Music education continues to attract different ideas because its role in education is fundamentally misunderstood. In the face of budget cuts, music education suffers from underfunding, as it deemed unnecessary. However, supporters cite its importance in building character, team effort, instilling self-confidence, promoting cultural literacy, and even boosting performance in aptitude tests. In other words, music is seen as a component of holistic education for children. The various ideas of the importance of music and its place in education do not offer a coherent framework for understanding music education. Moreover, the unique place of the music in the curriculum does not emerge clearly.
The diversity captures or reflects several fundamental themes in the history of ideas informing music education in the western world. The Hellenistic Greeks, for instance, held that music strengthened character and promoted virtue. With time, educators started to view music as a reflecting some higher and external order and might, therefore, be a path to particular knowledge and understanding. During the renaissance era, the thinkers of this period saw music as an expression of human experience. It reflected the values of the society and captured other integral elements of communities and therefore crucial in education in offering holistic education. In that sense, music is an independent perceptual phenomenon.
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In the last few decades, a new understanding of music has emerged based primarily on the idea that music as a construct of the human mind. It is a subjective entity moderated by the cognitive activity of the individual mind. The mind generates and processes music, making it the most critical element or properties of music and not the musical object such as instruments. Understanding music should not focus on the musical object but the nature of mind and human intelligence. The leading proponents of this view of music are Elliot, Small, and Reimer who shares many ideas on music, although there are a few differences.
Differences in the Philosophies of David Elliott, Bennett Reimer, & Christopher Small
Music and cognition
Reimer argues that music is a basic model of cognition because it results from a complex function of the mind. The mind has to compose the music and reflect on the creation to make it meaningful. Engaging in all activities related to music starts with the mind where a person has to justify the interest in music. Moreover, because music takes place within a social-cultural and economic context, it takes deep reflection to create compositions that resonate with listeners. However, while music is cognitive, it is different from other cognitive functions because it is conceptual and non-discursive. For the audience, they receive an experience of feeling through music and not information about the feeling.
Reimer defines music work as an expressive form capable of yielding an experience of subjectivity. It has intrinsic and immanent qualities that are open to a variety of possible ways of feeling. The particular and concrete events in work trigger the feeling. In the experience of enjoying music, a person can apprehend the expressiveness of music in a presentational form (Karlsen, 2011). The composition itself and the feelings it evokes help create meaning and a lived experience. Therefore, music is powerful as it is not just a cognitive activity but also evokes powerful feelings. Reimer also thinks that the experience of music is highly personal.
Elliot thinks that music is a cognitive activity. Cognition is a conceived idea, information, or thought experience and cognitive activities are a mental process in which people make sense of the world around them. It is an internal process that starts from within by way of thinking and it external as it relies on experiences like observing. Engaging in music activity helps the student gain insight into the world of music and the world in general. It helps with personal development and shapes their outlook. Therefore, because the goal of education is to promote critical thinking and promote character development, music education is a vital ingredient of such an education.
Nature and function of music
Elliot admits that understanding the nature of music is not easy. Quoting Aristotle, he argues that music is difficult to conceptualize, leave alone teaching it. Most educators also struggle to understand it and consequently, avoid trying to define it and use simplistic approach without reflective thinking. Therefore, some educators use amorphous terms such as teaching music creativity or imparting music skills, although they cannot demonstrate the nature of creativity or the skills they hope students to gain. According to Elliot, music should be taught thoughtfully, wisely, effectively, compassionately, and ethically but the first step is for teachers to build, update, and maintain a professional philosophy practice.
Elliot says that music should not be defined narrowly in terms of the musical pieces, sonic works, or products alone but as social praxis. In other words, music is more than what most people consider as music, including compositions, instruments used in creating music, performance, etc. Therefore, for each music style, a style community behind it includes the music makers and listeners. The two groups interact in a complicated way, but the relationship is fundamentally what defines music. The interaction determines the priorities when creating music products, events, and situations such as performances and compositions as mediated by social cultural and economic realities (Silverman, Davis & Elliott, 2013). For instance, if there is a growing trend in society, the music makers might address that trend in the music because the listeners might also find such compositions appealing.
According to Small, music is about performance. Composers or musicians create their music with the primary objective of performing it in front of a small audience or a big audience. The audience could be in front of their friends or relatives in theater performance in front of thousands of people. Therefore, performance is what music is all about. Small believes that failure to recognize the link between music and performance makes it harder to understand it and its role in society and human affairs. Thus, Small rejects the abstract and the complicated expositions on the subject by thinkers like Kant.
Music is not a thing, but an action, and therefore the word music should be a verb and not a noun. According to Small, the verb "to music" captures the nature of music well because it presents the idea of the performance. He modifies the term "to music" into "musicking” to define music and its role in human affairs. The terms refer to taking part in any music performance, from listing, composing, providing material for a concert, preparing for a performance, rehearsing in readiness for performance, among other activities. He also includes dancing, playing music instruments, those who maintain the halls where performances are made, ushers, and everyone remotely connected to the performance of music.
The term musicking makes music a human activity, which it is. In most human activities, different types of people are involved. Human beings are social animals and depend on others to lead a fulfilling life. They engage in dialogue and learn the values of the society so that they gain the knowledge to contribute positively. The society has established institutions such as the family, school, and other institutions to instill those values. The music falls within the wider societal society as it is about interactions and conveying important information about music. Before the invention of writing, societies used music to record and transmit historical events across generations.
Musical performance is an encounter in which two or more human beings come together, and in doing so, they generate meaning. Human encounters take place in a physical or social place, and therefore space has to be taken into account to understand the meaning generated by a performance. Thus, music is about the human activities involved in creating the music, staging performance, the message in the music, and other meaning generated in the performance. Society can only understand music in the performance and not in the objects involved in music such as instruments. While the objects are important and might convey meaning, the fundamental thing is that music is a social activity and can only be understood as such.
Elliot believes that music is vital to any society, and it plays a critical role in every aspect. Moreover, it reflects the values of the community and plays a crucial role in propagating those values as well. It also serves the emerging needs of society, such as attracting attention to various issues that need solutions. Therefore, it reflects everything about the life of society and helps mold the life itself. In that respect, it plays the role of a social agency or a power for good. A society without music is poorer as a result as it does not have an important vehicle for social change.
Music brings people together into a relationship. As noted earlier, music is about performance and involvement of different types of people from composers to listeners, those two play instruments, and others, creating a social event within the space of interaction. The relationships are part of the larger relationships on a grander scale of humanity or even the supernatural world. When people music, they explore those relationships at every level, bringing together all people as members of the human family. Therefore, one function of music is fostering relationships in society. Good relationships, in turn, create a better and a thriving community based on shared values which music helps propagate.
Relationships that music fosters are part of giving and receiving information, and it is the fundamental aspect of interactions of all living things. According to Small, all living things from bacteria to trees need to share information in various forms ranging from changing colors, shape, posture, moving, chemical secretion, a sound or sound pattern, among others. However, the information shared is about relationships. For instance, people share information via sound or signals, and smaller forms of life secrete chemicals such as during mating. The species concerned to share information in the context of the relationships and it is critical for survival. Species need to communicate and share information during mating so that the process can succeed. If that fails, the species might die out because they cannot mate.
Human beings used to sound or words to communicate in a form that is more advanced compared to primitive life forms. Also, unlike lower life forms where communication is just but about the essential things such as sharing information during danger or the attracting mates, humans are advanced enough to communicate over trivial things. Playing around with words and gestures led to the invention of music, which is part of the universal performance art called ritual. In any ritual, the most important thing is the goal of the ritual or the objective with instruments and other objects of ritual being secondary in importance. Therefore, music is important for ritual purpose.
In practice, music brings people together. When music lovers attend performances, they get opportunities to meet people with similar interests. Therefore, they can talk about their mutual interests, and the relationship might advance into other areas. They might collaborate in projects, help each other get jobs, in schools, and some might even marry. The shared love also helps boost the performers who rely on music for a living and support their families. By making an income, they can invest more in music and performances, thus perpetuating the virtuous cycle of the music creation, fostering relationships, and promoting happiness for all.
What music, how it should be taught, and its role in education
According to Reimer, music should be taught because it gives students a systematic cognitive experience. The capacity for music is uniquely human, and music education allows students to tap into that capacity and develop an appreciation for the art. Already, before students can learn about music in formal settings, they have acquired knowledge about the musical system of their culture, which then shapes their perception and memory (Román-Caballero et al. 2018). However, when exposed to other types of music in school, the process enriches their encounter with music. Overall, the encounter requires distinctive mode of thought that embodies the cognitive experiences it seeks to impart on learners.
Music, according to Reimer refines the mental sensation of feeling. It is a non-conceptual cognition, which fosters humanizing of self-knowledge of feeling as quality of mental life. As mentioned previously, self-knowledge is an important goal of holistic education. However, education fosters that feeling through self-reflection in a cognitive process of thinking. Reimer thinks that some music forms are superior to others in its capacity to harness to the humanness of learners. Some forms of music are lofty and represent the best of what music has to offer, and therefore students should learn that kind of music. That kind of music that is expressive and multicultural.
Reimer thinks that students should experience music as a unified whole and therefore examined in detail. The smaller details to explore includes melodic material, harmony, text, tone color, form, rhythm, and form. Those constitute element form the foundation of music education and composition that to include those elements. Reimer insists that given enough time and education, most can achieve competence in the subject and the first place to start it the basic elements. Descriptive, symbolic, and not interpretive is the language that language that the teacher should use in music education. The language allows the aesthetic meaning of musical work to emerge out of the creative work.
One of the hardest questions that the philosophy of music education struggles with is how the subject should be taught. Remer thinks that some music forms are of higher quality than others are and should, therefore, be taught. However, for Elliot, all music forms are equal and should get equal preference when class. No musical practice is inherently more worthy than others are, and the choice should be based on the authenticity, performance, and educational appropriateness (McPherson & Welch, 2012). The teacher and not the experts should decide on the kind of music to teach. If the teacher thinks that a certain type of music is more appropriate for his or her students, he should have the freedom to make that choice.
Music is deeply embedded in culture, as mentioned earlier. It is a social agency for upholding and transmitting societal values. As such, music education is important because it about studying the culture and the values that the music values. Education is a critical element of multicultural education as it helps foster self-examination and personal reconstruction of one's relationships with others, assumptions, and preferences. In the process of learning, students have to confront their prejudices and resolve their inner struggles. The goal of any education is to foster critical thinking, and when students learn to examine their thinking, assumptions, and even prejudices, they gain an essential skill. Thus, music education can help societies broaden their goals of humanistic education.
The overall goal of education is preparing the students for the work life. Since the industrial revolution, the demand for an educated workforce has been rising, and universal education fulfills that demand. However, in the last few decades, the rise of the information age and innovation-driven economy, the quality of education matters. Holistic education is therefore desirable as it teaches students the value of thinking critically and solving problems. According to Elliot, music education can help students become creative thinkers by studying composition, playing instruments, and other elements of the music. Therefore, with music programs, students can achieve self-identity, self-respect, and a sense of toleration for themselves and others. In a diverse world, those qualities make music a critical ingredient for the modern education fit for today's challenges.
Unlike Reimer, who saw music education as an official aesthetic philosophy, Elliot views music as cognitive as it is an endeavor that people do. Music is a diverse and multidimensional cognitive human activity that uses sonic data. Music is not just about singing or composition, but it includes cognitive elements such as composition and incorporating values of the society into the process. The composer has to interact with music listeners, establish strong ties, and determine the composition. The strong connection determines the nature of the music and helps the formation of style communities for various music genres. Music is, therefore, an integral part of the community and it reflects the values of the society, challenges, and provides a platform for highlighting issues.
Elliot further argues that cognitive experiences that go into learning music contribute significantly to learning in other areas and not just music. Learning music includes learning history and sociology because as mentioned earlier, music cannot exist outside society. Thus, learning music must necessarily include learning about society, the conditions that spawned some music, the art of composition, and other elements (Odendaal et al. 2013). The information is critical in training young people competence in music. However, it allows students to learn about the past and society, and that contributes to self-knowledge and self-growth. When students learn more about themselves and their society, their esteem grows in tandem and with time, they mature into well-rounded and confident people.
On emotions, Reimer sees music as a way of verbalizing emotions. When a musician creates a composition, he or she communicates an emotion of happiness, disappointment, etc. The audience, in turn, also catches the emotions in music during a presentation or performance. Therefore, emotion is an integral part of the music. Emotion is an important part of being human, and therefore, music fosters the humanness (Hendricks, 2011). Moreover, by communicating emotions via music, it serves as a tool for social change as it can galvanize action. Music education allows students to appreciate the role of emotion in music and learn how to encode their feelings in music as well.
Reimer notes that rousing emotions might be one of the reasons that led to the emergence of music. In some cultures, artists use music to comment on social issues and urge action. If the message rouses strong negative emotions, people get the motivation to take action and solve various issues that face society. In ancient China, people composed resistance music to complain, and rulers often listened to lyrics. Therefore, music in that sense played the role of conveying messages and incorporating the general feelings of society. Reimer thinks that verbalizing emotions is an important and inherent component of music.
Role of emotion in music Music is associated with strong emotions, and that possibly explains its popularity with people. When under stress, music lovers turn to their favorite compositions to remain focused and motivated. Therefore, when discussing the philosophy of education, the role of emotion in music is prominent. For Elliot, there is nothing inherently emotional about music, but it triggers memories of emotional incidents. Thus, music in itself is not emotional, but people tend to link music to emotional incidents, and that is what introduces the emotional component in music. Context, therefore, matters because if someone listens to music when he or she is undergoing a challenging event, the music.
Small rejects the notion that music has emotions. However, he agrees that it conveys powerful emotions or performances do rouse emotions. He says that emotions are not autonomous but related to human relationships. Therefore, if music is about relationships, then the role of emotions should be understood from that perspective. There is no inbuilt emotional component inbuilt in the music but a response to the performance. Depending on how the players perform, they can arouse emotions or fail to do so, so music in itself has no emotions aside from those created by the nature of performance. The presence of emotion in a performance is a sign that the performers are doing a good job.
Similarities in Philosophies of David Elliott, Bennett Reimer, & Christopher Small
Reimer and Elliot agree that music is a cognitive enterprise. The basic premise underlying the argument is that human intelligence or cognition, thought, or knowledge is multidimensional and not unitary. The human brain has different processes specific for each of the various intelligences available to human beings. Therefore, the brain has a specific way of processing music due to the uniqueness of its form. In music education, the goal is to promote and develop the distinctive cognitive processes that other areas of schooling cannot address. In the end, students can achieve higher state of consciousness thanks to music education.
Small also agrees that music has a special place in education due to its unique nature. The cognitive processes that other domains of learning fail to address include performance education and relationships. Music is about performance and relationships in an exchange between music creators and listeners. The exchange takes place in various avenues such as the theater of just any place where music is performance. In the modern digital world, the exchange could happen in platforms hosting music such as YouTube. The exchange is part of the cognitive process where those concerned share ideas as they reflect on music and other pertinent elements.
Small and Elliot recognize that music is practice centered and culture-specific. They cite the fact that music has aspects that include intra-musical, inter-musical, and cultural-ideological meaning. Small highlights the role of performance in music without which he thinks music cannot exist. The performance aspect is the practice, but culture is also deeply embedded; hence, the reason Elliot believes that music education is an integral part of holistic learning. The enduring form and the flow experience presents cognized forms such as memes which he describes as an enduring form of information produced by intentional human action (MacDonald, Kreutz & Mitchell, 2013). Therefore, Small and Eliot consider mushy as cognitive exercise as well as contextual.
Reimer agrees with the cultural aspect of music. All forms of music take place within a cultural context. Thus, for music students, they have to take into consideration the cultural aspect. Music, therefore, gives students access to additional understanding of their society but from the music perspective. The idea is evident in his idea of emotion in music. According to Reimer, music verbalizes emotions, but that emotion arises in a cultural context, and that is why music is a powerful instrument of social change. By studying music, students get the chance to understand the social-cultural and economic undercurrents running in society.
The idea of Reimer and Elliott are both person-centered, and the personalism is centered in two respects. First, they advocate for cognitive philosophy where an individual engages within a process mediated by the brain and environmental factors. The genetics in this perspective, as well as environmental variables, are crucial to the process of identifying and appreciating music. Secondly, music cognition is the result of knowledge of the self and the benefits to self. Therefore, music is fundamentally about a person and the internal processes through which a person interacts with music. In this approach, Elliot and Reimer mostly ignore the broader benefits of the music to the society.
Small approaches music from a social perspective by emphasizing on the social relationships that emerge from music. Those benefits foster societal integration, making it stronger and robust. According to Small, music reflects the societal values while also acting a driver of social change and transmitting values to the same members of the society. Reimer and Elliot agree with this view to the extent that they believe much improves or transforms a person. The socially determined and shared ways of thinking about music or musicing and listening links an individual with others in the community. Thus, the inherent connection between members of society means that the cognitive impact of music in the mind of the student finds expression in the shared music values that emerge. Therefore, the approach of Reimer and Elliot to music is not as individualistic seen at first glance.
Conclusion
Philosophies informing music provides the framework for understanding the subject in the context of availing high quality and holistic education. Based on the detailed review of the philosophies of the Elliot, Small, and Reimer, all agree that music is essential for the learners' cognitive development. The purpose of education, all education, is to promote cognitive development of learners and music can, therefore, contribute in that regard. However, music is special and improves cognitive development in unique ways. For educators, they have to decide which philosophy captures their unique context in teaching music to their student. Following Reimer, they can decide that music is expressive and conveys emotions, which connects students to their humanness.
Using Elliot's approach, music education is about authenticity, appropriateness, and performance. For Small, music is about performance and not emotions. It has a strong social component that boosts relationships. For educators, music can, therefore, help students understand society better and promote self-reflection and understanding. Overall, music is an integral component of learning, and harmonizing standards is vital to ensure quality in music education.
References
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