Joseph Kerman - The Place of Music in Basic Education

8/6/2019 Joseph Kerman - The Place of Music in Basic Education

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MENC: The National Association for Music Education

The Place of Music in Basic EducationAuthor(s): Joseph KermanSource: Music Educators Journal, Vol. 46, No. 5 (Apr. - May, 1960), pp. 43-44+46Published by: MENC: The National Association for Music EducationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3389353

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T h e P l a c e o f Mus i c i nB a s i c Education

Joseph Kerman

R ECENT PRESSURE in favor of basic education andagainst "frill" courses has somewhat agitated thoseconcerned with high school music. Attacks havecapitalized on the fact that although music is well en-trenched in the schools, its role in secondary educationhas never been quite securely rationalized. This roleshould be continually under assessment. The first thingto make clear is that music, properly understood, is nota "frill" in the company of cookery, driver education,and the like, but a "basic" together with mathematics,languages, history and literature.These black-and-white terms are not the most mean-ingful, certainly, and we could wish that they did notstick so fast to our subject. However, there may be somevirtue in putting the case blatantly as a start, beforeshading off into more subtle grays. The case rests on theidea that the schools should do more than simply teachthe student how to read, write and reason. Secondaryeducation, we believe today, should go some considerableway towards acquainting the student with his civiliza-tion. It therefore should include the form and evolutionof American institutions, history, languages, sciencesand the arts as well. The student can gain no compre-hensive insight into Western culture without a seriousintroduction to imaginative literature, the visual arts andmusic.For the arts occupy a special, important area in whatwe loosely call our heritage. Like the scientist, the artistdeals with experience and tells about it. But unlike thescientist, he is not primarily concerned with observationor speculation; in the work of art, he expresses his re-action to experience, articulating and conveying to othershis sense of what it feels like to be alive. We speak cor-rectly enough of the "message" of a great symphony,even though it is a message that we cannot write on atelegraph form. And though a book of poetry does notgive us factual information as a textbook does, none-theless it conveys a definite attitude, or mood, or inter-pretationset down by the poet. Art, then, is the depositoryof a kind of knowledge-knowledge not of things and

Mr. Kerman is associate professor of music, Uni-versity of California, Berkeley. iis article onmusic is one of the chapters by eighteen authorsin the book, "The Case for Basic Education,"edi-ted by James D. Koerner, and sponsored by theCouncilfor Basic Education.Publishedby AtlanticMonthly Press-Little, Brown and Company.(Copyright 1959,Council for Basic Education.)

ideas but of emotional and spiritual states. To spreadthis knowledge is part of the business of basic education.Philosophies of art differ, but respect for the funda-mental seriousness of art, along such lines as suggestedin the above paragraph,distinguishes all modern thinkingon the subject. No longer do we hear much talk of art asmerely amusement or recreation, or as some frill of so-ciety. A striking sign of this modern revaluation is thesteady inclusion of the arts into the so-called liberal cur-ricula of the universities of Europe, England and Amer-ica over the past hundred years. That music and thevisual arts have taken their place alongside literature isalso a relatively new development. According to a sortof artistic general field theory, it is thought that the poetexpresses his vision through words, the painter throughvisual forms, and the composer through a complex organ-ization of time by sounds. In their individual ways, thequartets of Beethoven and the paintings of Michelangelocomment on life as profoundly as the plays of Shake-speare.ART IS ALSO PRECIOUSas self-expression or as personalsolace; undoubtedly so. But as far as educational theoryis concerned, these aspects are secondary. The importantfact is that art tells something vital about man, his prob-lems and possibilities, and his modes of response. Con-sequently we do not judge a man educated if he is igno-rant of the arts; and we may as well accept the responsi-bility of this judgment. Courses in literature, visual artand music should be required,not elective, in all secondaryschools. The conduct of such courses should be in prin-ciple the same. They should expose students to the greatworks of art; they should explain artistic techniquesand principles as specifically as possible; they shouldtrain and encourage students in imaginative response.At this point, however, those who know the field areclamoring with skeptical questions. Can people be taughtto understandmusic who do not play instruments or sing?Does cultivation of the imagination belong to the sec-

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ondary level? And to get right down to earth, how inpractice is such instruction actually carried out? Thislast question has been answered obliquely but devastat-ingly in a recent cartoon, which shows a football coachchewing out a large, very agreeable-looking, but obvi-ously distressed player. "Math or languages I could un-derstand," the coach is saying, "but great Scott, man, noone in the history of the school has ever flunked musicappreciation!" Let us drop the subject here for just amoment-not at all to retreat, but to get at it from an-other standpoint.

M OSTPEOPLE, if asked about high school music, prob-ably think first of the band and the chorus: the publicembodiments of musical performance. Now obviously,the more playing and singing in the schools, the better.The more children taught to paint, to play, and to trytheir hand at verse, the richer our potential cultural life.High school music instruction is usually geared closely,indeed too closely, to the needs of the school performinggroups; and while these groups (especially bands) oftenloom disproportionately large in the total music pro-gram, it is hard to see how anyone would wish to denythem a place, on an elective or extracurricularbasis. Whatis involved here is not basic education, but training inperforming skills, recreation, and to an extent self-ex-pression, for a minority of students with special talentand interest.But do we not come to understand music throughparticipation in groups; is not such participation, in-deed, the best way to foster true appreciation?This argu-ment-learning through "doing"-has a familiar, hollowring. The fact is that an instrumentalist playing his partin a band may have hardly any impression, let alonecomprehension, of the total work of art to which he iscontributing a detail. If a good high school orchestrawere to devote half a term to Beethoven's Pastoral Sym-phony, the trombonists would find themselves playinga row of just nine long slow notes, in the fourth move-ment, and nothing more! An extreme example, perhaps;yet even instrumentalists with important parts to play canremain amazingly obtuse-as was brought home to merecently when lecturing on this very symphony to afashionable ladies' group. Rather than discussing birds,

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peasants, centaurs or centaurettes, I tried to show howBeethoven creates an illusion of peace and felicity byusing very few harmonic changes, that is to say, by re-stricting movement in the bass instruments, which holdon to long "drone" notes in a quite extraordinary way.Among the ladies who came up to speak to me afterwardswas a cellist in the local community orchestra, whichwas about to perform the piece in a concert. I said half-apologetically that my remarks must have seemed veryelementaryto her. She gave me a blank stare; though shehad spent rehearsalafter rehearsaldroning away, it neveronce occurred to her that her cello part had anythingto do with the artistic individuality and beauty of thePastoral Symphony.A good teacher, to be sure, can combine relevant in-struction with group performance. It is also true thatchoral singing brings one closer to the music than playinga part in a band. But the most disturbing feature of allis the low quality of most music performed in the schools.\Vhen we observe that bad music will do as well as greatmusic, it is time to take a hard look at the true, practical,commanding values behind high school music groups-values to which musical quality is irrelevant, apparently.These values are three, I think. First and most honorable,performing organizations furnish excellent pre-profes-sional training. Second, they constitute non-aggressivegroup activities of a richly satisfying, socially approvednature. Third, they provide welcome public adjuncts toacademicand athletic ceremonies.None of these values, not even the first, is the con-cern of basic education. "Doing" is no more the equi-valent of "learning"in music than in any other field.

ALL OF WHICHbears directly on our central problem,teaching music-that is, teaching an understandingof theart, as distinct from teaching instruments or voice. If itis true that performing skill provides no guarantee ofmusical insight for the student, it is just as true for theteacher; a band trombonist will not necessarily expoundBeethoven any better than a TV actor might be expectedto expound Shakespeare. The most that can be said isthat a student who plays is good and ready to understandmusic, and that a teacher who plays has the initial equip-ment to teach music as it should be taught. But to be afine player is only the beginning. The teacher must bea player with a particular slant and particular training;he must always seek the essence and quality of music,over and above ways to make it succeed in performance.He must be able to analyze and to compose,' and knowwell the history and repertory of music, as well as criticalattitudes towards it.It has been necessary to touch on the qualificationsof amusic teacher, because it is futile, even dangerous, tospeak up for "music appreciation" without indicatingwhat should be taught, and therefore, what manner ofperson should teach it. For as that cartoonist knows, thesubject is in thoroughly bad odor; this on account of

'In general, composers would make excellent school music teachers.Nor is this out of the realm of possibility. The National Music Counciland the Ford Foundation have now instituted an experimental programwhereby a young composer if selected receives about $5,000 a year towrite special music for high school performing groups, in a particularschool system to which he is assigned. Further experiments are neededin special certification for the composer, to have him actually teach inthe schools. He will compose anyway. At least he will if the Foundationprovides a living wage so that he does not have to pick peaches in hisspare time.

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college courses and adult education lectures as much ashigh school "General Music" programs. Often whatpasses as music appreciationis talk about musicians' livesand loves, mental pictures stimulated by unlucky sym-phony titles, bouts of undifferentiated enthusiasm, andlong sleepy stretches of record playing. In advocatingmusic appreciation for the schools, I definitely do nothave this in mind, nor probably does anyone else. Thestudent can and must listen closely to musical phrase-ology, movement, harmony, and texture. He must gaugethe emotional implications of various musical devices,once he has learned to distinguish them. He can be drilledand tested and flunked. He can be trained to discernstyle, form, and effect in music, and to verbalize hisdiscernment, just as he can in painting and literature.By graduation the student should know such greatcomposers as Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, and Stravinsky;not only their names and the kind of sounds they produce,but also (if I may use the term) the rhetoric employedby each. To this end, as suggested above, the studentmust take account of certain technicalities, analogous tometer, metaphor, and verse form in his literary studies.It is important to stress that musical elements, far frombeing the sole property of people who read and play mu-sic, are actually available to all who will attend. In a fewhours, a student can be taught just by careful listeningenough harmony to open up unimagined dimensions ofappreciation. Music is a universal art, composed notonly for players but for listeners, not for the specialfew but for all-that, exactly, is why it is a basic subject.Any aspect of art so "technical" that it cannot be con-

veyed to the non-expert is, to put it flatly, suspect. AsRoger Sessions has insisted, the basic facts of music are"human gestures," expressed in notes and rhythms andtunes, and it is on this basic level that music must betaught.Of course, to say that music is for all is not to saythat all will grasp it equally well. Human beings differin sensitivity to artistic communication,and in sensitivityto sound, just as they do in natural talent for languagesor mathematics. However, "tone-deaf" children are nomore numerous than children with mental blocks aboutnumbers; and mathematics is not ruled an elective. Ifeveryone needs and deserves an understanding of thearts, then everyone needs and deserves to apply himselfto the apprehension of art's methods and meanings.In summary: the arts as we regard them today arebasic to our heritage, and should form a required part ofthe school curriculum. Music appreciation can be taughtseriously and specifically, on the same terms as imagina-tive literature, if the teacher cares mainly about the spiritof music, rather than about its execution. And to meetone last unanswered question: the secondary level is

surely where this kind of instruction belongs. I imaginethat any one of us who loves poetry, painting, or musiccan trace that love back, with nostalgic clarity, to certaindiscoveries or experiences in our teens. At that time oflife the young person comes into his own, in full tilt withthe adult world. At that time, not sooner or later, hemost needs and deserves guidance in the realm of art,just as certainly as in matters of the intellect.

Music Educators Journalage 46

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Joseph Kerman - The Place of Music in Basic Education