Education for musical growth.
"The book is by way of a progress report in an adventure in thinking which still continues, and in which I hope that at least some of those who read it may be moved to join. Several years ago there dawned upon my mind the thought that the concept of growth promised quite extraordinary fruitfuln...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Boston :
Ginn,
[1948]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "The book is by way of a progress report in an adventure in thinking which still continues, and in which I hope that at least some of those who read it may be moved to join. Several years ago there dawned upon my mind the thought that the concept of growth promised quite extraordinary fruitfulness if it could be brought to bear aright on the problems of music education. I was aware that the concept of growth has an immense currency in modern education, and I sensed and felt that it must have an immense significance in the field of music. But the idea was vague, hardly more than a hunch, although I found myself coming back to it again and again. What, exactly, did the concept of growth mean? More particularly, what did musical growth mean? This question, dimly sensed at first, forced itself inescapably into the central focus, and as a result of many meditations and discussions came to seem crucial. For a long time I thought I was wrestling with something baffling, theoretical, remote from practical issues, almost academic. But little by little I came to see that here was something both exceedingly simple and also very practical indeed. What did musical growth mean? Surely it could only mean growth in human responsiveness to the essential values, and intimations, and meanings of the art of music itself. It could only mean the process of becoming musical. About this I had to be clear, and I had to try to make it clear to the reader. Here I found the parallel between music and poetry extraordinarily helpful and suggestive. This is why the parallel is so strongly emphasized in these pages. There is, I am convinced, an essential and illuminating identity between musical and poetic responsiveness. Indeed, the same identity could be demonstrated as between all the arts; for we are dealing with the essential aesthetic responsiveness of human beings, and music education is simply a phase of a broader process which is sometimes called "aesthetic education." Thus the idea of musical growth clarifies itself as something of very far-reaching cultural and intellectual significance. Yet it is extremely practical too. It has been to me an amazing experience to discover, bit by bit, to how many of the practical problems of music education it provides the key. We concern ourselves with the teaching of note-reading and the score, the teaching of technique, the teaching of theory, the organization of general music, the selection of educative experiences and activities in music, the planning of a vital curricular sequence, the co-operation of staff action. To all such issues and many others I believe that the conception of musical growth provides the true and constructive answer. Moreover, I have found that it yields a set of new operating conceptions--musical awareness, musical initiative, musical discrimination, musical insight, musical skill--by which to take hold upon the practical problems of music education. The power of this conception as a resolver of difficulties has startled me again and again. I believe that every inspired teacher of music has always done by instinct the very kind of things that, by dint of a laborious intellectual process, have come to seem to me to be right. For every such teacher knows within himself that he is not a drill-master or a setter and hearer of lessons, but an exponent and revealer of musical beauty. And this is just what I find myself trying to say"--Preface. "All power and all fulfillment come through growth. This is a nutshell summary of the developmental point of view. It is true of every field of human endeavor, certainly including music. It should be built into every kind of teaching, all the way from typewriting to higher mathematics. To show how to build it into music education is the purpose of this book"--Book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved). |
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| Item Description: | Electronic resource. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (viii, 342 pages) |
| Format: | Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. |