Music, Music Education, and Institutional Ideology: A Praxial Philosophy of Musical Sociality

Music is a human action (praxis), guided by intentionality, that embodies sociality. The many significant "social" values of music, however, get lost in high-minded but faulty claims that music's essential value is to promote aesthetic experience. A survey of some basic aesthetic premises demonstrates that claims for "proper" appreciation are speculative and fail to account for the extensive social history of music--a history altogether ignored in preparing music teachers. Considered as praxis, music is "good" according to what it is personally and socially "good for"-- including, but not only, concert contemplation. The social institutions of "high" concert music and music education have been too dependent on a connoisseurship rationale/ideology, and the resulting hegemony over school music teaching problematically creates a never ending need for advocacy. Music education as and for praxis entails an ethical criterion that reflects on pragmatic and lasting benefits for graduates and society and promotes support on the bases of noticeable results in a community. Contains notes.