Music teachers are often faced with students’ negative attitudes towards Music as a school subject, and dilemmas of what would be most important to teach and at the same time interesting, useful and relevant to students. Looking at music teaching and learning through the eyes of students can play a key role in re-shaping the condition of learning and promoting a positive and motivating musical learning environment. The aim of this study was to ‘turn up the volume’ of secondary students’ views of their music lessons in secondary school, including what they value and how they would have liked lessons to be if they had the opportunity to change things. A self-report questionnaire was devised for the purposes of the study and was administered to 749 secondary school students in schools in Cyprus. Our findings reveal that participants enjoyed Μusic, ranking it as their second favourite out of 15 secondary school subjects. However, there was a reported discrepancy between the activities students are engaged with and what they would like to be engaged with. Students called for more focus on singing, to play a greater variety of instruments besides the recorder (i.e., drums, guitar and piano) and to play the music they like. Building on students’ perspectives, recommendations are made for music teachers and policy makers.

音乐老师经常面对学生对音乐作为学校学科的消极态度，以及在教学中最重要的同时又对学生有趣，有用和相关的困境。通过学生的眼光审视音乐教学可以在重塑学习条件，促进积极积极的音乐学习环境方面发挥关键作用。这项研究的目的是“提高”中学生对中学音乐课的看法，包括他们的价值观以及如果他们有机会改变事物，他们希望如何学习音乐。为了研究的目的，设计了一份自我报告调查表，并向塞浦路斯学校的749名中学生进行了调查。我们的发现表明，参与者喜欢音乐，在15个中学科目中排名第二。但是，据报告，学生从事的活动与他们想要从事的活动之间存在差异。学生呼吁更多地专注于唱歌，除了录音机（例如，鼓，吉他和钢琴）之外，还要演奏更多种类的乐器，并演奏自己喜欢的音乐。根据学生的观点，向音乐老师和政策制定者提出建议。