Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education , livre ebook

COMPLICATING, CONSIDERING, AND CONNECTING MUSIC EDUCATION
COUNTERPOINTS: MUSIC AND EDUCATION
Estelle R. Jorgensen, editor
COMPLICATING, CONSIDERING, AND CONNECTING MUSIC EDUCATION
Lauren Kapalka Richerme
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2020 by Lauren Kapalka Richerme
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
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Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-04737-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-253-04747-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-04749-6 (ebook)
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Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Rhizomatic Journeying
2 Who Are We?
3 Where Are We?
4 Considering Deleuzian Ethics
5 Reconsidering Considering
6 Musically Connecting With
7 When Is Music Education?
8 Rhizomatic Journeying

Bibliography
Index
Preface
W ILLIAM A YERS WRITES: To be human is to be involved in a quest, a fundamental life project that is situated and undertaken as a refusal to accede to the given. 1 Similarly, I understand all philosophizing as a journey, one simultaneously personal and public. To focus on end points rather than paths minimizes the process of philosophizing, robbing travelers of the voyaging that, while at times arduous, often gives increased meaning to their temporary destinations. Undertaking such wandering demands a sense of adventure and a welcoming of the emotions that accompany sustained uncertainty.
While philosophizing may involve ephemeral resting points and momentary clarity, it inevitably reveals additional questions, confusion, and untraversed terrains. A nine-year-old boy whose philosophical musings went viral on the internet explains, You never really know for sure if there is anything in the search. It s an endless quest without knowing what your quest is. 2 His statements illuminate that if one s philosophical journeying can be said to have a beginning, it is perhaps with a child s innate and at times relentless curiosity, wonderment, and creativity. Through their words and actions, teachers can extinguish or fan these dispositions, fostering or inhibiting students traverses within and beyond the classroom.
Situated in my own ever-evolving narrative, the part of my philosophical wandering explored in this book began when an undergraduate mentor asked me: What should be the relationship between music education and society? 3 While the intervening years have not necessarily brought me any closer to an answer, the question has fostered what poststructuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and F lix Guattari might explain as an I do not know that has become positive and creative. 4 Inspired by their work, I have stumbled on routes initially obfuscated by the weight of tradition and by my own previously unquestioned habits and values, at times finding joy in the vulnerability of being lost. 5
The term music education is neither monolithic nor stagnant. It can refer to practices ranging from sight-singing with a professional choral conductor, to playing fiddle through observing and participating in a community group, to listening critically at a rap concert, to composing privately with help from an online forum. It can include the work of an elementary music specialist who sees hundreds of students a week, private teachers who prepare students for standardized performance exams, professional music ensembles that undertake community outreach, and music enthusiasts who create online videos teaching everything from accordion to Pro Tools.
While practices such as the master-apprentice model of instrument and voice instruction have persisted on multiple continents for centuries, relatively recent technological innovations have facilitated music education centered on multitracking, remixing, and creating mash-ups, endeavors unimaginable throughout the vast majority of human history. 6 Yet, even seemingly long-standing music education practices can include elements of variability. For example, contemporary students in traditional band, choral, and orchestral programs likely find themselves with increasing access to education in popular music-making as well as other genres outside of the Western cannon. In short, music education encompasses a collection of disparate, constantly changing practices.
Despite this diversity, current music education practices tend to have three potentially problematic qualities in common. First, music education practices often center on questions about content and pedagogy while neglecting teachers and learners unique attributes, including those related to their multiple environments. Leaders of groups ranging from music associations to teacher licensing committees divide individuals into categories such as instrumental, general music, Gordon, and music technology. Even when an Orff teacher serves a population of students very similar to that of a Kod ly educator in a neighboring town, discussions about content and pedagogy often occur absent considerations of who and where one teaches.
Likewise, authors of policies such as national standards, International Baccalaureate exams, and competition requirements make little acknowledgment of differences between students or schools. 7 Yet, music educators frequently turn to such documents as their primary sources of guidance. When music educators neglect students and communities diverse needs and interests, they miss opportunities for musical and educative experiences particularly meaningful for a specific time and place. Even the very terms educator, students, and community have the potential to solidify people and practices, separating them from the continual change central to life beyond the classroom.
Second, contemporary music educators tend to treat music-making and education as amoral and apolitical processes. Extending the Enlightenment tradition of separating musical practices from functional ends, 8 music educators may conceive of their work as aiming toward transcendent conceptions of good music rather than as contingent on sociocultural practices that often propagate various systems of subjugation. By conceiving of the decision to emphasize Beethoven over Beyonc in purely musical terms, they neglect any ethical or political implications of such action. Further, Julia Koza explains how music admission processes at the collegiate level favor white individuals while minimizing and excluding contributions from members of other races. 9 The same holds true for Pre-K-12 music instruction, which even when broadened to include practices such as guitar and ukulele, can promote racist divides by omitting genres such as rap and hip-hop. 10
My point is not to assert that music educators should uncritically embrace all music-making; rather, these examples demonstrate how seemingly innocuous decisions can have potentially serious ethical implications. When misrecognized as apolitical and amoral, the ethical dilemmas hidden within all musical and educative practices go unexamined, and potentially more ethical alternatives remain unconsidered. In addition to neglecting possibilities for more ethical teaching and learning, such action denies students the opportunity to develop the dispositions and thought processes needed to make ethically conscious decisions throughout their lives. It may also reinforce a conception of ethics as pregiven and straightforward rather than complex and evolving in integration with one s own differing experiences.
Third, music makers often struggle to explain the purpose of their work in ways that are inclusive of divergent contemporary musical practices yet not superficial or relativistic. For example, the high school ensemble director who asserts that music promotes militaristic discipline may indirectly undermine the work of teachers who advocate for music education as an avenue for individual self-expression. Alternatively, authors of existing advocacy resources proffer that music education can promote everything from higher test scores, to better attendance, to creativity; 11 music education can be good for anything that reinforces teachers personal values and convinces others of the importance of their existing work. While asserting narrow purposes for music education excludes various forms of musical engagement, a scattershot approach, particularly one based on unfounded rationale, can inhibit teachers and students from collectively expressing the significance of their endeavors. Music educators need not blindly adopt a single purpose or abandon an array of advocacy tactics useful within their respective contexts, but the absence of at least partial agreement about shared rationale may hinder support from administrators, politicians, and other stakeholders.
The uncritical acceptance of any and all purposes for music education is also problematic because it dissuades dialogue about values, potentially hiding troubling ulterior motives and limiting alternative possibilities. A teacher who cloaks the goal of personal glory through winning competitions in the guise of instilling a hard work ethic may miss how students lacking access to private lessons or those with different learning needs are excluded or degraded. Resistance to sustained thoughtful debate about possible purposes of music education leaves the field without examined arguments. Caught in a cycle of justifying what is, music educators an