July 9, 2022

Finding purpose in music education

Why Music Matters
I retired from public school teaching in June of 2022. For 36 years, I served as band director at F.E. Peacock Middle School in Itasca, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago. Graciously, my building principal invited me to be a part of the interview team that would recommend the hiring of my replacement. While each interviewed candidate expressed a sound understanding of instrumental music pedagogy, there was a coinciding lack of understanding regarding the point and purpose of music education. The experience left me wondering: How can one effectively teach any subject if one does not possess a philosophical foundation from which to teach? For this reason, I offer some thoughts regarding the purpose of music education.
Before diving into the philosophical pool, it will be helpful to briefly discuss the arts and cognition. For the purpose of this essay, the word “cognition” refers to “the act or process of knowing.” Often, teachers in training are taught that there are three domains of learning: 1) Cognitive, 2) Affective, and 3) Psychomotor. This theory purports that core classroom subjects (mathematics, language, science) make up the cognitive realm, the arts make up the affective realm, and physical education make up the psychomotor realm. Common sense, however, discredits such assertions; anyone who has played a musical instrument knows that applied musical cognition (the act or process of musical knowing) relies on an understanding of artistic constructs (theory, history), artistic expression (mood, emotion), and artistic motor skills (technique). Consequently, it may be more beneficial to examine each domain of learning through its own unique and essential acts or processes of knowing – e.g., mathematical cognition, linguistic cognition, musical cognition, kinesthetic cognition, etc. For influential categorizations of meaning domains, check out the following:
  • Realms of Meaning – Philip H. Phenix (McGraw Hill, 1964)
  • Learning and Teaching the Ways of Knowing – (U. Chicago Press, 1985) Elliot Eisner, Ed.
  • Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences – Howard Gardner (Basic Books, 1983)
The Arts and Cognition
An important distinction between the arts and other subjects is the difference in their symbols, symbol systems, and symbol usage. While symbol use is common to all human cognitive activities, the arts employ symbols to convey subjective meanings – meanings essential for cultivating the qualitative aspects of human experience.
A Comparison of Symbol Systems – The Sciences
The symbols used in the arts differ from symbols used in the sciences. The symbols used in science, mathematics and linguistics are known as “genuine” or “conventional” symbols because their meanings are agreed upon by convention. So, the word “cheeseburger” means the same thing in Chicago as it does in Pittsburgh. In addition, conventional symbols (namely alphanumeric symbols) are used according to conventional rules, formulas, criteria, principles, syntax, etc. As a result, conventional symbols and their rules yield practical, quantifiable data, primarily of a factual nature. Example: 2 + 2 + 2 + 2.
A Comparison of Symbol Systems – The Arts
Unlike the sciences, the symbols used in the arts (visual art, dance, drama, literature, music) are “nonconventional” symbols because their meanings are not agreed upon by convention. So, a chromatic bass riff in Earth, Wind & Fire’s September means something completely different from chromaticism in Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor. In addition, nonconventional symbols are used according to the interchange between the artist and the art medium; in music, the artistic medium is sound and the nonconventional symbols (namely music notation) represent its elements or the treatment of its elements – pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics, silence, etc. Unlike conventional scientific symbols, nonconventional arts symbols yield feelingful, qualifiable experiences, primarily of a subjective nature. Example (said with poetic swing): two plus two plus two plus two.
Forms of Symbol Use in the Arts
In the arts, there are varying forms of symbol usage. They include: 1) Expression; the conveying of mood, 2) Style; the attention to fine details or texture of an object, 3) Composition; the arrangement of elements with attention to their effects on one another or on the work as a whole, and 4) Ambiguity or Layers of Significance; the communication of multiple meanings.
Music Education as Aesthetic Education
Aesthetic education embraces becoming sensitive to the feelingful conditions found in works of art. In music, these feelingful conditions are the interplay of its shaped elements, such as pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics, silence, etc. Of course, other factors such as non-musical references or historical context add to the overall musical experience.
What is the Purpose of Music Education?
Before answering this question, it stands to reason that there are many purposes of music education. In fact, recent brain research has opened up an entirely different window of understanding regarding sound and the brain and how it bears on everyday communication. For the purpose of this essay, I have decided to list those points that I feel relate to the discussion at hand, while providing a sound justification for the unique and essential presence of music in the schools. So then, what is the purpose of music education?
  • To enrich student’s lives by leading them to and through the expressiveness found in music as art.
  • To help students understand that life is not always objective and that certain things simply cannot be expressed by words or numbers.
  • To give students the opportunity to experience artistic communication (expression) and artistic sharing.
  • To help students gain musical knowledge, to improve musical skills, and to engage in musical thinking.
  • To allow students to experience the various ways that humans interact with music (singing, playing, composing, arranging, improvising, evaluating, conducting, etc.)
  • To help students become ambassadors of musicianship while developing a lifelong love of music.
  • To allow students to struggle with musical issues…
  • What is music?
  • Must one like music?
  • How does music elicit feelings?
  • What is better, pop music or classical music?
  • To pass along one’s artistic heritage, sharing the historical-cultural-musical context of specific compositions or aural-tradition songs.
  • To instill in students the idea that there is little value in making a prosperous living if one does not know how to live an enriched life.
It is my hope then, that this essay clarifies for both experienced teachers, as well as those who are seeking their first job, the purpose of music education as aesthetic education. For in knowing why we teach music, we can more easily discern what to teach and how to teach it. And in the end, we are left with a sense of fulfillment that is unique to music teaching and essential to our student’s lives. In conclusion, I leave you with these words of wisdom…
Susanne Langer
Music has import, and this import is the pattern of sentience – the pattern of life itself, as it is felt and directly known.
John Dewey
Art throws off the covers that hide the expressiveness of experienced things; it quickens us from the slackness of routines and enables us to forget ourselves in the delight of experiencing the world in its varied qualities and forms. It intercepts every shade of expressiveness found in objects and orders them in a new experience of life.
Martin Luther
Whoever has skill in music is of good temperament and fitted for all things… We must teach music in schools.
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