BENNETT REIMER
(1932 ? Present) Northwestern University Professor Emeritus Bennett Reimer is a well-known and respected authority on the philosophy of music education and curriculum design. Reimers major book dealing with his views on the arts in general is A Philosophy of Music Education, published in 1970. He has written numerous journal articles pertaining to his various concepts contained in his book. Besides being a writer, Reimer is also a lecturer on music and arts education, and can be found on many national committees. PHILOSOPHY Reimer believes that musicality is inherent in each individual and that aesthetic experiences in music is not solely for the elite. On aesthetics, Reimer states that aesthetic educators must be acquainted with the deepest values of music as they are understood by the professional scholars whose job is to explain them. These educators must represent the art of music to children as authentically and as comprehensively as they can understand and teach. In his approach to music education, Reimer includes materials from a wide spectrum of musical literature and promotes exposure to musics of other cultures. This he believes will bring us to a deeper understanding of our own being as well as our own relationship to those from other cultures. Below are features of musical experience according to Reimer: 1. Musical experience requires the perception of sounds as being artistically (aesthetically) organized. 2. Musical experience requires affective responsiveness to the expressive nature of sounds perceived as artistically (aesthetically) organized. 3. Musical experience includes a sensuous dimension. 4. Musical experience includes a creative dimension. 5. Musical experience includes a contextual/social dimension. Under music literacy, Reimers definition is more of the comprehensive musician, as he expects a music literate to be able to read and write notation and have the experience of performing. Performing is important as the performers own subjectivities are changed, as one experience combining expressive needs and inner nurturing of those needs. Reimer suggests that music educators respond to the educational reform movement by developing comprehensive musicianship; find better methods of assestment; broaden content of music curriculum and Improve testing. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reimer, Bennett, "Aesthetic Behaviors in Music." In Toward an Aesthetic Education. Edited by Bennett Reimer. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1971. _____. Developing the Experience of Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. _____. "Essential and Nonessential Characteristics of Aesthetic Education." The Journal Of Aesthetic Education 25: 3 (Fall 1991): 193-214. _____. Learning to Listen to Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970. _____. Music Education and Music in China: An Overview and Some Issues." Journal of Aesthetic Education 23:1 (Spring 1989): 65-83. _____. "The Nonconceptual Nature of Aesthetic Cognition." Journal of Aesthetic Education 20:4 (Winter 1986): 111-117. _____. A Philosophy of Music Education. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Apprentice-Hall, 1989. _____. "Selfness and Otherness in Experiencing Music of Foreign Cultures." the Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning (Fall 1991): 4-13. _____. "Towards a More Scientific Approach to Music Education Research." Council for Research in Music Education (Summer 1985). _____. "What Knowledge Is of Most Worth in the Arts?" In The Arts, Education, and Aesthetic Knowing. Edited by Bennett Reimer and RAlph A. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Reimer, Bennett and Edward G. Evans. The Experience of Music, Developing the Experience of Music, Teaching the Experience of Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. Reimer, Bennett and Elizabeth Crook, Mary Hoffman, al McNeil, and David Walker. Silver Burdett Music. Morristown, NJ: Silver Burdett Co., 1974, 1978, 1981, 1985.
