This paper is not intended to provide comprehensive information on its subject, simply to introduce a few thoughts and ideas to stimulate and provoke discussion. Music Education is not something that stands still, teaching changes, ideas develop with new information and very often ‘old’ knowledge can provide valuable insight into new. With the increase in communication globally the picture tends to get ever more complex, but not necessarily any more difficult to understand if approached appropriately.

        In his book ‘The Rhinoceros in the Classroom’ R.M.Shafer uses the quote above from Satie on the opening page.

        Who knows what Satie really meant by those words but implicit is that music is a living thing that can be experienced by anyone simply by listening and feeling.

        Being a music educator means many things and the teacher pupil relationship
can be tedious or provocative on the one hand and dead or alive on the other; many combinations of these words exist.

        In his book R Murray Shafer sets out his maxims for educators and I now quote them here:
Maxims for Educators

The first practical step in any educational reform is to take it.
In education, failures are more important than successes. There is nothing so dismal as a success story.
Teach on the verge of peril.
There are no more teachers. There is just a community of learners.
Do not design a philosophy of education for others. Design one for yourself. A few others may wish to share it with you.
For the 5 year old, art is life and life is art. For the 6 year old, life is life and art is art. This first school year is a watershed in the child’s history: a trauma.
The old approach: Teacher has information; student has empty head. Teacher’s objective: to push information into student’s empty head. Observations: at outset teacher is a fathead; at conclusion student is a fathead.
On the contrary a class should be an hour of a thousand discoveries. For this to happen, the teacher and the student shold first discover one another.
Why is it that the only people who never matriculate from their own courses are teachers?
Always teach provisionally: only God knows for sure.
(R.M.Shafer. 1975)

        Whether you agree with these challenges or not they are certainly provocative and designed to stimulate on a daily basis.

        I have visited many countries and watched many teachers, energetic, timid, apathetic, excellent and bad and this in itself has been a tremendous learning experience.

        It is crucial that teachers and pupils see music education as being useful and relevant for the life of the wider community, and although not a new concept, music is becoming more consistently participatory. We are also witnessing a worldwide hybridisation of musical practices, diverted to a large degree by western musical practice.

        Many western cultures have very diverse ethnic populations and this added to the rise of Third World consciousness means that many young people wish to understand and enjoy a much broader spectrum of the world’s musics. These young people consider the world as a global village and as such require a different kind of music education than their forebears.

        No music teacher can hope to cover the vast array of western and non-western musics, not to forget religious, folk and pop musics. Therefore the aim of the educator is to facilitate the learning both of him/herself and the student. Not a concept that is acceptable to all teachers.
 ? cultures and educational processes. Even where there is knowledge and expertise in their own artistic endeavours there has been little or no attempt at collaboration, cross-fertilization or integration until the last few years. In the 90s I was privileged to attend the first ever chamber music concert in Beijing that brought together traditional Chinese and western instruments. This was hailed as a milestone in contemporary Chinese composition and although the effect was stunning it was rather tonal in character.

        Increasing cultural interdependence globally also challenges cultures to cooperate and the ease of access to electronic media places this high on the list of possibilities.

        What are the factors currently influencing music globally? Here is a simplified list to begin the discussion.
 

The economic dominance of the electronic media.
Copyright
Live music
Performance practice
Technology
Applied media music
Serious music
 

        There are some contradictions here. The preponderance of electronically produced music militates against all performances of live music. Copyright cannot always be unequivocally assigned to individual authors. Performance practice that is meant to ‘inform’ performance often has the opposite effect.

        All types of popular music have now become electronically formed sound. The use of technology now satisfies the demands of radio broadcasting companies and the advertising industry for such things as commercial spots, jingles, signature tunes and background music. The composer who works at his desk, now is joined by the composer with tools that include sound synthesis, computer programmes and sampling.

        In the complex world we live in it is necessary for music educators to be aware of technological developments. This has allowed unprecedented communications and interaction on a global scale and a comprehensive education programme needs to value contributions from all the world’s major cultures and whether we like it or not technology is now present in both industrial and developing countries.

        However, technology has been accused of divorcing music from the spatial expanse associated with it and that the aura of intimacy is missing. Due to the level and preponderance of recordings, live music tries to emulate the sound of music conveyed by technical means. This often produces sterile performances that fail to be spontaneous.

        The musical cultures of the so-called Third World are being threatened or destroyed by the assault of the finished goods (sound recordings) distributed by the electronic media. This is particularly noticeable with Indian and Arabic music and the notion of preserving cultural identity has recently become fashionable without recognition of the fact that not all elements of any culture are necessarily worth preserving.

        Three words have become commonplace in this respect and I neither agree nor disagree, simply give them here for reference:

        Preservation:  aspiring to have the traditional culture remain intact.
Complete westernisation:  simply incorporating the society into a western cultural system.
Modernization: adopting and adapting western technology and other products of western culture, as needed, while simultaneously insisting that the core of cultural values does not change greatly and in the end does not match those of the west.

        Whatever course ‘international music’ will take in the future, technological
evolution will play a crucial role. The use of the computer in music education
is in some ways in its infancy, but it is here to stay and the educator ignores
this fact at his/her peril.

        We now have computer-aided instruction and computer based learning and
the cognitive demands generated by the computer sequencer environment
are considerable. Music technology has liberated the performer from reliance
on his, or her, own Performance, has created access to a musical
environment not dependent on a performer’s own skills. The composer has
also benefited from the creation of the music workstation that allows
immediate aural feedback, not possible with pencil and paper composition.

        Returning to the multicultural idea or what Swanwick (1988) refers to as inter
-cultural music education because of the idea of integration it engenders and
since education is always a form of criticism, the aim of inter-cultural music
education is to promote imaginative criticism, a questioning, probing, risk
taking, experimental and exploratory process that is both creational and re-
creational.

        At the outset I quoted R M Schafer, a composer working in Canada in the 20th
Century and I am now going to quote from the 19th century:

        A Few Educational Maxims
Showing the Principles on which the Method of the ‘Child Pianist’ is founded

Teach the easy before the difficult.
2 Teach the thing before the sign.
3 Teach one fact at a time, and the commonest fact first.
Leave out all exceptions and anomalies until the general rule is understood.
In training the mind, teach the concrete before the abstract.
In developing physical skill, teach the elemental before the compound, and do one thing at a time.
Proceed from the known to the related unknown.
Let each lesson, as far as possible, rise out of that which goes before, and lead up to that which follows.
Call in the understanding to help the skill at every step.
Let the first impression be a correct one; leave no room for misunderstanding.
Never tell a pupil anything that you can help him to discover for himself.
Let the pupil, as soon as possible, derive some pleasure from his knowledge. Interest can only be kept up by a sense of growth in independent power.
(Mrs Curwen 1886)

        Mrs Curwen has a view of what she considers ‘correct’, unlike Mr Schafer where everything is provisional. There is a strong sense of respect for the pupil, for both agree that discovering is important, but the main difference is that the 19th century view is based on a well defined structure whereas the 20th century one belongs to a world where accepted maxims have been overturned and experimentation is around every corner.

        Music education and the role of the teacher within it is constantly evolving and developing and the more we evolve and develop, explore and take risks the more fascinating it becomes and the more integral to society in general. I end with a final quote which will speak for itself.

        Whether society has felt music valuable or needful I have gone on writing because I must. And I know that my true function within a society which embraces all of us, is to continue an age-old tradition, fundamental to our civilization, which  goes back into pre-history and will go forward into the unknown future. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form whether visual, intellectual or musical.
For it is only through images that the inner world communicates at all. Images of the past, shapes of  the future. Images of vigour for a decadent period,images of calm for one too violent. Images of reconciliation for worlds torn by division. And  in an age of mediocrity and shattered dreams, images of abounding, generous, exuberant beauty.
(Michael Tippett 1974 Moving Into Aquarius )

Bibliography

Music Education: Trends and Issues. Ed. C. Plummeridge. London 1996.
Musical Life in a Changing Society. K Blaukopf. USA 1992
The Rhinoceros in the Clasroom. R M Schafer Universal 1979
Challenges in Music Education. Australia 1976
A Basis for Music Education.  K Swanwick NFER 1979
Music Mind and Education. K Swanwick Routledge 1988
Moving Into Aquarius. Michael Tippett. 1974