Towards a justification for a philosophy of music education: a quodlibet for South Africa

• Main Author: Barker Reinecke, Marguerite Lillian
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: south african music education; philosophy of music education; intercultural tolerance and music; multicultural music
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/4908

ABSTRACT With the change of regime in 1994, South African education policies for the arts have been created without a conceptual base. Music is on the outskirts of the present educational master plan that favours mathematics, science and literacy. The current situation of teacher shortages and emphasis on ‘basic’ subjects does not make posts possible for specialist music teachers in primary schools. The generalist trained Arts and Culture teacher is tasked to teach drama, music, and the visual arts. The attempt by policy makers to blur the outlines of individual art forms has created the generic Arts and Culture teacher who is unsure of the art forms in which he/she has little or no training. This lack is exposed and justification for the necessity of a philosophy of music education for South Africa will be proposed. A philosophy of music education refers to a system of basic beliefs, which underlie the operation of musical enterprise in an educational setting, whether school, community centre, or tertiary institution. A philosophy of music education would investigate and create an understanding of the underlying assumptions and principles governing the teaching and learning of music.Music is a modelling system for human thought and is a cognitive activity with forms of knowledge as important as any school subject. The ‘out of school’ influences of music are all-encompassing and ubiquitous to intercultural communication between peoples. Evidence is overwhelming that the political history in South Africa has interfered with and disrupted an enculturation of a musical life for children. The literature research shows that music education in South Africa was used as a political tool to support apartheid doctrines and processes. The restoration of a culture of co-operative musicing would help music teachers. Their active agency would positively affect policy in the arts. Furthermore making music or ‘musicing’ in a collaborative manner would break downbarriers because musicing encourages inter-racial rapprochement in a society where racial barriers are no longer dominant. Such harmonious communicating will help to create a new and idiomatic South African music culture. For this purpose I have proposed the adoption of the musical genre called quodlibet, a technique of composing music for many voices which are played simultaneously. This provides a platform for the collaboration of musicians, teachers, policy makers, and parents, within the wider community from which the pupils come to from. The quodlibet becomes a guiding principle and metaphor for the entire study. The central focus is to articulate the need for a philosophy of music education and to propose and defend conditions that would facilitate the growth of a conceptual centre for music education.