B. J. Music Ed. 2017 34:2, 237–239 C  Cambridge University Press 2017 doi:10.1017/S0265051717000043 Erratum Editorial Music education: Why bother? - ERRATUM MARTIN FAUTLEY doi:10.1017/S0265051716000413, published by Cambridge University Press, 22 February 2017. Unfortunately the March 2017 issue of the journal contained the wrong version of the editorial. The correct version is contained in this erratum. The Editors apologise for the error. Editorial Music education: Why bother? One of the common questions asked of music educators is some sort of variation on ‘music education – why bother?’ ‘Children and young people’, the questioner usually states, ‘will get on fine, they’ll learn to play instruments and sing if they want to, so why not let the more important subjects in school have the time and money spent on such fripperies?’ Usually answering this sort of question requires a deep breath, and a moment to consider what to say so as not to appear too rude. It seems that this question, or one of its near cognates, is increasingly coming to the fore in times of fiscal and social retrenchment. But what do we say, so as to try to silence forever these ill-informed interlocutors? Here in the pages of the British Journal of Music Education we endeavour to present arguments each issue as to why music education is important. But our questioner is unlikely to have read these. In many countries the place of advocacy is high on the list of ways to deal with this, but clearly advocacy alone is not working, or we would not still be hearing such things. In other jurisdictions it is the external, transferable benefits of music education that are promoted: for example, ‘music makes you smarter’, or ‘music makes you better at numeracy’. These are all well and good, but run the danger of something else supplanting music. Some food supplements allegedly make you smarter, and simply going shopping makes you more numerate, so goodbye music, hello lunch and the high street. It seems likely that we as music educators did not become involved with music simply to promote shopping malls. So what can we say to address such questions? One of our own subject field problems, covered in a number of these BJME editorials passim is that we cannot agree amongst ourselves on what music education actually is (Fautley & Murphy, 2015b), or what it should contain (Fautley & Murphy, 2015a). This dis- agreement is good – it is the sign of a healthy subject domain. It is a truism to note that sport begets competition, and music fosters cooperation, but in neoliberal times, with monetary 237 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265051717000043 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.205.159.194, on 08 Oct 2021 at 12:33:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at