Advocacy

ABRSM contributes actively to the body of research that provides insight into music teaching and learning, the enablers and barriers to musical progress and changes that are happening over time. ABRSM’s Making Music is a longitudinal series of reports tracking trends in music education over the last three decades. It provides the music education sector with data we can all use to promote the value and importance of music as well as insight into the needs of teachers and learners. 

We published our first report in 1994 based on market research drawn from our own customers, which provided a valuable insight into music teaching and learning more generally in the UK. We published two further reports in this format in 1997 and 2000. In 2014, we decided to complete a new edition of the Making Music series, expanding it by working with an external research company, Critical Research, and with partners in the music education sector. This edition gave an even clearer picture of music teaching and learning in the UK and has been cited by many other organisations in the music education sector. 

In 2021 we once again commissioned Critical Research to work with us on this project. Survey questions were very similar to those used in previous editions, however we took the opportunity to update them to reflect the diversity of people engaging in music and the changing way in which people learn, create and share music in the UK. Following on from the Music Commission report published in March 2019, we were also interested in gathering data relating to the impact of digital technology, social-economic background and special educational needs and disabilities on learner progression. 

In 2018 we initiated The Music Commission to explore what it means to make progress in music. You can find out more information about The Music Commission, including the final report and executive summary, at the below link.