Extract
In this short article I present a case for developing a new theory of music education, arguing that advances in music technology have undermined some of the most basic conceptual frameworks we currently possess. I describe some problems that might make the development of a new theory difficult and suggest some ways in which they might be overcome. My hope is that this paper will inspire people to consider the development of such a theory.
A curriculum development
During his keynote address to the 2003 conference of the National Association of Music Educators, John Paynter employed the metaphor of a shifting beam of light to describe the process of changing knowledge and understanding. Most people, he suggested, are happy to live out their lives in the light of established knowledge at the bright centre of the beam, but there will always be a few who feel compelled to move away from that comfortable existence. These are the explorers, keen to know what lies beyond the familiar territory, in the shadows at the edge of the beam. In the course of time their discoveries draw others in the same direction: first just a few, then more and more until the new knowledge becomes widely accepted.
Paynter’s image can usefully be applied in understanding how curriculum development happens and he could, with justice, have been referring to himself as one of the ‘explorers’ who was instrumental in shifting the focus of the curriculum. For the ‘Creative Music’ movement that he helped to found did establish new territory for the school music curriculum in the UK. During a period which spanned three decades (roughly 1960 to 1983), Paynter and his colleagues helped a generation of teachers in the UK to understand that, when freed from the necessity to follow externally imposed rules, children could work with the raw materials of sound to create music, very much as they created paintings and other art works. This curriculum development had a revolutionary quality; it was the subject of fierce debate (Paynter, 1982: 179–86). Paynter’s recent conference address implied the question, ‘How will the next curriculum development happen?’
End of extract
