Music Matters chapter two

This post is public-facing note taking on Music Matters by David Elliott and Marissa Silverman for my Philosophy of Music Education class.

This chapter deals with philosophy and music education. The word “philosophy” in this context means not just a credo or belief system. It’s the process of examining your thinking, beliefs, relationships, and so on.

Thinking face emoji

Elliott and Silverman agree with me that comedians can be philosophers too. They cite Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the creators of South Park. To those, I’d add Louis CK, Maria Bamford, Tina Fey, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock. Also, this movie.

Elliott and Silverman reject positivism. Empirical observation is insufficient to understand humans, because we’re too complicated and unpredictable. All we can do to reduce the unfathomable complexity of the social world is to develop logically consistent theories that don’t contradict the evidence.

Music education advocacy and music education philosophy are not the same thing (though good advocacy should probably be informed by philosophy.) The advocacy strategy that “music makes you better at STEM” is objectionable in so many ways. First of all, is it true? How could you possibly determine the answer to that? Second, if it were true, is STEM the only valuable thing? Does music have to have a value beyond itself? And third, is school music the most germane form of music to be asking these questions about in the first place?

As for the advocacy argument that music is the education of feeling? Um, Stalin loved music.

Advocacy is conservative. It’s trying to preserve the status quo. It also ignores facts and ideas that run counter to its political goals. NAfME raced to join the standards movement and made music ed both worse and smaller.

Elliott and Silverman point out that firsthand musical-emotional experiences are the strongest form of advocacy. If you have a powerful music experience, as a performer or listener, it stays with you. Better to put instruments in people’s hands and get them into the concert halls and clubs than to advance spurious arguments about math scores.

Aristotle’s four forms of praxis:

  • theoria–intellectual speculation, the everyday sense of the word “theory” as opposed to e.g. the theory of relativity
  • phronesis–practical reasoning
  • poiesis–rule-governed action, doing stuff
  • techne–technical knowledge, skill, expertise

Thomas Regelski defines praxis as ethically “right action,” specifically, right for particular people at a particular time.

The core components of praxial music education:

  • Teaching and learning–and not just about getting the notes right.
  • Values– but whose values? The “community’s values.” But who constitutes the community?
  • Tradition–but whose tradition? There are so many. “We got both kinds, country and western.” Elliott and Silverman want us to see tradition as a way to release and direct musical energies, not confine and restrict them.
  • Practice or praxis–practice is a thing that people do. Praxis is a thing people do that combines and depends on the integration of a complex web of people, processes, products, and contexts.

Music should be “active reflection and critically reflective action dedicated to supporting and advancing human flourishing and well-being, the ethical care of others, and the positive transformation of people’s everyday lives” and “each instance of music should be conceived, taught and learned as a social praxis–as a fusion of people, processes, products, and ethical ‘goods’ in specific social-cultural contexts” (52). A social praxis like music is where people develop virtue. Like listening!

I like to start my classes with a discussion of “Little Fluffy Clouds” by The Orb.

Theoria: What does it mean that the Orb built this entire song out of unauthorized samples of other people, along with some simple drum machine and synth patterns? How can decontextualized speech fragments act as the top-line melody of a pop song? Is this any different from musique concréte? How do the unearthly timbres affect us emotionally? How can such remote and intellectual music consistently pack the dance floor?

Phronesis: How did they make this song? How do you program a TB-303 and a TR-909? How do you do the stutter effect on the chorus? How do you align the key and tempo of your samples?

Poiesis: How do you make your own dance music? How do you identify promising samples? How do you structure the track?

Techne: What software and hardware do you need? How do you layer drum machines and samples to make satisfying beats? Where do you place the drum hits? What audio effects do you use to make your synth timbres evolve and pulsate? How do you create a tight and coherent mix, and a sense of musical space?

Teaching and learning: How do I help the kids develop a voice in their own electronic productions? How much imitation of people like the Orb should they do? How much do I explain? How much do I let them discover by trial and error?

Values: Is unauthorized sampling okay? Does it matter if you’re giving the music away for free? Does it matter if you’re a student? Does it matter if the person you’re sampling never finds out about it? Is dance music a worthwhile art form?

Tradition: How much do the conventions of dance music matter? Is 4/4 time necessary? A steady tempo? Electronic instruments? Should students in a music school be studying and creating dance music at all?

Practice or praxis: How reproducible are my lesson plans? Do we even need lesson plans? Is a teacher reading a score or improvising? Elliott quoted this truism to me: “A lesson plan is something you throw in the garbage on the way to class.” Dewey talks about how you can only figure out educational goals after the fact. Can another educator follow my example, or do I personally need to be in the room? Is it okay to be pushing classical performance majors so far out of their comfort zones? Is any of this relevant to their chosen major? Or am I doing them an enormous favor by forcing them to engage electronic dance music? Or West African drumming, or gamelan, or whatever.?

Elliott resists the term “human development.” He prefers human flourishing or human happiness. Silverman asks: what even is happiness? That’s a question for another post.