Month: February 2018

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Elliott – Music Matters

On page 67 of Music Matters, David Elliott is discussing two broad categories of music, “work-centered concept” and “contextual-social” (or “praxial concept”.) His aim is to discredit the work-concept of music in order to later promote his praxial arguments.

According to Elliott, “…the work-concept assumes that music = musical products (e.g., composed works, improvisations)”. Within this view, music is simply a combination of musical elements (melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) and that any value lies in “how these elements are organized or formed.” Elliott goes on to connect the work-centered concept with the “aesthetic concept” of music, where listeners approach listening by blocking out “extra-musical” considerations and only focus in a “distant” or “disinterested” way.

In my opinion, Elliott misrepresents (or perhaps simply ignores) some of the merits of the work-centered concept by relating the work-centered concept directly to the aesthetic concept and by placing too much emphasis on extra-musical elements. Consider any piece of programmatic, classical music. If you were to listen to it without knowing the program could you still find enjoyment in it? I’d argue yes.

Elliott takes the argument too far – by saying that extra-musical attributes are necessary for understanding undermines the importance of quality music. What I’m not advocating is for a purely aesthetic experience, but a listener can experience feelings that are unrelated to a work’s societal, historical, or political influences. Extra-musical elements are not needed in order to enjoy music. They can help, but they are not required.

With an increased emphasis on music’s context, are students given enough space and opportunities to explore less concrete aspects of music such as what makes a piece of music good? Many pieces of music were created under similar circumstances, be it spiritual, economical, social, etc.; but no one would argue that they’re all equally great. There’s no formula or correct answer when it comes to determining what makes a piece of music great, but if teachers blindly follow Elliott and his idea that “the work-concept of music and its aesthetic corollaries fail to provide a board, open-ended, and logical foundation for understanding the natures and values of musics in the world,” we are going to find ourselves increasingly removed from the art that we originally set out to teach.

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Reimer – Philosophy of Music Education

In A Philosophy of Music Education, Bennett Reimer proposes for a music education system that is rooted in aesthetic education. Reimer’s philosophy uses a synergistic process of bringing in different aspects of musical value (such as music creation, cultural impact, and meaning to name a few) together to give students opportunities to experience music’s aesthetics in a way that a performance based education doesn’t.

In Chapter 3, Reimer goes on to discuss music’s ability to produce feelings (an extension of emotions). Music’s power to make people feel is one of its “most defining characteristic” but is also one that has been suppressed the most in education as it’s the most difficult to explain. Reimer goes on to argue that this unique quality is the very reason we should continue to promote music in educational settings. As he states “Music allows us to create and share experiences available in no other way.”

What would a purely aesthetic education look like in today’s classrooms? Compare students who have the opportunity to perform music in school to those who just take a music appreciation or music history course. Does Reimer suggest that the students who are learning about music aesthetics are more likely to be engaged in the art and therefore more likely to have a lifelong connection to it than the students who spend much of their developmental years actively involved in the creation (performance) of the art?

I believe where these ideas are headed is a philosophy that approaches music education with a “both, and” approach rather than an “either, or.” Reimer’s arguments for an aesthetic based curriculum is valid and important but shouldn’t be used in a vacuum. A praxial philosophy of music education, with its greater emphasis in performance, isn’t itself the solution either.

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Freire – Pedagogy of the Oppressed

In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire compares education with a “banking” model where teachers are responsible for depositing knowledge into the empty vessels that are the students. Freire argues that because knowledge is viewed, by those who give it, as a gift it serves to further separate teachers and students and thus the oppressors from the oppressed. The oppressive nature of this education system discourages students from being creative and self-thinkers which helps the oppressors keep the status quo. A better education model, Freire argues, is one where teachers engage students in critical thinking and “the quest for mutual humanization.” Students in a “problem-posing method” are more likely to be able to view challenges as interrelated to other problems and not just as theoretical exercises. This leads to students who are more committed to their learning.

In my opinion, Freire’s arguments make sense, but only when you remove them what I see as the core argument in his book. Education is not the cause of oppression. Oppression can manifest itself in education but only if poorly trained and uninterested teachers allow it to happen. Plus, the actions of a poor teacher can be felt by all students, not just those who are oppressed or marginalized by society. Even the worst teachers I’ve seen aren’t actively trying to teach in a way that oppresses their students. I think that in order to claim that teachers are oppressing their students Freire needs to cite more concrete examples. (Examples, that in my mind would lead to the termination of a specific teacher, not a educational revolution.)

Learning is a skill and takes time to acquire and hone. Simply blaming poor education results on the teachers and institutions is, what I believe, the biggest problem facing American education today. As Freire points out, education should be a collaborative, joint journey between the teachers and the students. Said another way, and against what I think Freire argues, the students are just as responsible for their education as the teacher; and to place all the blame on the teachers fails to consider the entire narrative. The pedagogy of the oppressed (and un-oppressed) needs to focus on great teaching – that puts the subject in the center of a discussion between teachers and students – but also needs to find ways of teaching the importance of education to students (and adults) at an early age. (Most) everyone wants an education, just not everyone wants to work for it; and in education sometimes the oppressed are themselves the oppressors.