Music Education Philosophies and Rationales - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Music Education Philosophies and Rationales

Class 1a

Baptist Singing School, 1825

Singing School, Buckhorn, MO, 1910Slide2

Syllabus

ObjectivesDescribe the major historical events involved in the development of music education in the United States, and consider possible implications for the present and future.

Discuss important people in the history of music education in the United States.Interact with and interpret primary source materials related to the history of music education.Grading – Review rubric

Course OverviewClass 1 – Philosophies

Class 2 – Teaching & Learning IClass 3 – Teaching & Learning IIClass 4 – School EnsemblesClass 5 – PresentationsAttendanceDay 4 testDay 5 presentationSlide3

Final Presentation

Prepare a 15 minute presentation on an historical topic of your choiceShould include primary & secondary sources

Primary = MEJ, newspapers, materials found on google books, Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, classmates.com Create PPTInclude photos, brief audio/video, demonstration or activity if appropriate

Bibliography in a standard format on last slide

Sample Topics:Music Ed during WWIIHistory of the choir at X schoolBiography of Agnes C. Heath (CPS supervisor)History of the 1933 National Band Contest at NU – EvanstonMusic in the Chicago Normal SchoolRole of NEA & MSNC in standardizing the

Star Spangled Banner

Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) in music education

Music for special learners as portrayed in

MEJ

, 1930s-1940s

Music teacher education at DePaul

Music educators’ & administrators reaction to Sputnik

School jazz bands

b/f

WWII Slide4

Why History?

Basis for understanding the past

Context for understanding present (Michel Foucault [1926-1984]: conditions of possibility in genealogy – history of the present)Identifying past trends to predict current and future trends

(e.g., future status of educational repertoire)

Information to avoid previous mistakes (correspondence school and online learning)Perspective for decision/policyUnderstand and judge current events and trends

(e.g., standardized testing, schools as businesses)

P

redicting the future

(what would happen if we moved to block scheduling?)

Storehouse of great ideas

(

T.P

. Giddings &

Maddy readings)Slide5

Why Music Education?

Your principal calls you into the office and informs you that the school board is considering cutting the music program. He wants to advocate for the program and wants you to come up with reasons why music education is important in the school curriculum.

List reasons you might give. What is the value of music education? What does it or should it do?Do your reasons have historical roots? [next slide!]Slide6
Slide7

Overview of Historical Philosophies, Rationales, & Justifications

Old TestamentAncient GreeksBoston, 1838

Progressive Era (late 1800s-1940s)Sputnik & MEAE (1958)Praxial Philosophy (1990s)Slide8

Old Testament Perspectives (1500 BC)

Jews enslaved in Egypt c. 210 years Developed musical life in Egypt

Witnessed singing, dancing, instruments (except shofar)Music in worshipMoses probably received music as part of Egyptian educationExodus from Egypt (1446 BC)Led by MosesNomadic until Can’nan (Israel)Songs of Moses & Miriam

Exodus 15 at Crossing of Red Seahttps://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+15&version=AKJV Slide9

Levites as Music Educators

Levites: Tribe of Levi (1/12 tribes of IsraelLevites who were not priests played music in the Temple or served as guards

Education began at 25 (or b/f?)Worship probably included call & response reflected in some of the Psalms (e.g., Ps 147)1[call] Praise ye the Lord:[response] for it is good to sing praises unto our God;

Music Teacher EducationAnshei

Ma’amad (“bystanders”)Representatives of the peopleTravelled to Jerusalem to witness temple ritualPart of the gathering was devoted to teaching & learning new songsBystanders returned to their own synagogues and taught the new songs to their congregationsSlide10

Jewish Perspectives on Music

Human vs. divine creationWithout supernatural powers to affect morality & behavior

Music as service to God, but also work & recreationEveryone participatedMusic & Poetry (vs. graven images) expression of God

Illuminated manuscript,

Tomić Psalter, 1360/63, Moscow State Historical MuseumSlide11

Major Themes from the Hebrews Relevant Today?

In the Jewish culture, everyone had a right

and a duty to sing to GodMusic is for everyoneMusic is an important part of all aspects of life, culture, & preservation of historyMusical abilities need to be fostered & developedMusic educators play an important role in the life of societySlide12

Ancient Greeks (900 BCE – 146 BCE)

3 levels of educationPrimary (ages 7-14), secondary, tertiary (military training)

Boys onlyMusic, Poetry, Gymnastics developed body & soulCulture included singing festivals, contests, & societiesAthens & Sparta differedAthens = 3 levelsSparta = military training onlyMusic for patriotism & warSlide13

Pythagoras (582-507 BCE)

Math & Music intimately connectedIntervallic relationships of harmonic series based on mathematical proportions

Fundamental2/1 = octave3/2 = P54/3 = P4

Music constituted a system of sound and rhythm ruled by the same mathematical laws that operate in the whole of the visible and invisible creation. To understand music was to understand the universe. Music was a STEM subject (at least for awhile).Slide14

Doctrine of Ethos (R. Martin,

n.d.)

Music affected thought, action, character, & moralsArtist must exercise power responsiblyAristotle felt that music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul (e.g., gentleness, anger, courage, temperance, and their opposites). Music that imitates a certain emotion stirs that emotion in the listener.Habitual listening to shapes character – good or badMusic as a powerful force should be regulated

If a rhythm was too complex or fast, then the soul would be compelled to act out in an uninhibited fashion. This was related to the worship of Dionysus-which for the most part was sexual in content and ritual.

If a person listened to sad, mournful melodies, then they would become depressed and not be productive.If an enemy was exposed to music with weakening attributes, then their defenses could be weakened and they could be conquered.Slide15

“HOW THE ‘ROCK BEAT’ CAUSED A SON TO DISHONOR HIS PARENTS”

http://truediscipleship.com/ten-scriptural-reasons-why-the-rock-beat-is-evil-in-any-form/

“About four years ago, our church got a new youth pastor. He began playing Christian rock before meetings and during activities. He encouraged me to get a copy of a certain [recording], which I did, even though my parents forbade me from doing so.“Because I was being home educated, the church youth group was the only significant outside influence in my life, but that influence was enough to cause me to rebel and wreck my life for the next four years.

“I then started listening to secular soft rock music, thinking, What’s wrong with this? It has less beat than Christian music. If only I had known what a deceiver Satan is, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache.

“About seven months ago at a Christian radio station’s New Year’s Eve party, I was introduced to Christian rap music. Before that time, I did not listen to rap, but after hearing it there, I began justifying to myself that the beat couldn’t be all bad because Christians listened to it and it didn’t seem to harm them.“What it did to me was cause a complete breakdown in morals, which led directly to my becoming involved in immoral habits and illegal activities. I was also constantly plagued with violent and unclean thoughts.“Since then, I have taken steps to regain the ground given to Satan, and for the first time in years, I have a feeling of complete freedom from the influence of this music.”

Tim Love, age 18, WashingtonSlide16

Plato (427-347 BCE)

Calling for a Balanced Education“[T]here are two art, which I would say some god gave to mankind, music and gymnastics for the service of the high-spirited principle and the love of knowledge in them…And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best

attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings.” [M]usical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because

rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful

, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend

with whom his education has made him long familiar.

(Plato,

Republic III

)Slide17

Decline of Music Education in Ancient Greece

By 5th century BCE - Music became more complexMusic instruction declined b/c not everyone could play it

In Athens, music specialists paid more than other teachers but only taught during last 2 years of school and during military serviceAristotle (384-322 BCE) & others questioned its value in educationSlide18

Aristotle (Politics, VIII)

The customary branches of education are in number four; they are- (1) reading and writing, (2) gymnastic exercises, (3) music, to which is sometimes added (4) drawing. Of these, reading and writing and drawing are regarded as useful for the purposes of life in a variety of ways, and gymnastic exercises are thought to infuse courage.

Concerning music, a doubt may be raised- in our own day most men cultivate it for the sake of pleasure, but originally it was included in education, because nature herself…requires that we should be able, not only to work well. …And therefore our fathers admitted music into education, not on the ground either of its necessity or utility, for it is not necessary,

nor indeed useful in the same manner as reading and writing, which are useful in money-making, in the management of a household, in the acquisition of knowledge and in political life, nor like drawing, useful for a more correct judgment of the works of artists, nor again like gymnastic, which gives health and strength; for neither of these is to be gained from music. There remains, then, the use of music for intellectual

enjoyment in leisure; which is in fact evidently the reason of its introduction, this being one of the ways in which it is thought that a freeman should pass his leisure. Slide19

Connections to Modern Attitudes?

Influence of music on behaviorBalanced educationMusic

ed for all vs. the talentedMusic less useful vs. other subjectsSlide20

Education By 19th Century America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPc7RnGOho0&list=PLkFzyKKHmsFeNFAxU_g_Lc1yzAdhjeJz_&index=1 (1-3; start 1’26”)

Lack of Educational ProgressConcern for sustenance vs. intellectual pursuitsOften faith-based schools or public schools favoring Protestantism Latin schools replaced w/ English Grammar schools in New EnglandEducation became more practicalServed both boys and girls

Preparation for life emphasizedPrepared elementary teachersSlide21

Age of Enlightenment

Truth derived from reasonPhysical universe explained by mechanical laws (e.g., science, music theory)

Empirical = verifiable by observation or experience (hearing & seeing); evidence drivenEducation =Moral (character) Physical (health & sharpening senses)Mental (intellect developed through the senses)Slide22

Lowell Mason (1792-1872)

Born Medfield, MA, 1792Church Choir Director – age 17Relocated to Savannah, Georgia, age 20

Clerk in a dry-goods store & bankSinging school leaderSunday school superintendent, choir director, and organist at the Independent Presbyterian ChurchMoved to Boston 1827Directed choirs in three local churches1832, helped organized the Boston Academy of Music1838, Introduced first permanent, district-wide school music program in the US in the Boston public schools

Served as supt. of music in Boston until 1851

National Musical FigureLed conventions and teachers’ institutes throughout the countryPublished numerous hymns (1600), tune books, and collections of sacred and secular music for both children and adults. Honorary doctorate of music from New York University in 1855Died August 11, 1872, in Orange, New JerseySlide23

Music in the Boston Public Schools

1828, William Channing Woodbridge observeed music at Pestalozzi’s school in Switzerland.

Meets music teachers Michael Traugott Pfeiffer & George NaegeliSends materials to Mason & helped him develop lessonsTranslated materials into his Manual of the Boston Academy of Music (1834)Began to apply techniques in his own instruction w/ teaching groups of children music

Boston Academy of Music 1832

Community music centerClasses for children & adultsChoirs, orchestra, bandsBegan preparing music teachers 18341836 – Boston School Committee approve experiment in public schools1837-38 – Mason teaches at Hawes School w/o payPublic concert in spring 1838 proved concept

District-wide instruction began fall 1838 in many Boston grammar schoolsSlide24

Wildwood Flowers

Boston Public School demonstration Aug 14, 1838

First song sung in unison by school children[??]Not mentioned in newspapersSlide25

Philosophy of Music Education: 1837Boston School Committee, Aug. 24, 1837

Music is an intellectual

art. Among the seven liberal arts, which scholastic ages regarded as pertaining to humanity, Music had its place. Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music, these formed the quadrivium. Separate degrees in Music, it is believed, are still conferred by the University of Oxford. Memory, comparison, attention, intellectual faculties all of them, are quickened by the study of its principles. It is not ornamental merely. It is not an accomplishment alone; It has high intellectual affinities. It may be made, to some extent, an intellectuel discipline. (p. 3)Slide26

Morals (character)

There is,—who has not ,felt it,—a mysterious connection, ordained undoubtedly for wise purposes, between certain sounds and the moral sentiments of man. This is not to be gainsaid [denied], neither is it to be explained. It is an ultimate law of man’s nature. “In Music, says Hooker, the very image of virtue and vice is perceived.” Now it is a curious fact, that the natural scale of musical sound can only produce good, virtuous, and kindly feelings. You ‘must reverse this scale, if you would call forth the sentiments of a corrupt, degraded, and degenerate character. Has not the finger of the Almighty written here an indication too plain to be mistaken? And if such be the case, if there be this necessary concordance between certain sounds and certain trains of moral feeling, is it unphilosophical to say that exercises in vocal Music may be so directed and arranged as to produce those habits of feeling of which these sounds are the types? Besides, happiness, contentment, cheerfulness, tranquility,—these are the natural effects of Music. These qualities are connected intimately with the moral government of the individual. Why should they not, under proper management, be rendered equally efficient in the moral government of the school? (pp. 3-4)Slide27

Physically

“A fact, says an American physician, has been suggested to me by my profession, which is, that the exercise of the organs of the breast by singing contributes very much to defend them from those diseases to which the climate and other causes expose them.” A musical writer in England after quoting this remark, says,“ the Music Master of our Academy has furnished me with an observation still more in favor of this opinion. He informs me that he had known several persons strongly disposed to consumption restored to health, by the exercise of the lungs in singing.” But why cite medical or other authorities to a point so plain? It appears self-evident that exercises in vocal Music, when not carried to an unreasonable excess, must expand the chest, and thereby strengthen the lungs and vital organs. (p. 4)