Elliott and Silverman begin the chapter on musical understanding by defining what it is not: Exclusively "basic musicianship skills" such as dictation, notation, sight-singing, technical facility, or other surface level technical skills whether physical or verbal. Later in the chapter, they include this as a specific kind of musical knowing, but they argue that this is only one aspect, not musical understanding as a whole.
Following the idea that musicing is something people do, they set a litmus test for musical understanding as experiences that are "satisfying, meaningful, enjoyable, transformative, and personal-musical growth experiences" (p 202) and that teaching-learning episodes should "spark, support, enliven, arouse, sustain, and advance positive personal experiences" which seem to support the earlier argument that musicing is human experience that is more than the sum of parts. The ways of knowing and thinking musically according to the authors are split into ten parts.
1. Embodied and Enactive--- The mind and body cannot be separated, so a holistic musical knowing will include aspects of knowing with the body as it is connected to the mind.
2. Musicianship and Listenership--- This is the decision making process, what do we want to teach, learn or communicate and how?
***3. Procedural--- You can only know by doing. Elliott explains this way of knowing is only possible through direct experience. For example, a military wife may know many aspects of Army culture or things like chain of command, but knowing those things and living them are very different experiences that affect procedural knowledge. Where this seems problematic for music, however, is the idea that people cannot possibly have procedural knowledge about music if they have never done music. The procedural knowledge of the clarinet player surely affects their listening experience to a clarinet performance. However, if this is taken to the author's logical end, conductors could never be proficient at procedural knowledge because there is no way to become that proficient at all of the possible instruments. So while I see his point, I think procedural should be included with experiential (#5) to be clear that any who experience music can have some procedural knowledge.
4. Verbal--- This is the one referred to in the opening statement, most commonly perceived as "musical understanding" as defined in standards, assessments, and written curriculum.
5. Experiential--- The knowledge developed by people as they do music. For example, a person who spent their life playing electric bass for a rock band will have a very different experience than someone who has been trained in a classical style. They may both be considered professionals, and have some shared experiential knowledge (such as negotiating pay for a gig) but their experiential knowledge (how to balance sound in an amplifier vs. balancing acoustic sound with a pipe organ) will be very different. Not better than one another, but different.
6. Situated--- How people use their musical knowledge together as a group, in a relational sense.
7. Intuitive--- Non-verbal, feelings. Elliott and Silverman warn this one can be misleading, as it is grounded in strongly felt sense rather than processes of logic, but can still be a useful tool. I suspect this one is highly valued by the author who comes from a jazz background, and jazz musicians tend to rely on this after many years of verbal and experiential knowledge growth.
8. Appreciative--- Recognizing a creative opportunity as a possibility rather than an obstacle. When a teacher utilizes an organic "learning moment" to expand the musical knowledge of the students, rather than rigidly sticking to a lesson plan, they are demonstrating this aspect of musical knowing.
9. Ethical--- The knowledge we use to make ethical decisions about what pieces we choose to teach or perform, and the context that has to be involved in that decision making process. This could probably be included in the musicianship and listenership, or the verbal ways of knowing since it is a more cognitive way of processing musical knowledge. It doesn't seem very useful to separate it out.
10. Supervisory--- This way of knowing is specifically the musicianship-listenership-verbal from the teacher/conductor point of view. This is holistic knowing, and planning with intent what experiential and situated knowledge a leader wants their ensemble or class to know.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Picking on Elliott
This week's assignment was to "play the naysayer" to one of Elliott's main themes in chapters 2-3. As I started reading I remembered what Dr. Abril said about how we can read all sorts of contradictory philosophical works and agree with all of them because of how well the argument is presented. I started out this week's reading wondering what I could choose to "pick the naysayer" to because I didn't immediately see anything with which I had a gut-reaction disagreement.
However, in Chapter 2, as he discusses the definition of "praxis" he lists out the parts, and sums it up as basically that music is more than the sum of the parts. He demonstrates this by saying music cannot be separated out from the "social, cultural, ethical, economic"--or more commonly understood extra-musical values that are integrated into thoughtful musical education praxis.
While I agree that those extra-musical values are interwoven into a quality music education experience, he quotes Bowman on page 51 as saying "music as a social act and a social fact, instead of music as an entity [a thing] to which my relationship is aesthetic, receptive, and somehow individual in nature." He says this as if the aesthetics of musical experience is not also integrated into praxis. Aesthetics is a value or value judgment on arts, and from my own experience it is clear to me that the aesthetic value a student places on a piece of music is directly related to their motivation to learn it, or work together with others to improve it. If we do not critically educate students about how to make aesthetic judgments, they will gravitate towards that which is already familiar. And if students are not learning new things in a music classroom, only rehashing what is comfortable, why would we even need music educators to do anything beyond the techne? I would argue that the aesthetic is the value that equals more than the sum of the parts.
However, in Chapter 2, as he discusses the definition of "praxis" he lists out the parts, and sums it up as basically that music is more than the sum of the parts. He demonstrates this by saying music cannot be separated out from the "social, cultural, ethical, economic"--or more commonly understood extra-musical values that are integrated into thoughtful musical education praxis.
While I agree that those extra-musical values are interwoven into a quality music education experience, he quotes Bowman on page 51 as saying "music as a social act and a social fact, instead of music as an entity [a thing] to which my relationship is aesthetic, receptive, and somehow individual in nature." He says this as if the aesthetics of musical experience is not also integrated into praxis. Aesthetics is a value or value judgment on arts, and from my own experience it is clear to me that the aesthetic value a student places on a piece of music is directly related to their motivation to learn it, or work together with others to improve it. If we do not critically educate students about how to make aesthetic judgments, they will gravitate towards that which is already familiar. And if students are not learning new things in a music classroom, only rehashing what is comfortable, why would we even need music educators to do anything beyond the techne? I would argue that the aesthetic is the value that equals more than the sum of the parts.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
When everything is highlighted, nothing is.
The title of this post refers to a line from Pixar's The Incredibles where the villain Syndrome says "because when everyone is a superhero, no one will be." I'll come back to that.
Fifteen years ago, my husband and I started the summer master's program at Northwestern. In two of those classes we covered some or all of the Reimer 3rd edition of Philosophy of Music Education. Basically, our copy of the book is well worn, and full of highlighting and notes penciled in the margin. (I also discovered some old photocopies of a Power Point presentation where my friend Wayne and I were passing notes to each other in class).
But as I started reading, I wondered if my highlighted sections or my notes (or Tyson's notes) would still resonate with me. Will I still regard the text the same way with twelve more years of teaching under my belt? Or has nothing changed and I'll just read and renew my same positions? So in re-reading, I used a different color to highlight, but wondered if very much changed will everything be highlighted?
The first thing that I notice is the sentence "Our profession needs such guidance at both the collective and the individual levels" (p 2). Because I was only 4 years into my career when I first read parts of this book, I read it on the individual level, how does this affect me and my students? Now I read it with the hopes of eventually teaching those who want to be teachers which means I must read it with the bigger picture in mind. Younger me completely missed the "philosophy is not advocacy" and that approaching it that way can be a weakness since the arguments would be easily overcome.
For example, "if, on the other hand, we have the feeling that our work is of doubtful value,...we can only feel that much of our life is of equally dubious value (p 3). This makes me think of the various people I have met in urban music programs who came to the profession through some other means such as a freelance performer with alternative or emergency certification and "teaching artists." How can we ever hope to present a united front philosophically if we aren't all even coming to the table with similar pedagogical training? Maybe dividing us that way isn't a bug, maybe it's a feature.
As I remembered from before (and from later chapters) "aesthetic education" refers to different levels of musical engagement, or Small's term musicking. The artist/professional has an aesthetic education that is broader or more nuanced than the amateur/aficionado, but Reimer's basic point is that aesthetic education should be for all students, not just the artist/professional. This concept calls into question everything about how secondary music education is currently set up. Our festival and contest systems, scholarship auditions, college entrances, even how we acknowledge or recognize the achievements of music teachers.
I think my transformation can be summed up by the difference in how I structured my syllabus as a first year teacher. In my first few years, I explained the concert/performance requirement in this way "music is a performance art, therefore the biggest part of your grade is the performance" (because otherwise what's the point?). Over time this changed to explaining it as "experiencing" music. Especially as I taught more and more students who could not take a performance class for one reason or another. The performance is not the point, it's a vehicle for the experience of communicating something aesthetic to an audience. Redefining it this way also gives the audience as much value as the artist since without them no musical dialogue can take place.
Fifteen years ago, my husband and I started the summer master's program at Northwestern. In two of those classes we covered some or all of the Reimer 3rd edition of Philosophy of Music Education. Basically, our copy of the book is well worn, and full of highlighting and notes penciled in the margin. (I also discovered some old photocopies of a Power Point presentation where my friend Wayne and I were passing notes to each other in class).
But as I started reading, I wondered if my highlighted sections or my notes (or Tyson's notes) would still resonate with me. Will I still regard the text the same way with twelve more years of teaching under my belt? Or has nothing changed and I'll just read and renew my same positions? So in re-reading, I used a different color to highlight, but wondered if very much changed will everything be highlighted?
The first thing that I notice is the sentence "Our profession needs such guidance at both the collective and the individual levels" (p 2). Because I was only 4 years into my career when I first read parts of this book, I read it on the individual level, how does this affect me and my students? Now I read it with the hopes of eventually teaching those who want to be teachers which means I must read it with the bigger picture in mind. Younger me completely missed the "philosophy is not advocacy" and that approaching it that way can be a weakness since the arguments would be easily overcome.
For example, "if, on the other hand, we have the feeling that our work is of doubtful value,...we can only feel that much of our life is of equally dubious value (p 3). This makes me think of the various people I have met in urban music programs who came to the profession through some other means such as a freelance performer with alternative or emergency certification and "teaching artists." How can we ever hope to present a united front philosophically if we aren't all even coming to the table with similar pedagogical training? Maybe dividing us that way isn't a bug, maybe it's a feature.
As I remembered from before (and from later chapters) "aesthetic education" refers to different levels of musical engagement, or Small's term musicking. The artist/professional has an aesthetic education that is broader or more nuanced than the amateur/aficionado, but Reimer's basic point is that aesthetic education should be for all students, not just the artist/professional. This concept calls into question everything about how secondary music education is currently set up. Our festival and contest systems, scholarship auditions, college entrances, even how we acknowledge or recognize the achievements of music teachers.
I think my transformation can be summed up by the difference in how I structured my syllabus as a first year teacher. In my first few years, I explained the concert/performance requirement in this way "music is a performance art, therefore the biggest part of your grade is the performance" (because otherwise what's the point?). Over time this changed to explaining it as "experiencing" music. Especially as I taught more and more students who could not take a performance class for one reason or another. The performance is not the point, it's a vehicle for the experience of communicating something aesthetic to an audience. Redefining it this way also gives the audience as much value as the artist since without them no musical dialogue can take place.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
Can't we all just get along?
Reading the Pedagogy of the Oppressed is as aggravating as it is enlightening. My years teaching children in poverty, immigrant children, minority children makes this text very real and in living color.
In the third chapter, after discussing the role of the teacher as part of the oppressor, Freire discusses the frameworks that teachers work within. To work within a system of oppression as a revolutionary requires critical thought, honest dialogue, and openness to building relationships. It also requires recognition and acknowledgement of the "limit-situations" we find ourselves in. I often tell people that when I worked at Burr Oak and Mather that those kids taught me more than I ever taught them (and I still believe that), and throughout my career there have been moments of profound clarity where the education was more than surface level. But even though those learning experiences happened, it was always accompanied by frustration of limits imposed by people who benefit from the "banking" system. Students pulled from music classes to take "real" subjects, test scores, school accountability, data-driven curriculum. As Freire puts it, "the word is changed into idle chatter" activism without thought (bumper-sticker advocacy), the noise of how we communicate in the modern world.
When I began reading, I related it to my race relations class in the sociology department. I recognized myself as being one of the oppressors--as I benefit from systemic racism and the privilege that accompanies it. As I continued to read, I realized it wasn't as simple as that. The oppressed and oppressors have a relationship dynamic that is maintained by structures, and only with recognition of those structures can the oppressed dismantle them and liberate us all. Therefore I see my role as an educator to provide students with the opportunities to discover this and then assist them when called upon to do so. Education is not the oppression, it is a framework that can be used for oppression OR liberation.
I appreciate the distinction between revolution and coup since so many people conflate the two. Revolution requires dialogue, not brute force. And not recognizing the difference is how so many people who intend to be revolutionary (or "woke" in modern parlance) end up becoming oppressors themselves. I think of Obama's first election, and the hope that people had that he would change things for the better but for many reasons I don't have room to discuss here, he was unable to do those things, and what he was able to accomplish ended up reinforcing oppression (school accountability, health care, and military force). I don't think it was for lack of trying, but because the people he needed to work with were not interested in having the honest dialogue that Friere says is necessary for true liberation.
In the third chapter, after discussing the role of the teacher as part of the oppressor, Freire discusses the frameworks that teachers work within. To work within a system of oppression as a revolutionary requires critical thought, honest dialogue, and openness to building relationships. It also requires recognition and acknowledgement of the "limit-situations" we find ourselves in. I often tell people that when I worked at Burr Oak and Mather that those kids taught me more than I ever taught them (and I still believe that), and throughout my career there have been moments of profound clarity where the education was more than surface level. But even though those learning experiences happened, it was always accompanied by frustration of limits imposed by people who benefit from the "banking" system. Students pulled from music classes to take "real" subjects, test scores, school accountability, data-driven curriculum. As Freire puts it, "the word is changed into idle chatter" activism without thought (bumper-sticker advocacy), the noise of how we communicate in the modern world.
When I began reading, I related it to my race relations class in the sociology department. I recognized myself as being one of the oppressors--as I benefit from systemic racism and the privilege that accompanies it. As I continued to read, I realized it wasn't as simple as that. The oppressed and oppressors have a relationship dynamic that is maintained by structures, and only with recognition of those structures can the oppressed dismantle them and liberate us all. Therefore I see my role as an educator to provide students with the opportunities to discover this and then assist them when called upon to do so. Education is not the oppression, it is a framework that can be used for oppression OR liberation.
I appreciate the distinction between revolution and coup since so many people conflate the two. Revolution requires dialogue, not brute force. And not recognizing the difference is how so many people who intend to be revolutionary (or "woke" in modern parlance) end up becoming oppressors themselves. I think of Obama's first election, and the hope that people had that he would change things for the better but for many reasons I don't have room to discuss here, he was unable to do those things, and what he was able to accomplish ended up reinforcing oppression (school accountability, health care, and military force). I don't think it was for lack of trying, but because the people he needed to work with were not interested in having the honest dialogue that Friere says is necessary for true liberation.
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