Justifications for music in the curriculum

What does music mean to you?

Music is the string that connects all things in my life. Everything in my past and present is surrounded by music in some way or another. Everything that I hope to experience in the future can be linked to music. Some examples I have of this are meeting people through the participation of a music activity, experiencing the feeling of love with people but also comparing that love to music or finding a similar type of love in music, hearing music and thinking of memories, experiencing emotions through music, and noticing music everywhere (even when you are not trying to find it.) So to me, music is a part of life that will always be there, always has, and I work within it.

I completely agree with Chris Philpott's "The Justification for Music in the Curriculum" when he states,

'The act of understanding music is one of interpreting complex webs of meaning.' (Philpott 59)

Music is a huge category of life that feels like it permeates everything. The idea of multiple categories connecting with music gives me the picture of strings weaving in between all things that happen in life, creating a massive web.

Yes music is sound, performing, playing an instrument, singing, and knowing how music works through theory, but to me it is just so much more than that.

Why do you engage with music and what types of musical meanings are important to you?

I engage with music because I like how it feels to perform music with others. I also engage with music because I find enjoyment in experiencing children finding the joy/wonders in music.

How does this analysis relate to your own justification for music in the curriculum? 

My idea of music is that it is this over-arching category that is inherently in everything humans do and experience. This means two things for me when it comes to justifying why it should be in the curriculum:

1. It is hard for me to fathom why others don't see how much music is a natural part of life and why would they ever question not including it in schools

2. It is even harder for me to put the justification into words because to others I probably sound like I am over exaggerating music's meaning.

Knowing these two things about myself, I have been trying to find words to justify music in the curriculum for years. Chris Philpott's article is one of the few I have read that explains music as a language in enough detail I feel comfortable using the information as a justification. Before attending TL, I had never even thought of music having 'hard' or 'soft' justifications, but after reading about the topic in a few of my education classes I have come to realise that I have only ever given soft justifications while I was a teacher in my past school. And I have reflected that I feel horrible about it now! However, it has also made me reflect that almost every single teacher I have ever had, higher education and below, has only ever used soft justifications for music. I now see that this is a huge problem -because not everyone even sees the problem. One of my main goals upon leaving TL is to have a set list of hard justifications for music that I can share with all the other music teachers in my life so we can start helping everyone understand how important music is and how it should be represented.

Bibliography:

Philpott, C. (2012). The Justification for Music in the Curriculum. In: C. Philpott and G. Spruce, ed., Debates in Music Teaching. [online] London: Routledge, pp.48-63. Available at: https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9780203117446 [Accessed 18 Jan. 2020].