Hollywood film music in the secondary performing ensemble: Utah music educators' attitudes and teaching practices

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of Hollywood film music on the secondary instrumental music educator in Utah. Ensemble directors must take many factors into account before selecting the pieces they will perform with their students each year. One genre of music that is increasingly marketed toward music educators is Hollywood film music, whether it be an arrangement of a movie theme or transcribed excerpts of a film score. I collected data regarding educators' opinions concerning the use of film music as performance literature in the educational performing ensemble. I used an electronic questionnaire created at surveymonkey.com as the collection instrument and emailed it to all members listed in the 2007-2008 directory of the Utah Music Educators Association. Respondents were given 2 weeks to complete the survey.;The data are reflective of the educators' current perspective, as well as the educators' experiences as a music student. The sampled educators expressed approval of the use of film music primarily for recruiting and for teaching basic concepts to young players. A trend was discovered in which the value ranking of film music increased as the age of the educator increased. Although the participants expressed neutrality toward the value of film music as valuable performance literature, the educators reported using it as approximately one-fifth of the annual repertoire in their secondary instrumental ensembles.