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ARTLOOK #227 | April 2003
Photo Judith Clingan
Why Music Education Matters
Music is no longer something people do, it is a commodity they consume. Composer Judith Clingan argues that as a result music education is floundering and society is missing out on the power of music.
Music stands quite alone, cut off from all the other arts. It does not express a particular and definite joy, sorrow, anguish, horror, delight or mood of peace, but joy, sorrow, anguish, horror, delight, peace of mind themselves in the abstract, in their essential nature - and it enables us to grasp and share them fully in this quintessence.
- Schopenhauer
What is music? Music appears to have been an integral part of human experience since the dawn of time. From ancient carvings, paintings and artefacts we know that music accompanied all of life's events, both humble and grand, and it appears to have been inextricably bound up with these ancient cultures' view of spiritual realities. Moreover, every person had a musical role to play, whether it was chanting on one note, playing a drone instrument, a melodic instrument or a percussion instrument, or clapping and dancing to the music.
Western European cultures have their roots in the writings of the ancient Greeks, and those of us who are white Australians need to understand these roots. Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Greeks expressed the view that music was one of the most vital elements in the education of the young, believing that if 'harmonies and rhythms are quite familiar to children's souls, they will learn to be more gentle and harmonious and rhythmical in speech and action'. Plato went further, and claimed that 'he who has received this true education of the inner being [through music] will praise and rejoice over and receive into his soul the good, and will hate the bad'.
The early Christians in Europe inherited Greek music and Greek ideas about music. From them we derived the seven eight-note scales or modes (of which we gradually shed five, retaining the major and minor). We also retained the notion that certain scales suit certain emotions or moods. Although only a minority (those living a religious life) developed complex rhythms and harmonies and a notation system, every man, woman and child sang, danced and probably played simple instruments in times of joy, grief and merry-making - and certainly everyone attended church regularly, where singing was a normal feature.
It wasn't until the twentieth century that two great changes brought about an erosion in the music-making habits of the average first-world person: the gradually decreasing numbers of people regularly attending church (and therefore singing regularly), and the introduction of recorded music. We now have a situation where music in Western society is very rarely something people do, it is much more commonly something people buy. It has become a commodity like food or clothes through which individuals make statements about themselves. We have been musically disempowered. At the touch of a button, we can create the atmosphere we want in a room or in a car, but the notion of the possibility of making one's own music has vanished. We are given the message that only the famous are worth listening to - if we can't sing like our favourite star, we might as well not sing at all.
If we analyse the current soundscape in a typical urban/suburban environment the overriding impression is of ceaseless noise. Silence is considered odd, an absence of something, rather than something valuable. As a result of this pollution, we have all learned to dull our auditory reception and comprehension. This has created people with very short attention spans and an inability to take in auditory information.
In Australia, males are even more disempowered than females. In a kindergarten class, the boys sing as enthusiastically as the girls, by grade 4, or even earlier, there is a marked change in most boys' attitude to a singing lesson. By grade 6, only the most determined, nerd-like boy (in the opinion of his peers) dares to sing in class. Then, for most Australian males, that is the end of the story. A few courageous young men try opening their mouth years after puberty and, discovering an interesting new noise, explore it occasionally. But most Australian males never again break their singing silence. And those few people, male or female, who make it to adulthood with a love of singing intact, have not necessarily been surrounded by good models, and so true singing pitch has often not been developed, let alone the skill to hold a part.
Singing is now regarded by most people as a quirky activity, on a par with the cultivation of an unusual hobby. Instrumental skills are acquired by even fewer people. Wind and brass instruments are pushed in many primary schools, but the teaching is en masse and usually of poor quality. In order for a young person to become a serious player, his/her family needs to invest considerable money, time and energy. The serious playing of stringed instruments and piano are very rarely pursued by a young person from a non-musical family. Young people with British or European forbears are not often exposed to instruments from other cultures. The most pervasive instrumental music-making activities among the young today are probably on guitar, drums or electronic keyboard (which does not teach a player to be sensitive).
Even though musical notation was invented centuries ago, and even though it is more logical and less stressful to learn than reading English, most schools don't even consider musical notation as a subject of study. There is an attitude abroad in most Australian schools that 'music should be fun'. This apparently rules out using one's brain at all, or putting any sequential effort into a musical activity other than into rock eisteddfods or musicals. And most high school music teachers have long ago abandoned the thankless task of trying to interest Australian teenagers in any music except rock, pop or jazz. In fact, it is probable that there are very few music teachers left in Australian high schools who have themselves experienced anything else. This means that music of previous eras, true folk music of other cultures and the works of contemporary composers who are outside the commercial domain remain unexplored territory. And the situation in Australian primary schools is much worse, for it has never been accepted by those in power that music should be taught in primary schools at all, let alone taught with any pretence of rigour.
Why does any of this matter? From my own experience, I can say that I have been so inspired by the enormous power, beauty and poignancy of music that I feel compelled to share it with as many people as possible. I am not alone in believing that music is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Steiner once said: 'The inner arts (poetry and music) help us to grasp the essential nature of man's position in the cosmos. They form a bridge across the abyss between religion, or spiritual awareness, and cognition, or intellectual, rational awareness.'
It has also been shown by many researchers that certain types of gentle, beautiful music help plants to grow, help babies thrive, and help to banish illness. And for the pragmatic among the unconvinced, it has also been proven that the careful, sequential learning of music from a young age has a profound influence not only on a growing young person's character, but also on her/his other capacities, both physical and intellectual. In fact, a rich music program addresses every aspect of essential growth: we need to use our ears, eyes, fingers, brains, imaginations, sensitivity, social awareness, analytical powers, ability to synthesise, and so on. Through music we can meet mathematical ideas in understanding time signatures; we can meet physics and biology in understanding how instruments and voices work; we can better understand other cultures and languages and historical change through learning relevant songs and dances; we can immerse ourselves in another era through attempting to play unfamiliar types of melodies on unfamiliar instruments; and we can try to reach the soul life of our own culture and other cultures through singing and playing their sacred music.
At this point in time we are living as fractured beings. We pour a lot of effort and money into cultivating the abilities of our young people so as to produce a sufficient stream of IT experts, accountants, lawyers, doctors, munitions experts and politicians, but all of these activities use only our brains. Even if our hearts and souls have been atrophied, these activities can still flourish. In fact, some of them flourish precisely because their exponents have allowed their hearts and souls to wither. I believe that if we had an education system where it was the norm to perform great and beautiful music - such as Bach's St Matthew's Passion, or some of the contemporary sacred choral music by composers such as Britten (Rejoice in the Lamb), Part and Tavener - a generation of sensitive young people would emerge who would be much less likely to live in hate and fear of those different from themselves.
The trouble is that it is almost impossible to perform such works in a school without a strong, sequential music program in place from early primary school through to late secondary school, taught by experienced musicians supported by the rest of the staff. If our educational and financial advisors tell us that there is not the money for this, and refuse to contemplate increasing the education budget, then I believe we should take every music teacher out of every high school in the country and, after a in-service time to accustom them to the new job, put them into primary schools. If every primary child went from age five to age 12 regarding singing beautiful songs, understanding notation and learning at least one instrument as a birthright, then perhaps some things might change.
Judith Clingan AM has devoted her life to composing, teaching and performing choral music and music theatre, predominantly with and for young people and amateur adults. Her opera The Grandfather Clock premiered at the ANU Arts Centre last October.
This article is based on a talk given by Judith Clingan at the Canberra Museum and Gallery on February 22, 2003.
