Music Education in a Changing Society

Abstract

In dealing with change, a differentiation can be made between conservatism and conservation. The first term, conservatism, commonly interpreted as the disposition to hold on to which is or which was. Conservation, in a psychologically derived sense, the disposition to be aware of that which does not change when change occurs. In dealing with a condition in which change occurring, we first strive to ascertain the constants that are present in both the old and the new situations. One of those constants that the sensory and musical nature of man rather well fixed and that this nature will change only through a slow process of evolution or through artificially induced but only temporarily effective tamperings. The expressive arts will continue to be the means by which man transcends the restraints of reality and even language. Man organizes movement; he organizes line and color; he shapes material; he organizes sound. In his expressive endeavors, he uses the tools and the materials and the skills at hand. Some persons will develop new tools, new combinations of elements, and additional skills in order to achieve their expressive needs or objectives. The history of the composition of music reveals a drive to seek new sources of sound and then to organize those sounds into structured sound sequences. When the pitch ranges and the timbres of conventional orchestral instruments of the time seem to have been fully exploited, other manageable sound sourceseven those previously regarded as nonmusical-become possible materials for the syntactical or the aleatoric composer. A second constant that man has a historically and anthropologically demonstrated drive to interact with and to influence his environment. In the interaction with his social environment, survival and function as a human being depend on establishing some The author, who director of graduate studies in music education at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, president of Music Educators National Conference. This article the text of his address to the MENC division conferences.