The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of the keyboard laboratory in Year 8 music with specific reference to seven schools in Perth, Western Australia. To achieve this aim, the following areas are considered: the nature of curriculum documents for junior high school music; the evolution of the keyboard laboratory; existing texts currently in use in keyboard laboratories; and current school practices in Western Australia. These areas are reviewed within the following parameters: the keyboard laboratory, a group of six or more electronic keyboards connected to a main ' teaching' console which allows a teacher to communicate with the students individually, in groups or as a class; the junior secondary school music curriculum in Western Australia, also bearing in mind the national curriculum statement which refers to the need for the inclusion of: the common and agreed goals for schooling in Australia; and the three major organisers of the music strand of the proposed National Arts Curriculum: creating, making and presenting; arts criticism and aesthetics; and past and present contexts. (A National Curriculum Statement in the Arts 1993 p.22). The study examines the value/merits of a keyboard laboratory from the point of view of its effective use in the Year 8 classroom. It presents the evolution of the keyboard, explores a variety of ways in which keyboard experiences can develop skills, understandings and positive attitudes and reviews different methods and class keyboard texts currently in use in selected secondary schools in Western Australia based on information derived from a field study conducted by means of questionnaires and recorded interviews. Finally, it discusses the implications for future action and suggests recommendations regarding the use of the keyboard in the classroom.