1. Explain the following statement and its implications for music teaching:
“Music is never a matter of pieces alone, and pieces of music are never a matter of sounds alone.”
Music is a purposeful activity.
It is not an object, but rather an action. The result of a musical action is called a piece or a work. But to call that alone music would neglect the importance of the creating process.
The aesthetic theory of music only focuses on the structure of the musical sounds, and the musical pieces, without the involvement of emotion. But we all experience the emotion of music in a personal way. We feel music by playing it, listening to it, and writing it.
Musical works are performances. They are produced by purposeful actions of musicians working together, and heard and appreciated by audiences. Music is life experience, a community event that brings people together. We all experience music in our own way, and share music as a collaborative work. Through this shared experience we learn to understand one another better, and receive the rapture of “musicing.” This collaborative experience of music should be emphasized in the teaching of music.
2. Suppose you have been asked to explain “the values of music” to a group of parents and school administrators. What would you say?
Out of the academic subjects of school, music promotes not only self-growth, self-knowledge, but also enjoyment, in current life and also into the future. A secondary effect, which is very important that we really try to bring to kids, is the self-esteem.
Music contains all of the characteristics of self-growth. Kids will be trained to completely focus on one’s actions. Also, they will learn to set clear goals, and get feedback from their teacher and from their own thinking. While kids are “musicing,” they lose their self-consciousness, and put them into a different state of mind. Music is also the action for its own sake. Kids will get different life value from doing music.
Music includes the condition for self-growth and enjoyment, which are the challenge of something to do and the know-how to overcome the challenge. For the best self-growth, the level of challenge should be just slightly above the level of capability. Too much challenge will bring kids frustration and make them lose interest in music. However, too little challenge will make kids bored. So, the enjoyment part is when the kids overcome the challenge using their know-how. This state of enjoyment is “flow,” when people are putting themselves in the situation of enjoying and doing, and they experience a seamless flowing.
Musical experiences are unique because they involve challenges and thought processes different from any other endeavor. Therefore, everyone should learn music. Listening fosters intimacy with the world. Sonic awareness is temporal, with ambiguity. Moreover, music is the first art, because we all can hear in the womb. It is the first essential connection between ourselves and the world.
Music offers the opportunity of not only for a life, but also for a living. This is a personal value of it. As a political value, it benefits not only the self, but others. It is also a very good opportunity for kids to learn how to work with people as collaborative lessons of their lives.
4. Is musical creativity a process or a product? Can people be taught to be musically “creative?”
Creativity is a process, and people can be taught to be musically creative. Creativity is action leading to development of achievement. It needs originality and significance. It is not a specific mental capacity that some people have and some people don’t. Although creativity is a process, it is judged by the product. A product which is highly original and significant is determined to be creative.
Musicianship promotes and enables creativity. By teaching musicianship through performing, arranging, composing, improvising, and conducting, the teacher will encourage the development of students’ creativity. Decision making and problem finding during “musicing” are the keys to creative achievement. A good level of musicianship will aid both.
The teacher develops a learning-to-be-creative disposition in the student by encouraging reflection on the originality, significance, and the creative promise of musical ideas the student is considering. This helps the student to have the confidence to tackle challenging musical projects that will in turn push them to improve his musicianship, and therefore he will be more creative.
5. How is it possible for ‘pure instrumental music’ to communicate expressions of emotion and cultural or ideological meanings?
Music imitates the way peope express emotion. It develops and enhances these expressions. Volume and intonation express emotion in speech. In the same way, these pitch fluctuation patterns and dynamic changes are used in music. Human actions also convey emotion, such as dance or sports. Music that takes on the feel of a certain dance expresses the emotion associated with that dance. The gestures of music also reflect the gestures of people through different punctuations and ascending or descending lines. Emotion can also be expressed by using different musical conventions. For example, a funeral march is sad by convention.
Music can convey cultural and ideological meanings in several ways. In program music, music is coordinated with a story, poetry, or scenery. Different instruments and phrases are used to reflect sounds and activities in ways that are understood in the culture. For example, a Japanese flute (or Xiao) sound in eastern music is understood by eastern listeners to be sad. The same sound might give some western listener a spooky feeling, because the sad meaning is specific only to the eastern culture.
Music can associate a specific musical pattern with a character, idea, or event. For example, the shimmering two rivers with different characters are represented by two flutes in Moldao River, by Smetana. Particular musical forms are used as conventional references, for example, an ostinato walking bass represents people’s steps or a steady ongoing event. Musical works sometimes reference other works with direct quotations. This is especially common in jazz improvisations.
There is a common experience between the listener, composer, and player. All three make this cultural understanding work. The existence of cultural memes makes this shared knowledge possible.
12/22/2003
http://education.nyu.edu/music/musicmat/musicmat/
