We seek what is missing, we undertake the task of collaborative creation and find each other, we ... more We seek what is missing, we undertake the task of collaborative creation and find each other, we resist the walls built into us and built between us. We are sloppy and chaotic and contentious and sometimes superficial and unconnected and slow. We become vulnerable and we blossom. We dance. It is what we have come to do, and we will do it." Dedicated to the memory of Buzz Alexander, 1938-2019 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks first to Randall Allsup, for fourteen years of mentorship without borders and a belief expressed in countless actions and in friendship. And to Luis Huerta, my cosponsor, for generous review and conversation from the start of my doctoral studies.
Music teachers and researchers are looking more closely at the young people in their classrooms, ... more Music teachers and researchers are looking more closely at the young people in their classrooms, as if in response or in reaction to increasing diversity and globalization. Relevance is no longer assumed to be automatic, and a quest for so-called real-world or authentic musical experience is sought as a way to direct what gets taught and why. However, such questions of worth and value, with their attendant concerns with authenticity and identity, are imperfect. Rather, youth culture is more adequately understood as cultures of youth—creative, plural, contradictory, dynamic, and purposeful. Thus, with no essentialized view of adolescence to guide educators, and a suspicion about what counts as real or unreal, the central questions that guide contemporary music education should be those which address agency and criticality. How do youths develop critical and creative agency through the study of music, and what role do the cultures of youth play in this development? Using this conceptu...
This article describes concrete ways music teachers might engage in policy at the school level an... more This article describes concrete ways music teachers might engage in policy at the school level and how such engagements strengthen our work and our schools. By making decisions about where to build bridges to policies that further our work and where to buffer from those that impede our vision, we as teachers assert greater control in policy making as it impacts our classrooms. Such policy strategy can be enacted individually and also in collaboration with colleagues in our schools to build a more robust space for policy making on the ground. Whenever teachers create new materials or practices or share ways of thinking explicitly connected to certain policies, we shift the nature of these policies locally and also enlarge our roles in policy.
and leaders. en en years from now, I don't just want my orchestra students to be able to perf... more and leaders. en en years from now, I don't just want my orchestra students to be able to perform Aaron Joy Kernis's Second Symphony with flawless technique-I want each one of them to take part in shaping the world. We are teaching in an age where the responsibility of educators to impart a sense of social and global consciousness is overwhelming. Ours is an age marked by domestic and global confrontation, a media explosion, and the increasing influence of marketdriven values. Whether our young people will grow into passive consumers or active citizens has become a question fundamental to education in the twenty-first century, and it is essential that we as educators develop the capacity of our students to reflect critically and take action. Even as music educators-and perhaps especially as music educators-we must foster in our students the
Musical independence has always been an essential aim of musical instruction. But this objective ... more Musical independence has always been an essential aim of musical instruction. But this objective can refer to everything from high levels of musical expertise to more student choice in the classroom. While most conceptualizations of musical independence emphasize the demonstration of knowledge and skills within particular music traditions, this article offers a larger vision. Musical independence can be framed by a simple but elusive aim: that students make musical decisions that matter. Among its implications is the contention that in today’s increasingly diverse and polyglot musical landscape, students must learn to work “with, through, and beyond” a variety of musical forms. Noting that this suggestion has consequences for traditional and nontraditional classrooms, we propose the idea of the “collective” as a guiding paradigm for fostering musical independence. Through this conception, considerations of civic participation are conjoined with the ideals presented in the new Core A...
... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an... more ... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an ... Indeed, one day after we had completed a particularly complex soundscape, I brought ... a desire for multiple perspectives and even facilitating highly theatrical icebreakers to recover ...
... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an... more ... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an ... Indeed, one day after we had completed a particularly complex soundscape, I brought ... a desire for multiple perspectives and even facilitating highly theatrical icebreakers to recover ...
The work of renewing curriculum in music education faces the inertia of current curricular practi... more The work of renewing curriculum in music education faces the inertia of current curricular practices and an education reform climate that is unfavorable toward such work. This article suggests that the development of music teacher agency is central to combating these challenges, and that the development of such agency relies on today's professional associations. I explore the conditions under which such associations build member agency, examine the National Association for Music Education as a case study, and argue for the importance of professionalism as a reform logic. I then offer recommendations that address how teacher associations can better assert their particular role in leading curriculum renewal in today's complex and rapidly changing environment.
In this compilation of just over three-dozen essays and extracts, Derek B. Scott proposes to expl... more In this compilation of just over three-dozen essays and extracts, Derek B. Scott proposes to explore "musical meaning and the extent to which it is informed by cultural experience and socially-derived knowledge." 1 In the reader are sections on "Music and Language," "Music and the Body: Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity," "Music and Class," "Music and Criticism," and "Music Production and Consumption," fleshed out with selections by such well-known musicologists and theorists as Eero Tarasti, John Blacking, Lucy Green, and Michel Foucault. Furthermore, included within each section is an introduction contextualizing the individual pieces, as well as a complete list a references. The first section, "Music and Language," addresses the applications of literary criticism to music as a type of language. Two extracts, one by musicologist Harold Powers and another by Leonard Bernstein, detail the various uses of the metaphor as tools in linking music and language. In his piece, Powers recounts the historical origins and development of three such uses: that of making a semantic (affective) connection, phonological (structural) connection, and linguistic connection (connection in meaning). Bernstein, building upon these distinctions, demonstrates their usefulness in answering the aesthetic question of how music "means."
At the heart of teaching others is the moral imperative to care. Social justice education begins ... more At the heart of teaching others is the moral imperative to care. Social justice education begins with adopting a disposition to perceive and then act against indecencies and injustices. Teachers are public figures entrusted by a democratic society to act in the best interests of the children in their care. Music educators must embrace this social contract by "going public" or "coming out"-reaching beyond incomplete musical engagements and into larger and more intertwined social, artistic, and political domains. The authors refer to this stance as a public music pedagogy.
We seek what is missing, we undertake the task of collaborative creation and find each other, we ... more We seek what is missing, we undertake the task of collaborative creation and find each other, we resist the walls built into us and built between us. We are sloppy and chaotic and contentious and sometimes superficial and unconnected and slow. We become vulnerable and we blossom. We dance. It is what we have come to do, and we will do it." Dedicated to the memory of Buzz Alexander, 1938-2019 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks first to Randall Allsup, for fourteen years of mentorship without borders and a belief expressed in countless actions and in friendship. And to Luis Huerta, my cosponsor, for generous review and conversation from the start of my doctoral studies.
Music teachers and researchers are looking more closely at the young people in their classrooms, ... more Music teachers and researchers are looking more closely at the young people in their classrooms, as if in response or in reaction to increasing diversity and globalization. Relevance is no longer assumed to be automatic, and a quest for so-called real-world or authentic musical experience is sought as a way to direct what gets taught and why. However, such questions of worth and value, with their attendant concerns with authenticity and identity, are imperfect. Rather, youth culture is more adequately understood as cultures of youth—creative, plural, contradictory, dynamic, and purposeful. Thus, with no essentialized view of adolescence to guide educators, and a suspicion about what counts as real or unreal, the central questions that guide contemporary music education should be those which address agency and criticality. How do youths develop critical and creative agency through the study of music, and what role do the cultures of youth play in this development? Using this conceptu...
This article describes concrete ways music teachers might engage in policy at the school level an... more This article describes concrete ways music teachers might engage in policy at the school level and how such engagements strengthen our work and our schools. By making decisions about where to build bridges to policies that further our work and where to buffer from those that impede our vision, we as teachers assert greater control in policy making as it impacts our classrooms. Such policy strategy can be enacted individually and also in collaboration with colleagues in our schools to build a more robust space for policy making on the ground. Whenever teachers create new materials or practices or share ways of thinking explicitly connected to certain policies, we shift the nature of these policies locally and also enlarge our roles in policy.
and leaders. en en years from now, I don't just want my orchestra students to be able to perf... more and leaders. en en years from now, I don't just want my orchestra students to be able to perform Aaron Joy Kernis's Second Symphony with flawless technique-I want each one of them to take part in shaping the world. We are teaching in an age where the responsibility of educators to impart a sense of social and global consciousness is overwhelming. Ours is an age marked by domestic and global confrontation, a media explosion, and the increasing influence of marketdriven values. Whether our young people will grow into passive consumers or active citizens has become a question fundamental to education in the twenty-first century, and it is essential that we as educators develop the capacity of our students to reflect critically and take action. Even as music educators-and perhaps especially as music educators-we must foster in our students the
Musical independence has always been an essential aim of musical instruction. But this objective ... more Musical independence has always been an essential aim of musical instruction. But this objective can refer to everything from high levels of musical expertise to more student choice in the classroom. While most conceptualizations of musical independence emphasize the demonstration of knowledge and skills within particular music traditions, this article offers a larger vision. Musical independence can be framed by a simple but elusive aim: that students make musical decisions that matter. Among its implications is the contention that in today’s increasingly diverse and polyglot musical landscape, students must learn to work “with, through, and beyond” a variety of musical forms. Noting that this suggestion has consequences for traditional and nontraditional classrooms, we propose the idea of the “collective” as a guiding paradigm for fostering musical independence. Through this conception, considerations of civic participation are conjoined with the ideals presented in the new Core A...
... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an... more ... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an ... Indeed, one day after we had completed a particularly complex soundscape, I brought ... a desire for multiple perspectives and even facilitating highly theatrical icebreakers to recover ...
... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an... more ... These soundscapes, an attempted narrative organization of sound in unstructured time, were an ... Indeed, one day after we had completed a particularly complex soundscape, I brought ... a desire for multiple perspectives and even facilitating highly theatrical icebreakers to recover ...
The work of renewing curriculum in music education faces the inertia of current curricular practi... more The work of renewing curriculum in music education faces the inertia of current curricular practices and an education reform climate that is unfavorable toward such work. This article suggests that the development of music teacher agency is central to combating these challenges, and that the development of such agency relies on today's professional associations. I explore the conditions under which such associations build member agency, examine the National Association for Music Education as a case study, and argue for the importance of professionalism as a reform logic. I then offer recommendations that address how teacher associations can better assert their particular role in leading curriculum renewal in today's complex and rapidly changing environment.
In this compilation of just over three-dozen essays and extracts, Derek B. Scott proposes to expl... more In this compilation of just over three-dozen essays and extracts, Derek B. Scott proposes to explore "musical meaning and the extent to which it is informed by cultural experience and socially-derived knowledge." 1 In the reader are sections on "Music and Language," "Music and the Body: Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity," "Music and Class," "Music and Criticism," and "Music Production and Consumption," fleshed out with selections by such well-known musicologists and theorists as Eero Tarasti, John Blacking, Lucy Green, and Michel Foucault. Furthermore, included within each section is an introduction contextualizing the individual pieces, as well as a complete list a references. The first section, "Music and Language," addresses the applications of literary criticism to music as a type of language. Two extracts, one by musicologist Harold Powers and another by Leonard Bernstein, detail the various uses of the metaphor as tools in linking music and language. In his piece, Powers recounts the historical origins and development of three such uses: that of making a semantic (affective) connection, phonological (structural) connection, and linguistic connection (connection in meaning). Bernstein, building upon these distinctions, demonstrates their usefulness in answering the aesthetic question of how music "means."
At the heart of teaching others is the moral imperative to care. Social justice education begins ... more At the heart of teaching others is the moral imperative to care. Social justice education begins with adopting a disposition to perceive and then act against indecencies and injustices. Teachers are public figures entrusted by a democratic society to act in the best interests of the children in their care. Music educators must embrace this social contract by "going public" or "coming out"-reaching beyond incomplete musical engagements and into larger and more intertwined social, artistic, and political domains. The authors refer to this stance as a public music pedagogy.
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