Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education

Abstract

Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education. By David J. Elliott. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. [xv, 380 p. ISBN 0-19-509171-X. $35.00.] For past thirty years education philosophers have promoted idea that a child's formal musical development should at same time nurture growth in aesthetic sensitivity. Music-education-as-aesthetic-education (MEAE), which today is essentially considered a formal principle of education instructional theory, is primarily attributable to noted educator Bennett Reimer (A Philosophy of Music Education [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970, 1989]). Held as an axiom in university education foundations courses, teachers-to-be learned to assume that highly skilled musical performance is insufficient evidence of worthwhile education. According to MEAE, finding music's aesthetic content, whether performing that or listening to it, represents a far more valuable educational outcome than merely learning to manipulate an instrument. With a few isolated exceptions this point of view remained unchallenged until about six years ago (see, e.g., Quarterly Journal of Musk Tracking and Learning 2, no. 3 [1991]). But with recent (renewed) interest in multiculturalism, critical thinking, feminism, and other interests, education theorists have begun to consider principles and test older ones. Music Matters exemplifies these proposals. David Elliott has three aims: The First is to develop a philosophy of education--a critically reasoned concept of nature and significance of education. second is to explain what this philosophy means ... for organization and conduct of formal to develop musical understanding. third is to encourage a disposition in teachers to think philosophically as a regular part of their daily professional efforts (p. 12). Elliott's new philosophy rests on two premises: The first is that nature of education depends on nature of music. second is that significance of education depends on significance of in human life (p. 12). Quite sensibly, in short, a theory (or the of instruction depends upon a theory (or significance) of musical learning (in human life) and a theory of musical learning depends upon a theory (of nature) of music. Elliott begins his philosophy by showing what is wrong with old MEAE philosophy. Essentially he identifies what to him are four ill-conceived assumptions: The first assumption is that is a collection of objects or works. second assumption is that musical works exist to be listened to in one and only one way: aesthetically. ... third assumption ... is that value of musical works is always intrinsic or internal. ... fourth assumption is that [listening] to pieces of aesthetically ... will achieve ... an aesthetic experience (p. 23). Elliott contends that these assumptions represent framework of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century aesthetic theory, a theory that he says is outmoded and irrelevant for contemporary education. central premise of Elliott's new philosophy, one that from his perspective must replace outmoded search for objective aesthetic content, is that music making ... lies at heart of what MUSIC is and that making is a matter of musical knowledge-in-action, or musicianship. Music education ought to be centrally concerned with teaching and learning musicianship (p. 72). short, focus of education philosophy, and thus education instruction, should be musicing (Elliott's term) which can take several different forms: singing or performing on an instrument, improvising, composing, arranging, or conducting. Properly rendered, musicing in all its forms is active, involved, and ongoing rather than passive, objective, or simply observational. In this praxial philosophy, content of curriculum is musicianship. …