Scott GOBLE

Over the past decade or so, discussions of music and music curriculum in elementary and secondary education in the United States and Canada have included debate over “aesthetic”

versus “praxial” philosophies of music education (See Jorgensen & Yob, 2003). Differences in these two philosophical positions stem largely from the differing foundational concepts of

“music” upon which they are based, and they thus have differing curricular implications. In fact,

“aesthetic” philosophy is manifested in the music curriculum of most schools and the instructional approach of most teachers in the two nations. Notably, as new media technologies are emerging and media policies are changing at present, teachers who embrace each of these positions are encountering both validation for and challenges to their usual ways of instruction.

In this chapter, I will provide an historical framework to illuminate key differences in

“aesthetic” and “praxial” philosophies of music education, discuss the respective strengths and limitations of the two positions (emphasizing their curricular implications), and describe how recent innovations in media and changes in media policies are raising challenges and opening a philosophical opportunity for music teachers who hold each position.

“AESTHETIC” AND “PRAXIAL” PHILOSOPHIES

The concepts that have supported music education in the Western Hemisphere throughout most of its history originated in the birth of modernity in the European Renaissance of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, a time when autocratic systems of government gave way to new forms in the emerging city-states, when the Protestant Reformation shattered the supremacy of the Catholic church, and the “scientific revolution” displaced Biblical conceptions of the earth as the center of the universe. The worldview that emerged in Europe at this time and proliferated in the following centuries increasingly grounded human actions in reason (rather than religious faith), placing confidence in the effectiveness of scientific inquiry to provide final and universal answers to all questions, and in the expectation that social and technological progress would eventually solve all major human problems. The rise of the industrialized nation state, representative democracy, and the integral role of the mass media all have roots in the vision of modernity, that a perfect society could be built on shared scientific knowledge and social tolerance.

Reasoned inquiries into the philosophical area of “aesthetics” emerged in Europe, just as the United States was taking form as a nation in the eighteenth century, adopting freedom of expression, separation of religion from the state, and dedication to democracy as some of its guiding principles. The notion of “the aesthetic”—as a special realm for music and the other

“fine arts”—stemmed from the writings of Alexander Baumgarten, and was developed by Immanuel Kant and other influential German philosophers of the time (Dixon, 1995). Kant (1914) drew a distinction between most aesthetic judgments (which he regarded as simple acknowledgements of pleasure or satisfaction) and true judgments of taste (which he held to involve “the faculty of judging the beautiful”) to support his argument that “disinterested”

judgments of beauty could be made, having subjective universality or impersonal validity. The concept of “the aesthetic” as the special realm of “the arts” was tacitly adopted in the United

States in the following decades, and “the aesthetic” has come to serve as a culturally and ideologically neutral mental space within which the disparate forms of music produced by the nation’s culturally diverse citizens could be considered intellectually (that is, in terms of their formal and sensuous properties) in the nation’s public forum, without necessarily giving attention to their particular cultural origins or their potentially politicized content.

The related concept of “art music” blossomed in the nineteenth century, when the term “art song” began to be used to delineate songs written by a professional composer (as one supposedly more in touch with true, present realities) as distinguished from songs composed for religious purposes, or the folksongs of different cultural groups. Notions of “art music” held by the so-called Romantics of the time manifested a renewed recognition of the importance of feeling and emotional intuition in the music of all eras, and the music itself accordingly reflected the unique influences (for example, personal, social, geographical) on each composer. The concept of “art music” has continued to take hold in nations influenced by European and American traditions, manifesting the subsuming of native traditions of various origins into modern “aesthetic”

concepts. (See, for example, Omojola, 1994.)

The notions of music as a “fine art” and the realm of “the aesthetic” fit well with the goals of the recording and broadcast industries when they emerged in the twentieth century. They can be seen to have been a basis for Frances Elliott Clark’s pioneering of “music appreciation” in 1930 for the new Victor Talking Machine Company (later the RCA Victor Company) as the company sought to sell recordings of musical “masterworks” for profit. They remained strong throughout the following decade as evidenced in James Mursell’s influential arguments for the

“intrinsic value” of music in support of music education in the public schools. Notably, while school textbooks of the time often featured “music of many lands” in their contents, the songs of different cultural groups were characteristically described in the terms of their formal and sensuous qualities, in keeping with “aesthetic” concepts. (See, for example, McConathy, Beattie,

& Morgan, 1932.)

In the 1950s, American music education scholars Charles Leonhard and Robert W. House (1959) sketched a modern philosophy of music education grounded in the ideas of the European aesthetic philosophers in their book Foundations and Principles of Music Education, and this focus remained strong in the 1972 edition. Among their other arguments reflecting aesthetic ideals, they drew a distinction between “good music” and “great music”, suggesting that the latter was both more subtle and more abstract in expression, and thus better suited for teachers purposes to “improve taste and educate people musically” (Leonhard & House, 1972, pp. 102-103). Leonhard in particular had great influence not only through this book and his other writings, but also via the large number of music teacher educators he taught during his long tenure as head of the graduate program in music education at the University of Illinois.

American scholar Bennett Reimer, a doctoral student of Leonhard, forged for music educators a philosophy grounded in modern “aesthetic” concepts in A Philosophy of Music Education (1970). The following statement, central in his philosophy, illustrates his orientation:

The major function of art is to make objective, and therefore conceivable, the subjective realm of human responsiveness. Art does this by capturing and presenting in its aesthetic qualities the patterns and forms of human feelingfulness. The major function of aesthetic education is to make accessible the insights into human feelingfulness contained in the aesthetic qualities of things. Aesthetic education, then, can be regarded as the education of feeling…. The deepest value of music education is the same as the deepest value of all aesthetic education: the enrichment of the quality of people’s lives through enriching their insights into the nature of human feeling. (Reimer, 1970, p. 39)

In developing his philosophy, Reimer emphasized a distinction, borrowed from musicologist Leonard Meyer (1956), between so-called formalist, referentialist, and expressionist theories of

artistic meaning and value. Reimer (1970) advocated that music educators in the United States should adopt a position of absolute expressionism as the basis for their teaching, according to which the meaning and value of a given piece of music—as a work of art—are regarded as being primarily internal to the work itself. According to this position, the relationships of the tonal and rhythmic materials within a musical work alone are capable—in and of themselves—of exciting feelings and emotions in the listener, and the expressive emotional meanings evoked by music

“exist without reference to the extramusical world of concepts, actions, and human emotional states” (Meyer, 1956, p. 3). Thus, any personal and social meanings that particular forms of music might have carried within their original cultural contexts were not to be considered by music educators. These aspects of Reimer’s philosophy rendered it especially suitable for an American society that had long striven to bracket consideration of its constituent cultural groups’

meanings and values from consideration in the public forum, in order to focus on shared concerns. Reimer was a guiding editor for the Silver Burdett music series in the 1970s and, as textbooks created with his guidance were adopted by many school districts, these philosophical perspectives influenced numerous public school music curricula.

But during the second half of the twentieth century, with enhanced global awareness stemming from the emergence of television as the primary source of news, challenges to authority originating in the United States civil rights movement, and fears stemming from the Cold War and the nuclear arms race (among other factors), many scholars and others in societal positions of leadership began to question the central ideas and values of modernity. Notably, the writings of “post-modern” scholars have suggested that the confidence in the rational pursuit of universal truths and the belief in scientific, social, and technological progress that characterized modernity were too limiting, since many of the practices that stemmed from the modern worldview came to affect individuals, societies, and even the Earth itself in detrimental ways.

These scholars have suggested that because the confidence in rationalism that prevailed throughout the modern era was not tempered by a globally conscious, universally shared, moral or religious foundation, it led inevitably to such practices as colonialism, slavery, and fascism. In addition, they have observed that while the modern belief in the value of scientific, social, and technological progress brought great social benefits for certain members of the societies that embraced this belief (and not for others), it also led to the psychological and social disorientation of individuals and communities that had previously been comparatively well-balanced.

One modern idea that has long been central to music education, and that has been challenged is the aesthetic philosophers’ notion of music as a “fine art”. Postmodern scholars have asserted that this concept does not account for the range of socio-cultural meanings beyond those typically associated with Western art music. For example, philosopher Philip Alperson (1991) took issue with the aesthetic bases for music education philosophy, proffering instead a praxial approach that focused on understanding and teaching music “in terms of the variety of meanings and values evidenced in actual practice in particular cultures” (p. 228). Drawing from the ancient Greeks’ distinction (described by Aristotle) between three areas of knowledge, theoria (speculative knowledge of pure, eternal truth), techne (knowledge required for making or creating something), and praxis (knowledge that takes into account the sorts of reasoning and critical thinking necessary for getting the “right results” for human benefit in practice in a given situation), Alperson argued for the importance of attending to different cultural forms of musical engagement as personal and social practices in music education philosophy.

Likely compelled by Alperson’s argument, Canadian philosopher of music education David Elliott (1995) set forth a praxial philosophy in his influential book, Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education. Elliott began with the idea that members of different cultural groups throughout the world who make music should be considered practitioners of “a diverse human practice”, which he called “MUSIC”, and he emphasized that “music ought to be understood in relation to the meanings and values evidenced in actual music-making and music listening in specific contexts” (Elliott, 1995, p. 14). This aspect of his philosophy met with a

positive response from music educators who had felt the aesthetic model did not adequately address different cultural values and practices (even those manifested in some traditional Western practices, such as marching bands and Broadway musicals).

Elliott went on to argue that a universal aspect of “musicing” (that is, the behavior he regards as common among the different forms of music-making practiced around the world) is that “musicers” are typically engaged in what psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi (1990) called autotelic or “flow” experiences, in which the individual experiences a loss of the sense of

“self” and loses track of time. He asserted that, as members of different cultural groups throughout the world develop skills and take on challenges in musicing in their respective traditions, they typically effect “flow” and bring order to their own consciousness, with personal self-growth, greater self-knowledge, and raised self-esteem as concomitant results. On these bases, he affirmed the value of music in education. Elliott’s praxial philosophy has influenced thinking, writing, and teaching among music educators internationally, but it has been criticized for failing to account for the radically differing human motivations giving rise to many of the different forms of music-making manifested in different world societies. Indeed, the worshipful chanting of monks, the collective protest singing of labor union members, and a mother’s vocalizing of lullabies are among the many musical behaviors probably not motivated primarily by interest in developing skills or overcoming musical challenges.

In various writings throughout the 1990s and beyond, American music education philosopher Thomas Regelski advocated looking to “what music is good for” in different social contexts as the basis of his praxial philosophy. Regelski stressed that praxis implies that one is enjoined to get “right results” with one’s music-making in particular situations where contextually unique results are called for, and he emphasized that the goal of learning particular kinds of music-making should be in-line with individual, social, religious, and cultural practices, as well as the contexts and traditions within which they usually take place. In his urging that all music should be seen as “functional” in some way, Regelski’s praxial philosophy embraced the distinctiveness of different cultural forms of music more than Elliott’s. Still, Regelski’s (1996a) assertions that music is a “universal human trait” and that “a praxial philosophy of music in and through education is concerned to get people into action musically” (p. 125) seem to bring disparate cultural practices involving sound under the umbrella of the modern Western concept of “music” and to limit students’ possibility of seeing them for the radically unique practices they are.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE TWO POSITIONS FOR MUSIC EDUCATION CURRICULA

Both the “aesthetic” and “praxial” visions of music education warrant respect as philosophical foundations for music education curricula owing to the socially beneficent intentions of those who have argued for them. As I noted above, the realm of the “aesthetic” as the province of “the arts” has come to serve as an ideologically neutral mental space within which disparate forms of music produced by the culturally diverse citizenry of the United States could be considered intellectually, without necessarily giving attention to their particular cultural origins or their potentially politicized content. Furthermore, the argument has been made that, in focusing on high quality musical “works” in their teaching, music educators have developed the aesthetic sensitivity of students “for their own personal benefit, for the benefit of society which needs an active cultural life, . . [and] for the benefit of the art of music which depends on a continuing supply of sympathetic, sensitive consumers” (Reimer, 1970, p. 112).This claim may or may not be well-founded, but in any case the efforts of “aesthetic educators” have indeed served well the purposes of those in the media industries who regard the creations of composers and performing artists as “intellectual property”, valuable products saleable in a market economy. “Aesthetic

educators” directions to students to focus on the internal, formal (that is, tonal and rhythmic) aspects of different musical works as the locus of musical value, rather than on the social meanings and effects of different musics, have contributed to legitimizing the commodification of music as an object, which has supported the growth of music publishing, recording, and broadcast industries that have provided livelihoods for countless individuals.

However, the efforts of “aesthetic educators” have also been criticized for being elitist, owing to their tendency to focus on the musical products of particular cultural groups (and not others) as “masterworks”, confirmed by “experts” to be exemplary works of “fine art”. The argument is that aesthetic concepts of “taste” and “true beauty” are not truly “disinterested” and universal (as Kant had argued), but are instead socio-culturally rooted and maintained by people in positions of power (see Regelski, 1996b, p. 27). Furthermore, critics have argued that those who use the concept “aesthetic” tend to downplay harmfully the different cultural origins of disparate forms of music as well as their meanings in the particular communities within which they emerged. Indeed, listening to the music used in a worship service or a song written for a workers’ union rally in terms of its aesthetic qualities (or as a potentially saleable “work”) does direct the listener’s focus away from the social and political importance those forms of music held (and often still hold) for the people with whom they originated. Considerations of religious beliefs, intercultural meanings, cultural identity, and political motivations are all suspended in the

“aesthetic” context, so students do not necessarily grasp the social importance of different forms of music.

At the same time, the validity of arguments for the inclusion of music in elementary and secondary education on the basis that music education provides “education of feeling” has been challenged. Critics ask: If music education focuses on intra-musical meanings, and if music has no important connections to anything outside itself, isn’t music education just a “frill” subject?

Indeed, without addressing the social meanings and significance of different forms of “music”, many teachers find it difficult to explain music education’s importance.

Meanwhile, music educators who base their teaching on “praxial” views can be lauded for advocating the study of different musical traditions on their own terms. Their emphasis on

“understanding music in terms of the variety of meaning and values evidenced in actual practice in particular cultures” (Alperson, 1991, p. 228) opens up the possibility for students to learn about historical origins, and the social and political efficacy of different forms of music, and would seem to confirm its importance as a subject of academic study.

Yet the praxial vision also raises difficult questions when it comes to considering its implications in a curriculum. Beyond their shared primary concern with getting students to actually engage musically, both Elliott and Regelski have asserted the importance of attending to the personal and cultural meanings of different musical traditions. Elliott has recommended that listeners should learn “how to apprehend cultural information in, and attribute cultural meanings to musical patterns and musical works by convention” (Elliott, 1995, p. 192). Regelski (1996a) has emphasized that the “process-values” of particular musical practices are assessed as “good”

by persons involved with that praxis only when they conform to the individual, social, religious, and/or cultural meanings the praxis is intended to serve (p. 30). But learning about the personal and cultural meanings of different musical traditions could take a significant amount of time in classes that have historically emphasized music performance and listening. Should in-class rehearsal and performance time be reduced to allow students to learn more about different cultural forms of music as personal and social practices? Many students and members of the adult public (for example, parents, school administrators, legislators) have come to expect that music education programs will emphasize performance (despite the emphasis placed on music listening by “aesthetic educators”), and they are not likely to be happy with any “social studies-like” approach to music education.

Also, if school music curricula do put emphasis on performance, then another question arises: Whose (that is, which cultural groups’) musics should be taught in the schools? Certainly,

there isn’t sufficient time to include all musical traditions in the curriculum. In making curricular recommendations, one praxial philosopher—Thomas Regelski (2000)—has promoted “general musicianship—the kind of ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ that travels well and thus has potential relevance for use across a variety of styles” (p. 82), but it must be acknowledged that studying such “general” kinds of musical “knowing” and “doing” will likely have the tendency to keep students’ musical experiences close to prevailing societal norms, limiting their opportunities to explore musical practices that differ widely from those dominant in the mainstream of the public forum.

If the quandaries of cultural diversity haven’t raised enough challenges for those seeking suitable philosophical bases for curricula in music education, recent innovations in music-related media, and changes in laws and policies associated with them are certainly providing additional hurdles, straining both the aesthetic philosophers’ and the praxial philosophers’ conceptions.

INNOVATIONS IN MEDIA AND CHANGES IN MEDIA POLICIES

Over the past few decades, striking technological developments have led to the emergence of numerous remarkable innovations in music-related media, including digital synthesizers;

computer sequencing, sound sampling, and notation software; digital audio encoding equipment (for example, for compact disk recordings); digital audio transmission file formats (for example, MP3s); Internet Webcasting; satellite radio; as well as personal video production tools. These technological innovations have brought about changes in students’ experiences with music that many music educators “didn’t see coming”, and they raise challenges for school music teachers, and music teacher educators (and their students) in universities who hold both of the music education philosophies I have just described. I will briefly explore some of the more notable ones here.

In some of the North American secondary schools in which I have taught or supervised student teachers, students now have opportunities to take music courses in digital music laboratories in which they learn to compose, notate, arrange, and record music using synthesizers, computer sequencers, and sound sampling technologies. Perhaps the most striking feature of these classes is that students with relatively limited musical backgrounds are able to engage musically and to create complex, presentable compositions without the years of practice and experience formerly required to hone instrumental performance skills, master music notation, learn how to lead an ensemble, and develop proficiency at using analog recording equipment.

While the music most students make with the new technologies tends to be drawn from contemporary pop music traditions (and mostly in predictable ways), I have observed that the compositions produced by some students reflect the unique musical-cultural traditions of their respective family heritages. Notably, their interest in the tonal and rhythmic organization of the musical “works” they are creating exemplifies the notion of “art music” that stems from aesthetic philosophy as they include formal “expressive” elements that stem from their own traditions. At the same time, the interest and involvement with the students’ compositions that is stimulated within their own families and cultural communities (as well as in their schools) manifests the praxial philosophers’ interest in having students experience and understand musical engagement as a meaningful social and cultural praxis.

However, other students using the same equipment are borrowing sounds and formal attributes from musical traditions of which they know very little as they compose, sometimes creating works similar to ones they have heard elsewhere, and setting them with their own lyrics, quite unaware of the conflicts and ironies inherent in their musical appropriations. For example, one student at a school near my university set Christian lyrics to Reggae-inspired music with no apparent awareness of the fundamental differences in the worldviews of Christians and the Rastafarians (with whom Reggae originated), let alone a purposeful intention of addressing such

differences meaningfully in her composition. Her teacher, who was oriented toward aesthetic philosophy (and who thus was focused primarily on musical form and expression and tended to discount cultural meanings), had no problem with the social conflicts manifested in her composition, but the student’s work would probably be dismissed or receive criticism for its odd incorporations if it were to reach a wider, musically and culturally knowledgeable listening public. Indeed, a teacher oriented toward helping students to understand the social meanings associated with different musical practices might regard the student as having “missed the point”

of having engaged with the musical materials she brought together.

As the technological innovations in media I have described above have emerged, they have also motivated changes in media policies, especially concerning copyright laws, control of broadcast content, and media ownership regulations. In fact, laws and regulations are now changing so frequently that is presently difficult for scholars in the field to stay current with them.

The most significant United States copyright law of the past twenty years is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1988), which criminalized not merely copyright infringement, but the production and dissemination of technologies that can circumvent measures taken to protect copyright. The most widely noted application of the law was the legal action brought against Napster, an online “music sharing” service that allowed listeners to exchange MP3 format song files without compensating the copyright owners of the songs. Not surprisingly, the recording industry raised accusations of massive copyright violations (See Menta, 1999). Napster was terminated by court order in 2001, but other decentralized peer-to-peer (“P2P”) file-sharing programs have emerged since then, and they have proven much more difficult to control.

Also, Webcasting, considered as a worldwide phenomenon, is largely unregulated at the time of this writing (although it is presently regulated in the United States), and satellite radio is not regulated at all. Not surprisingly, large media corporations have raised issues concerning the lack of regulations on satellite radio, arguing not that they are trying to shackle satellite radio, but that they simply seek a “level playing field"in their efforts to be competitive (Clark, 2005). But notably, Webcasts, file sharing, and satellite radio have represented a boon to music education students in universities seeking to gain access to recordings of music from different traditions (with relatively little effort and at little or no cost) for use in their lessons.

While most recorded music available via the Internet is still owned and promoted by media companies, a great deal of music of different cultural groups (that is, communities “outside the mainstream”) has also become accessible. What many of these communities lack, of course, is the promotion of media companies to give their music a wider listenership, but my students seem quite motivated to seek out culturally diverse musical examples, and to make copies of them for their own use.

In fact, in the university level classes I teach in music teacher education, students now frequently bring to class their iPods (portable digital media players and storage devices) on which they have placed sequences of musical examples culled from Webcasts, file sharing, and satellite radio for use in their in-class presentations and lessons. They connect their iPods to the classroom sound system so their musical examples can be heard on speakers by the entire class.

Furthermore, they sometimes bring in musical examples from outside the theoretical frames of Western art and popular musics (featuring, for example, Indian classical music, Tuvan throat singing, and Australian aboriginal didgeridoo players) for use in their lessons. Unlike my previous example, the illustrations the students seek to make in their lessons usually reflect legitimate connections (as in a class discussion of how the human vocal mechanism can be manipulated to effect overtone singing as done by throat singers in Tuva), but at other times they do not (as when one student described aspects of a sitar performance using the analytical terminology of Western art music). Notably, at the beginning of each term, students tend to bring to class musical examples that they find attractive primarily on the basis of formal and sensuous (that is, “aesthetic”) characteristics. But over time my music education students conduct more in-depth historical research or substantive cultural explorations into the music they have chosen to