Event Title
Start Date
30-5-2011 4:00 PM
End Date
30-5-2011 4:30 PM
Description
In this paper I will introduce a concept of pedagogy of music that I will call Immanent. I will approach it philosophically from two directions: Firstly, I will focus on the notion of Music, (or the ontology of music), and claim that within this notion there is always already a pedagogy enclosed, not to say immanent. I do for example – with Nettl - believe that the way in which a society teaches its music is a matter of enormous importance for understanding that music. Nevertheless, and quite contrary to that, in my ongoing PhD project I find that the activity of learning “music” in school (materialized in the textbooks of my study) is seen as something external to what music really is. These are textbooks with a fairly great amount of non-western classical music represented, but the teaching design is very much the same as with the western-classical music. This indicates to me that music is seen very much like objective knowledge, to be transferred with a tool (external to music), and this tool is (the Western) pedagogy. There are numerous examples on this in different kinds of books and writings. For example, it is possible to speak rather easily about “music pedagogy and its object” (music), hence separating the learning from the music, and hence defining music in contradiction to Nettl: as something existing autonomously, thinkable without any aspect of teaching and learning. Even if adopting a language of musicing or musicking, most people seem to keep a music-as-object ontology, and seeing musicking as a transitive verb, taking “music” as its object. Secondly, I will focus on (music) pedagogy. Several recent music philosophers and writers have commented on the fallibility of the traditional (Western Classical) pedagogy when it comes to other musics. While Lucy Green focuses on informal music education and have done thoroughly research on the use of informal teaching strategies and concludes that they are of most importance when teaching and learning pop-music, Peter Dunbar-Hall draws on his long time experience performing and teaching Balinese Gamelan-music and suggest the term ethnopedagogics to better reflect that different kinds of music are differently thought and learned. Both two perspectives – and numerous others - although recognising the close relationship between the music and its pedagogy, do (at least analytically) separate the music from its teaching/learning methods. My suggestion is not to make different pedagogies for different musics, but to expand the notion of music to also include the teaching and learning processes, and to focus on where “music” is: In the human beings as human doings.
Included in
An Immanent Pedagogy of Music
In this paper I will introduce a concept of pedagogy of music that I will call Immanent. I will approach it philosophically from two directions: Firstly, I will focus on the notion of Music, (or the ontology of music), and claim that within this notion there is always already a pedagogy enclosed, not to say immanent. I do for example – with Nettl - believe that the way in which a society teaches its music is a matter of enormous importance for understanding that music. Nevertheless, and quite contrary to that, in my ongoing PhD project I find that the activity of learning “music” in school (materialized in the textbooks of my study) is seen as something external to what music really is. These are textbooks with a fairly great amount of non-western classical music represented, but the teaching design is very much the same as with the western-classical music. This indicates to me that music is seen very much like objective knowledge, to be transferred with a tool (external to music), and this tool is (the Western) pedagogy. There are numerous examples on this in different kinds of books and writings. For example, it is possible to speak rather easily about “music pedagogy and its object” (music), hence separating the learning from the music, and hence defining music in contradiction to Nettl: as something existing autonomously, thinkable without any aspect of teaching and learning. Even if adopting a language of musicing or musicking, most people seem to keep a music-as-object ontology, and seeing musicking as a transitive verb, taking “music” as its object. Secondly, I will focus on (music) pedagogy. Several recent music philosophers and writers have commented on the fallibility of the traditional (Western Classical) pedagogy when it comes to other musics. While Lucy Green focuses on informal music education and have done thoroughly research on the use of informal teaching strategies and concludes that they are of most importance when teaching and learning pop-music, Peter Dunbar-Hall draws on his long time experience performing and teaching Balinese Gamelan-music and suggest the term ethnopedagogics to better reflect that different kinds of music are differently thought and learned. Both two perspectives – and numerous others - although recognising the close relationship between the music and its pedagogy, do (at least analytically) separate the music from its teaching/learning methods. My suggestion is not to make different pedagogies for different musics, but to expand the notion of music to also include the teaching and learning processes, and to focus on where “music” is: In the human beings as human doings.