The Art of Teaching Music

Estelle R. Jorgensen

Description

A veteran teacher's practical approach to music education

The Art of Teaching Music takes up important aspects of the art of music teaching ranging from organization to serving as conductor to dealing with the disconnect between the ideal of university teaching and the reality in the classroom. Writing for both established teachers and instructors on the rise, Estelle R. Jorgensen opens a conversation about the life and work of the music teacher. The author regards music teaching as interrelated with the rest of lived life, and her themes encompass pedagogical skills as well as matters of character, disposition, value, personality, and musicality. She reflects on musicianship and practical aspects of teaching while drawing on a broad base of theory, research, and personal experience. Although grounded in the practical realities of music teaching, Jorgensen urges music teachers to think and act artfully, imaginatively, hopefully, and courageously toward creating a better world.

Contents
Preface

1. Teacher
2. Value
3. Disposition
4. Judgment
5. Leader
6. Musician
7. Listener
8. Performer
9. Composer
10. Organization
11. Design
12. Instruction
13. Imagination
14. Reality
Afterword

Notes
Index

Sujets

• Musique
• Technique musicale
• Technique musicale
• EDUCATION
• MUSIC
• Philosophy
• Multiple signal classification
• Study
• General officer
• General
• Instruction

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253000200
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Art of Teaching Music
The Art of Teaching Music
Estelle R. Jorgensen
Indiana University Press Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail [e-mail]
2008 by Estelle R. Jorgensen All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jorgensen, Estelle Ruth.
The art of teaching music / Estelle R. Jorgensen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35078-7 (cloth : alk. paper)-ISBN 978-0-253-21963-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Music-Instruction and study. I. Title.
MT1.J667 2008
780.71-dc22
2007040647
1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09 08
For all my teachers
formal and informal
intentional and accidental
known and unknown
past and present
Contents
Preface

1. Teacher
2. Value
3. Disposition
4. Judgment
5. Leader
6. Musician
7. Listener
8. Performer
9. Composer

10. Organization
11. Design
12. Instruction
13. Imagination
14. Reality
Afterword
Notes
Index
Preface
I have often remarked to my students on the similarity of teaching and music. In thinking of teaching as an art and craft, I see teaching as a metaphor for music and music as a metaphor for teaching. This double-metaphor may not seem, at least superficially, to get us very far. A critic might suggest that if music is regarded as a metaphor for teaching and teaching as a metaphor for music, each is defined in terms of the other and this smacks of tautological or circular thinking. Still, this critic has made a crucial error and is mistaken. The principal purpose of metaphors is not to define but to illumine. Thinking about teaching as an art and craft such as music juxtaposes music and teaching so that we may think musically about teaching; thinking about music as teaching juxtaposes teaching and music so that we think pedagogically about music. 1 Both juxtapositions set us thinking about music and teaching in potentially different ways. And this is one of the purposes of metaphor.
My objective in this book is not to define music education, for I have tackled this task in an earlier book, In Search of Music Education. 2 Nor is it to examine the changes that are needed in music education, because I have begun to do this in Transforming Music Education. 3 Rather, I seek to share principles that I see as important in the life and work of a music teacher-principles that emerge out of my reading and reflection on my own lived experience. I focus on the music teacher since those of us who teach music are in a crucial position to help our students develop as people, musicians, and lovers of music and culture. This emphasis should not be read to diminish the importance of the student in the instructional process. However, as becomes clear in these chapters, as we take stock of our own lives and work, we are paradoxically better able to help our students. And so I begin with our practical work as teachers.
The teachers I have in mind include those who work in schools, colleges, universities, conservatories, community music schools, and private studios. I also think of choral and instrumental conductors, directors of opera houses, impresarios and managers of musical concerts of all sorts, programmers of audiovisual and mass-mediated musics, music critics, and others who shape the public s musical taste in a host of ways. They may teach in religious schools, publicly supported schools under the auspices of state governments, commercial enterprises, schools operated by music professionals, family-run schools, or privately operated music studios. In a host of different situations, I think of music teachers as those whose work is intended to pass on musical wisdom from one generation to the next. Although the specific interests of music teachers differ depending on the particular aspects, genres, or musics taught or levels of instruction ranging from elementary through professional or advanced, my sense is that some common threads unite the work of teaching music. And it is these commonalities that I focus on in this book.
When I think of music teachers, I also include those who are preparing to be teachers and have yet to experience the work of teaching first hand. Becoming a teacher is a matter of beginning to think as if one is already a teacher. This does not happen overnight. We are wise to begin to think of ourselves as teachers while we are yet students. Why should this be? Since music teacher preparation programs are there to enable us to make the transition from student to teacher, if we begin thinking of ourselves as teachers while we are still students, and we seek every opportunity to gather experience by assisting experienced teachers and begin to look at the learning process from a teacher s perspective, our musical and educational learning takes on a greater urgency. To aspiring teachers I say: find outstanding music teachers and apprentice yourselves to them; follow them around and keep eyes and ears wide open. Before long, you will receive jobs to do. For the aspiring school music teacher in the West, this may include handing out music, arranging chairs and desks, repairing and tuning instruments, filing music, conducting sectional rehearsals, and giving additional lessons in the teacher s absence, among a host of other things that teachers may appreciate having help in doing. For the studio teacher, it may mean beginning to assist the teacher in coaching students who are preparing for recitals or need additional help. For the aspiring choral or orchestral conductor, it may mean conducting sectional rehearsals and beginning to assume the task of conducting rehearsals and public performances. There is nothing like willing learners to motivate teachers to share what we know. Looking at the classes we take as students through a teacher s eye is also illumining. We may ask: Why is my teacher doing this? If this were my own class, ensemble, or student, would I do this? If so, why? If not, why not? What would be a better approach? How could I make this or that work if I were the teacher? How can I help my fellow students who are struggling with this technique or concept? Thinking this way clarifies the opportunities that exist for those who have yet to complete a teacher education or pedagogy program to become teachers while still students. And since there are many things to master as we become musicians and teachers, becoming a music teacher will take some time. So we may as well start now if we have not already begun to take the leap of music teaching.
Those of us who are further along the way also need to reflect on what we do as musician-teachers. Our busy working lives may leave us little time for the luxury of reflection. This book is an invitation to think through important aspects of what we do and should do. It is not intended to constitute a technical manual about music teaching. I am after something deeper than simply amassing skills and techniques since teaching and musicality are more than the sum of their parts. Rather, the things about which I write have been growing with me for the better part of a working lifetime. I want to excavate beneath superficial and demonstrable skills to think about the ideas and principles of music teaching, the things that drive and shape our practice. My observations are shaped as much by the practitioner in me as by the theorist and constitute something of the wisdom that I have been seeking across the years. By wisdom, I mean a unified and sound basis for action that is worth keeping and treasuring. As we travel through life we may amass wisdom. Sharing the practical wisdom we have gained is a central responsibility of music teaching. Still, one person s insights, interests, and convictions may not necessarily be another s. And my purpose is to share what I have learned in the hope of opening a conversation with teachers about what we have learned to treasure individually and collectively.
The aspects of music teaching on which I focus in the following chapters are necessarily selective. Those aspects I include seem, now, to be of the utmost importance. My criterion for selecting them has been the question What is really important in music teaching? There are many other aspects about which I might have written. Still, within the scope of this book, these fourteen chapters relate to a trio of questions: chapters 1 - 5 , Who ought the teacher to be? ; chapters 69, What is the nature of musicality at the heart of music teaching? ; and chapters 10 - 14 , How should music instruction be conducted? Notice that I begin with the teacher, with her or his self, values, dispositions, judgment, and leadership. I start with the teacher s selfhood because teaching is more than personality. It is about a lifestyle, vocation, and way of being. I move, next, to the musician s work and responsibilities, the musician as listener, performer, and composer. Next follow considerations of music teaching, especially matters of organization, design, instruction, teaching imaginatively and for the development of imagination, and practical realities in the day-to-day lives of music teachers. I conclude with an afterword in which I bring togethe