This paper is based on a three-year ethnographic study (Stake, Bresler, & Mabry, 1991) that explored the operational, day-to-day music curriculum (Goodlad, Klein, & Tye, 1979) in three elementary schools. Within the heterogeneous contents and activities of the operational curriculum, I identify three orientations in terms of their roles within the institute: (a) the functional, perpetuating the academic curriculum in its aims, contents and structures; (b) the complementary, providing missing aspects (in teachers' reflections); and (c) the expansive, focusing on specific music knowledge, skills, and intelligences (Gardner, 1983). Whereas advocacies for the ideal music abound, school/?ractice in music receives little attention. Factors contributing to this inaccessibility include nonstandardized curricula, the vast diversity of potential music activities, and the absence of testing.1 These factors are interrelated. Music curricula have never been central to public education and typically are not subject to either local or national evaluation. With few demands to increase test scores, productivity and cognitive skills, teachers are left to draw on their own resources, personal beliefs, and visions. They also draw upon an array of customs and traditions. The selected sites were ordinary schools,2 selected to touch a variety of demographics in a large city (Chicago) and a small blue-collar town (Danville, Illinois). Minority students (African-Americans, Hispanics, and East Indians) comprised 42% to 74% of the schools' population. Fifty percent of the students were entitled to free lunches. There were music specialists in Danville but not in Chicago. Data sources included observations of music3 instruction in grades K-8 where each class was observed between one to four times; observations of performances and school programs in and out of school; in-depth, semistructured interviews with 39 classroom teachers, 4 music specialists, students, principals, and parents; and review of written materials (e.g., music tests, music textbooks, concert program notes). The observations encompassed different levels of ability from the gifted to the lowest tracks, including special education classes.
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