A Philosophy of Music Education

Advancing the Vision, Third Edition

By Bennett Reimer
Foreword by Peter R. Webster

Subjects: Music - Textbook, Music, Philosophy Of Education
Paperback : 9781438489322, 430 pages, November 2022

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Table of contents

FOREWORD
Peter R. Webster

PREFACE

1. FROM PHILOSOPHICAL CONCURRENCE TO DIVERSITY: PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Main Themes
Why Do We Need a Philosophy?
A Word about Some Words
A Time of Concurrence in Music Education Philosophy
The Challenges of Postmodernism
A Critique of Postmodernism, and an Appreciation
Toward a Synergistic Philosophical Stance
Etudes

2. SEVERAL ALTERNATIVE VIEWS AND A SYNERGISTIC PROPOSAL: AN EXPERIENCE-BASED PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC EDUCATION

Main Themes
Applying Synergism
Music as Form
Music as Practice
Music as Social Agency
The Boundaries of Music
Music and Utilitarian Values
A Philosophy Based on Musical Experience: Setting the Stage
Etudes

3. THE FEELING DIMENSION OF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

Main Themes
Music and Feeling: An Intricate Relationship
The Emotion/Intellect Dichotomy
Feeling, Cognition, and Consciousness
Emotion and Feeling
Music and Feeling
Musical Feeling from World to Sound
Music Education and the Education of Feeling
Teaching for “Knowing Within” Music
Etudes

4. THE CREATING DIMENSION OF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

Main Themes
What—or When—Is “Creativity”?
Who—or When—Is an “Artist”?
The Role of Knowing Within in Knowing How
The Ethical Dimension of Musical Creating
Teaching for Knowing How to Create Music
Etudes

5. THE MEANING DIMENSION OF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

Main Themes
Language Meanings, Musical Meanings
The Many Modes of Knowing
A Description of Music and Art
Teaching for Musical Meaning
Finally, What Music Means
Etudes

6. THE CONTEXTUAL DIMENSION OF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

Main Themes
Context in Larger Context
Universal, Contextual, and Individual Dimensions of Experience
Music in Context: A Review
Music, Culture, Consciousness
The Dilemma of Multicultural Music Education
A Synergistic Resolution
Teaching Music in Its Context
Etudes

7. FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE: MUSICAL ROLES AS INTELLIGENCES

Main Themes
Beyond the Theory of Multiple Intelligences
The Many Concepts of Intelligence
A Definition of Intelligence
Explanation of the Definition
Musical Intelligences
Musical Roles as Intelligences
Teaching for Musical Intelligences
Etudes

8. ADVANCING THE VISION: TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE GENERAL MUSIC PROGRAM

Main Themes
A Model of the Total Curriculum
The General Music Program as Viewed through the Curriculum Model
Achieving Comprehensiveness
Redefining and Rebalancing General Music: A Radical Prospect
Implementing a Comprehensive General Music Program: The Restructured Content Standards
The Challenge of Comprehensiveness
Etudes

9. ADVANCING THE VISION: TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE SPECIALIZED MUSIC PROGRAM

Main Themes
The Specialized Music Program as Viewed through the Curriculum Model
Implementing a Comprehensive Specialized Music Program: The Restructured Content Standards
Recapitulation and Coda: Pursuing the Vision
Etudes

INDEX

A Philosophy of Music Education is considered the classic text on the relation of aesthetics to the practical teaching and performing of music.

Description

Bennett Reimer's A Philosophy of Music Education asserts that the nature and value of music education are determined primarily by the nature and value of music. Originally published in 1970 (with the third edition originally published in 2003), this text relates findings in the field of aesthetics to their implications for the practice of music education, thus emphasizing practical applications that students and future educators can employ in their teaching and learning. It addresses an increasingly diverse world in which music is viewed not as a singular practice but as a multitude of related practices. Reimer believes that music has characteristics that make it recognizably and distinctively a practice or an "art"; that these characteristics can be identified to a reasonable and useful degree (but no doubt never definitively); that music is of value to humans and their communities in a variety of ways related to these characteristics; and that the primary mission of music education is to make musical values widely and deeply available. Each chapter includes case studies ("Riffs") and questions for discussion/exploration ("Etudes") that enhance student learning. This reprint edition includes a new introduction by Peter R. Webster that sets Reimer's work in the context of the development of music education pedagogy and illuminates why this remains an important text for today's students. An excellent introductory text for undergraduate or more advanced music education students, A Philosophy of Music Education remains the best single introduction to this important and growing field.

Bennett Reimer (1932–2013) was John W. Beattie Emeritus Professor of Music at Northwestern University. Peter R. Webster is a scholar-in-residence at the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music, and Professor Emeritus of Music Education at Northwestern University.

Reviews

From the reviews of the original third edition

"The author is one of the few people who actually has something unique and important to say about the present state of music education in the world." — John Kratus, Michigan State University

"Reimer is perhaps the most progressive thinker in music education." — Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, University of Michigan