What Really Matters in Music Class?

We were at a dinner party recently and the person across the table discovered our connection to education and music.The next bit of conversation was predictable (as is the opening of most music education articles these days)!"Have you seen Mr. Holland's Opus?" "Yes," we answered, "on opening night!" "So, what did you think of it?"What we think is that it raises some important questions such as what is important in music class, who controls the content of instruction, what makes music instruction worthwhile, and how can we contribute to the survival of music in the schools.We will try to explore here what we think is at least one of the central questions: what is the role, importance, and quality of the relationship that engages the learner with music.Consider the following reflections on music learning experiences.Are there aspects of these experiences that resonate with yours?Do you contribute to these sorts of experiences with your students?...the people that turned me off to music because of the subtle personal abuse and the relentless focus on performance and not play!If only I could have had the opportunity to explore what music could do for me instead of always having to play someone else's music someone else's way --I had no ownership.I was immersed in music but not with the variety that would have captured me.I did not have good demonstrations of music-making that inspired or encouraged --not even enchanted me --and never that instructed me --just words and criticisms that were punctuated by impatience.No one worked within my zone of proximal development.No one worked with any understanding of who I am.Engagement was not there, nor "use" in Cambourne's sense as practice ("learners need time and opportunity to use, employ, and practise their developing control in functional, realistic, nonartificial ways" Cambourne 1988, p.33) Oh, but there was practice!.... terrible experiences of practice --at home on the piano or my singing --but school!! Terrible instruments that tasted like rusty spit and smelled...and would not stop squeaking and squawking because they were in such bad shape and no one was there beside me to care appropriately.The music that emerged both individually and collectively was nasty and provoked my sensitively tuned ears.I knew it was terrible and felt hopeless to do anything about it.And, I couldn't have the instrument I wanted --none of them.I had to play the E flat alto sax...I wanted the drums or the flute or, best of all, the vibes or a harp!...but a sax....If I had been able to be in a situation that met the conditions that Cambourne and Max van Manen suggest, I might be a satisfied `functional' musician or at least an informed audience participant.It is one of the most disappointing aspects of my education.One of my ways of knowing was squelched by miseducative experiences.

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