On Teaching Music in Schools

So it is a tad long, at least for a blog post; but I thought it might be an interesting share. I hope it helps you understand music (or at least how I understand it) a little bit better. I thank God for the gift of letting me teach it everyday.

"When a child is producing music by playing or singing, either alone or in a group, and when his technique is being used in the service of producing sounds expressively his understanding of the musical content of the piece he is performing can be very strong and very immediate."

"The laboratory-like atmosphere of a performing group, in which the living stuff of music is right there to be handled, to be examined, to be manipulated, to be shared, is so educationally rich that it can be considered the best example of what meaningful education can be."

/Bennett Reimer

"Art is the result of man's need to transform his experience symbolically."

"The only sound basis for music education is the development of the natural responsiveness that all human beings posses."

/Charles Leonhard and Robert. W. House

The study of music is an ancient endeavor, and its study has been an academic matter since the evolution of Western academics. Wherever humans are found, there music will also be found, and the study of our musics is a study of ourselves. In this digital and global age, music is at its most accessible and cheapest peak it has ever experienced, and yet very few really understand its ubiquity. This is the purpose of the music educator, to seek understanding in music through its function, machinations, importance, and contribution to and in the human life, then share these discoveries with others.

What is music? This is the question that many have tried to answer, and the question that plagues many floundering music programs in the schools today. An acceptable answer must be sought to this question before any amount of real music teaching can be had, though I am not personally certain that one's answer to this question will remain static throughout his or her lifetime. If music is a reflection of life, then our understanding of it will too grow as we come to experience more and more of the human condition. However, some things can be readily understood about music at the start of the journey. The ancient Greeks included mousikos as part of their classical quadrivium directly from their observation of the world around them. They observed the stars above them, moving in perfect harmony with each other; they called this the music of the spheres. They observed the rhythm of the body, the pulse of the heart, and the activity of the emotions, and they called this the music of the soul. Of course, to them this was not music in our sense of the word "music." To them there was a life-thread that bound the world together in harmony and dissonance, and it vibrated vibrantly wherever humans cared to look for it. This was the design of the world. This was music. What we played on instruments and sang with our voices was our aural interpretation of this vibrant life-thread.

When we listen to Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony, or Davis's "Kind of Blue," or Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" we are listening to an interpretation of some facet of life. This is what we term the aesthetic experience of music. All art (all expression) is some sort of aesthetic rendering of someone's viewpoint of the world (that is, the sensory experience, though the aesthetic term includes also the sense of the intellect). The visual arts appeal to the eyes and the heart and mind, the aural arts appeal to the ears and the heart and mind, and then there are those arts that appeal to all three, and then to the performers, touch (and even smell and taste) can find its appeal. So music is that which appeals to the ears, and thus through the ears to the heart and the mind (it is the sense of the heart and mind we term interpretation).

And thus the study of music is the study of the world. However, in teaching music, we also have the gift of studying performance, interpretation, and thus creativity. It is one thing to hear a great piece of music, it is another to understand it, and it is yet one more thing to create it. In music education, we strive to open the minds of our students to the world of creative thinking. This is the goal of performance in music education, and it is only through performance this last part of music can be taught. The teaching of performance is thus two-fold: first, we must teach our students how to unlock the instrument, then we must teach them then to unlock the music with the instrument (this includes the voice as an instrument). We must include both aspects of teaching in performance education if the student is to learn fully the art of music, especially as the students' journey with us as the teachers will find its end, and the student will be left to continue the journey on his or her own. Our responsibility is to set that journey up for success.

The final level of creative interpretation to be sought after and refined (for we never fully achieve any level of musical understanding) is that of original creativity. To write music, and especially to create it spontaneously (improvisation), is something every musician should constantly practice. At this stage the musician is finally aesthetically interpreting his or her immediate world, and is refining his or her understanding of it by giving it musical meaning. This does not mean the composer has a full grasp of the meaning of life, but it does mean the composer knows how it feels to grasp at the meaning of life. As music educators, our job is to help our students figure out how to find this destination on their musical journeys (even though we have not quite made it either; we have just moved farther along). This final part of musical understanding can only be fully realized in performance.

We can teach our students how to become great musicians only by providing them with the best music, for this will be their model in understanding. If we give them poor music, they will have a poor and shallow understanding of aesthetic interpretation; if we give them great music, they have the opportunity to develop a deep and rich understanding of aesthetic interpretation. Even in teaching beginners, we must not forsake the quality of the music. A good piece of music is one that is shallow enough for toddlers to wade in, yet at the same time deep enough for elephants to bathe in. A good piece of music will continue to demand thoughtful questions and provide thoughtful answers for the musician among multiple stages of growth. This is easier to achieve in an academic study of music (there is, in fact, no excuse for the study of poor music in an academic setting), but it is also not impossible at the elementary performing level. Creative interpretation must be taught from the very beginning.

Additionally, the music used in education should be as diverse as the humans who use music. To only experience one type of music is to only listen to one people group of the world, and since education is the liberation of students' minds, this approach is criminal. If we are to teach our students how interpret their experiences of life, we must give them the interpretations of others life experiences, and our Earth is larger than the West. Musics of all ethnicities, cultures, modes, and theoretical systems must be taught in the classroom, and if possible, students should also have the opportunity to properly perform them. After all, a music is a reflection of an individual, and an individual is a product of a culture, so to offer these different musics to our students is teach them humanity in an entirely creative and aesthetic way that is unavailable to any other academic discipline.

The wind band has its place in the school curriculum, just as the choir, the orchestra, jazz, and the piano programs do. Of course, with smaller districts with less money, decisions might have to be made as to which ensembles will be capable of being sustained, but the band is hugely important to the American school. The town band has been a long-time American tradition, beginning with the inception of this country. It has become an expectation for any respectable town, and the modern century has seen the town bands move into the schools. While serving as an educational medium for the practical study of music, it also serves as a servant to the community, providing music where it is needed. The band is easily accessible to most students, as most students will be able to find his or her niche within this ensemble. The importance for a plurality of musical ensembles is noticed when those students are found without a niche in the band, for every person has a niche in music, for every person is a musician.

As for the extra-musical effects of music education and performance education, they are valuable and well-known. However, they are not a sound basis for this discussion of music education, and so will not be further discussed. The focus of this discussion has been musical, and a proper justification of music in the academic curriculum should and can be found therein. The study of music is the study of our experience of life, it is a study in the design and function of this world, and in thus it finds its natural justification. Any educator with his or her salt will understand and heed this value.

© Christopher Ramos 2012