My elementary school's approach to instrumental music was very simple: If you want to learn to play an instrument, talk your parents into buying it and paying for lessons. It's not our job. We only do classroom sing-alongs.

I don't recall having an instrument in my hand until I got my first guitar. Classrooms had pianos, but they were strictly for teachers. We weren't allowed to touch them.

That many classrooms nowadays have a ukulele and/or recorder for each student is a paradigm shift in the philosophy of music instruction.