Music Education: Cultural Values, Social Change and Innovation

Robert Walker

01/2007 · Charles C Thomas Publisher

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This is an important work that addresses the complex issues surrounding musical meaning and experience, and the Western traditional justification for including music in education. The chapters in this volume examine the important subjects of tradition, innovation, social change, the music curriculum, music in the twentieth century, social strata, culture and music education, psychology, science and music education, including musical values and education. Additional topics include the origins of mania, aesthetics and musical meaning related to concepts that are well-known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, which are compared to contemporary life. The rise of studies of musical behavior by social psychologists has been an important feature for the last two decades, and the relevance of this development to music education is explored. Articulating the difference between education and entertainment has been central to discussions and debates about the role of music in education since Plato and Aristotle first examined the problem. Many of the questions and issues raised by these two Greek philosophers in ancient Greece about the nature of music and its role in education are highly relevant today, and these are examined in the context of the twenty-first century. The writer stresses that music is a product of specific cultural ways of thinking and doing, and its inclusion in education can only be justified in terms of the importance a particular culture places on its music as a valued art form. The implications for music education are that those teaching music should focus in the ways musicians employ special cultural ways of thinking in their compositions and performance practices, whatever the genre. (Contains 28 illustrations and 2 tables.).