Keene provides a detailed account of music instruction in colonial and nationalized America from the 1600s to the end of the 1960s. (Music)

Morgan-Ellis brings the era of movie palaces to life. She presents the origins of theater sing-alongs in the prewar community singing movement, describes the components of a sing-along, explores the styles of several organists, and assesses the aftermath of sound technology, including the sing-along films and children's matinees of the 1930s.

How eugenics became a keystone of modern educational policy

What’s So Important About Music Education? presents a new philosophy of music education for the United States, rooted in history and current perspectives from ethnomusicology. J. Scott Goble explores the societal effects of the nation's foundations in democracy and capitalism, the constitutional separation of church and state, and the rise of recording, broadcast, and computer technologies. He shows how these and other factors have brought about changes in the ways music teachers and concerned others have conceptualized music and its importance in education. In demonstrating how many of the personal and societal benefits of musical engagement have come to be obscured in the nation’s increasingly diverse public forum, Goble argues for the importance of musical engagement in human life and for the importance of music in education. An ideal text for courses in music education foundations, the book concludes with recommendations for teaching the musical practices of the nation's cultural communities in schools in terms of their respective cultural meanings.