Leading Music Education International Conference

Music Education as Dialogue Between the Outer and the Inner

This paper is based on a study of a Norwegian jazz educators’ philosophy of work. This jazz educator is nationally and internationally recognized as a performer and educator, and is honoured for his work of bringing jazz education into the system for higher music education in Norway. The study is based on video observations, field notes, one interview and a questionnaire. Analysis of this material denotes three bipolar pivot points, which indicate a practice embodied as a constant dialogue between inner and outer aspects of music and human beings. These identified pivot points are named; ‘tradition/person’, ‘music as heard/ music as not-heard’, and ‘teacher/performer’. In the paper I will present and discuss these identified pivot points in a theoretical frame inspired by Martin Heideggers’ philosophy about arts and human beings, and Christopher Smalls notion of ‘musicking’. This discussion will relate to curriculums for basic music education in Norway.