VI Colloquium: October 22 - 25, 1998: Toronto, ON
"Cultural and Social Influences on Music Teaching and Learning"


Music as Culture
Keith Swanwick
University of London, Institute of Education

I have been asked to produce a monograph on the second of the 'regulatory' ideals of the MayDay group. Although it has been interesting and at times fun to participate in and follow the twists and turns of MayDay thinking, I do feel diffident about producing a paper. Along with Charlie Keil I also worry about the theorising, not in principle (for the opposite of theorising is not practice but brain death) but the kind of mind set that seems to dominate much music education in the USA. Here I agreed with Bob Walker: we need to get outside this incestuous circle. However, a promise is a promise. So - for what it is worth - here is my small offering.

The second ideal runs as follows.

The social and cultural contexts of musical actions are integral to musical meaning and cannot be ignored or minimized in music education.

Aesthetic theories, with their claims that musical meaning and value transcend time, place, context and human purpose and usefulness, fail to account for the fullest range of meanings inherent in individual and collective musical actions. Such theories fall short of providing an adequate rationale for music-making or music teaching. Instead, all music must be seen as intimately tied to social and cultural contexts and conditions. The theory and practice of music education must account for this situatedness of music and music-making. Music educators must have, therefore, a theoretical foundation that unites the actions of producing music with the various contexts of those actions, so that musical meaning appropriately includes all of music's humanizing and concrete functions.

Very few people from the MayDay group or elsewhere responded specifically to this text. Among others, Terese Volk did and suggested that the best way to guide students though a plurality of music from different social contexts was to work closely with what she called a 'community culture-bearer'. Mark Turner located the issue of culturally 'situated' music alongside students' perceptions of who the teachers are. For him music educators should be 'musicians who have chosen to work and make music with children'. Students will then be more likely to 'accept the musical traditions, situatedness and values we seek to impart. Anyone can teach facts. It takes a musician, however, to impart the essence and inner beauty of our art.' Tom Regelski weighed in with dire warnings against such universal essences and the presumption that aesthetic properties are intrinsic. He urged us to avoid the 'aesthetic thicket' and recognise instead that music is socially situated and socially mediated, that its value depends upon what it is 'good for', that is to say on its 'praxial function'. Several people, including Paul Woodford, urged us not to prolong the 'music-as-aesthetic versus music-as-performance education debate.

This is my own view. There are better places from which to start and I fear that for many teachers around the globe the Reimer/ Elliott thing is but a sideshow. It seems to me best to concentrate on what a pluralist, 'situated' music curriculum would really look like and on its organising principles, its theoretical basis. How can school music education reflect the larger world of music? Where is the role of music educators among the contemporary plurality of musics? And what does 'situated' mean in practice for formal, statutory education?

During the discussion Terry Gates urged us to look again at the many functions of music, especially those set out by Alan Merriam who had earlier identified and categorised ten general musical functions in society (Merriam, 1964: 219-227). This suggestion is helpful and reminds us that everyone uses music in the same way, our way. Merriam helps us to understand the variety of purposes for which music is 'good for'. In his own ordering these are as follows.

Merriam's Functions of Music

Emotional expression
Aesthetic enjoyment
Entertainment
Communication
Symbolic representation
Physical response
Enforcing conformity to social norms
Validation of social institutions
Contribution to the continuity and stability of culture
Preservation social integration
These categories are indeed helpful. In her sensitive study of the ways in which children use and think about music, Patricia Shehan Campbell found that their uses of music ranged 'from the playful to the serious, and from the solitary to the social' (Campbell, 1998: 175). She found a good fit between the musical worlds of the children and Merriam's list. Music does indeed at different times have these various functions and it is up to people to decide for themselves what music is 'good for'. However the functions of music education are somewhat different from the functions of music. This is an important distinction which I hope shortly to clarify. Furthermore, Merriam's list is necessarily a very mixed bag. We ought to notice especially that there are at least two different types of function here.

Emotional expression, aesthetic enjoyment, (however that might be defined), communication and symbolic representation all clearly fall within the orbit of what I want to call musical discourse. That is to say, to some extent they all involve elements of internal representation: the manipulation of images, the production of relationships between these images, the creation and development of shared vocabularies and the negotiation and exchange of ideas with others. In each of these 'functions' there is a reproductive component but there is also the possibility of metaphor, of generating new meaning. These functions have potential both for cultural transmission and for cultural transformation.

On the other hand some of the items on Merriam's list tend to be tied in to more or less closed systems. The purpose of these is to support cultural reproduction: enforcing conformity to social norms, the validation of social institutions, supporting religious rituals and making a contribution to the continuity and stability of culture and to the integration of society. These functional settings tend not to create or encourage the creation of new meaning, to develop what Mead calls 'new human values'. It seems therefore inappropriate to confine music education to these functions, important though they may be in certain social settings, unless there really is some 'space' for individual growth. And indeed there might be. We have only to consider how artists make free with images of Buddha and Christ, how story tellers and painters embellish tribal histories or how musicians 'do their own thing', as did Bach and his contemporaries when extending and elaborating simple protestant hymn tune and Elton John singing at a posh funeral.

However, many socially embedded musical functions almost by definition tend to be quite closed, dominated by societal and especially peer group expectations. Music education has to focus wherever possible on those activities that have the potential to keep musical processes open in as many layers as possible. Of course it is fine at times to have music as a background, functioning perhaps at the materials level where we are aware either of some vague sound texture or of a generalised mood or ambiance. But in music education the focus is to bring musical conversation from the background of life to the foreground of our conscious attention. Music teachers also have to ask themselves whether they are solely or mainly concerned with cultural replication or whether they are also looking for something more comprehensive and open. This is especially true for those who work in general educational systems and particularly in compulsory schooling.

In educational settings the question 'what is music's function?' is best subordinated to the question of 'how does it function'? This immediately gives a critical edge to educational transactions and causes us to focus, not so much on the cultural context, but on the discourse of music itself. We would be failing our students if we offered them only the culturally bounded elements of Merriam's list, although this might be a part of what we do. The second point is that although the function and range of discourses within and across cultures could be the focal point of sociology, social psychology, anthropology or history, for musicians and music educators the focus has to be on the actual processes of musical forms, not on the context, social or otherwise. If not then musical discourse becomes secondary to other discourse areas: perhaps to social and cultural studies, history or geography. John Blacking was aware of this.

- - -for an ethnomusicologist a crucial analytical procedure is not so much to fit the music into a social system, but to start with a musical system and then to see how and where society fits into the music. We should consider artistic cognition, and musical practice in particular, as having primary roles in the imagination of social realities (Blacking, 1995: 234).

Music is a form of discourse and this has to be the core of musical study and music education. Unfortunately though, formal music education tends to create its own sub-culture which may or may be neither culturally authentic nor musically rich. Indeed, it is sometimes hard to see how institutionalised music teaching connects with the evolving world of musical discourse outside. We can easily see how this happens.

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The sub-culture of school music

For example, beginning in the 1950s, the introduction of Orff instruments into school music classrooms resulted in the creation of a musical sub-culture, characterized by decorative glissandi and circling ostinati, played on specially designed classroom instruments and based on pentatonic materials. This was music designed for children, music bearing little relationship to music elsewhere, except when it begins to approximate the Indonesian gamelan. In the late 1960s came the influence of modernism. Teachers encouraged children to become performers and composers of 'texture' pieces and to use repertoires of aleatoric devices, randomized lists of numbers and so on. Pulse, tonality and modally defined pitch relationships were suspended while students made sound collages, recorded 'found' sounds in their environments and constructed graphic scores. The word 'music' was frequently dropped altogether from books for use in schools and the word 'sound' was substituted: for instance, New Sounds in Class; Sound and Silence; Exploring Sound; Make a New Sound; Sounds Fun; Sounds Interesting.

Here was an attempt to begin again, to make a new start without the clutter of inherited classical traditions which are so easily seen as opposed to the popular music industry and the alternate musical preferences of many students. And here was an opportunity to link up with the attitudinal world of contemporary experimental composers. Metrical rhythms and tonal pitch relationships were discarded and attention was switched to levels of loudness, texture and tone color. But in the evenings - after these distinctive school experiences - the students went home and played the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, or perhaps they taught themselves to play the music that really mattered to them where metric rhythms and tonal tensions were the norm.

Many teenagers for instance elect to teach themselves to play a musical instrument - the drums perhaps or the guitar. What do they do? They usually know already the kind of sound they are interested in. They insist on the right equipment. They listen to their mentors and try to emulate them, running into problems of sound production and control, figuring their own way through them, comparing notes with fellow practitioners, following the example of preferred models (Ross, 1995).

More recently and in an attempt to recognize the reality of this music 'out there', certain elements of popular music have indeed entered the formal education scene. But in order to make itself respectable and to become appropriately institutionalized, popular music has to be modified, abstracted and analyzed to fit into classrooms, timetables and the aims of music education. The loudness level (and the impact) is reduced, dancing is impractical and the cultural context is shorn away. During this reductive process the activity often becomes what Ross calls 'pseudo music'.

Another way of creating a school music subculture is more evident in North America and usually takes the form of the High School Band; especially when given over to marching at ball games with a purpose-made repertoire, uniforms, parade ground routines and majorettes. There are of course shining exceptions, especially if the main focus of the band director is teach music 'musically' rather than be lured into ego trips while on public display. So much depends not on what is done but on how it is done, on the quality of musical engagement. Even so, on graduating from school and leaving the band, a large proportion of students appear to put it all behind them. In spite of widespread band programmes there appears little sign among adult communities of continued engagement with instrumental music. The same appears true of choral programmes. The main aim of these classes seems often to get a programme of music in shape for public performance, rather than provide a rich musical and educational experience. The teaching methods accordingly tend to be very directive and there may be considerable repetition in rehearsal of a very small literature, often giving rise to boredom and satiation. The music becomes meaningless and the real musical interests of students are likely to lie elsewhere.

Reservations about performance programmes in North America have been raised by several writers. These include Leonhard and House, Kirchhoff, and Reimer, who warn against placing an overemphasis on performing ensembles and a concentration on technique which works against musical understanding (Leonhard and House, 1959; Kirchhoff, 1988; Reimer, 1989). This critical stance towards instrumental performance has a long history. Boethius, writing in the sixth century, distinguished between performers, composers and those whom he saw as musically educated.

But the type which buries itself in instruments is separated from the understanding of musical knowledge. Representatives of this type, for example kithara players and organists and other instrumentalists, devote their total effort to exhibiting their skill on instruments. Thus, they act as slaves, as has been said: for they use no reason but are totally lacking in thought (Godwin, 1986).

Against this somewhat polemical background and alongside the tension between music in schools and music 'out there' a recent debate has rekindled the alternative claims of the daily round of 'music for all' (in general classes) and the greater public status and higher musical rewards for teachers of performance activities. In Britain and elsewhere these activities are usually extra-curricular whereas in North America they are more likely to be curriculum electives. In an attempt to 'situate' the formal music curriculum in relation to what he calls 'viable music cultures', David Elliott urges us to affirm the centrality of performance in music education (Elliott, 1995). In taking this position he chimes with most actual practice in North American music education. But as we have seen there is a danger in organising the curriculum around a narrow concept of performing. This tends to be restrictive and the repetition of a small standard repertoire may become stultifying. Musical decision-making on the part of students may become almost entirely proscribed.

Furthermore, Elliott's concept of performance is too general to really help us understand what it means to make music. He identifies the essential elements of performance as the 'interpretation of a musical design that evinces standards and traditions of practice'. He notes also that there is also the transmission of 'cultural - ideological information' (Elliott, 1995: 199). But all these things could be said about many activities. There are presumably standards, traditions of practice and ideological information in pornography or torture.

I define musical performance somewhat differently and more positively. In any artistic practice people engage with the materials of their craft - colours, words, sounds and so on: they shape these materials expressively: they create new formal relationships within the object or event. At times they may bring about for themselves and others significant insights, even what has been called a 'eureka' experience. Unlike pornography or torture, these activities are driven by the urge to understand, to create meaning and share quality of experience. In any scheme of music education, especially where music teaching is mandated or statutory, musical processes should be invoked in as rich a way as possible. This could indeed occur in almost any musical activity, including the band at the ball game. So much depends on the actual quality of the musical encounter. Even so, music education in schools and colleges cannot be confined to a single social function. Nor should we substitute a kind of global musical tourism for direct involvement in specific musical discourse.

But how is this to be achieved? There needs to be radical re-thinking of how time and resources are used. I can only hint at them here. A 'praxial' music 'class' will be a place where the major activities of composing-listening, performing-listening and audience-listening take place in relation to music over a cultural range wide enough for students to realise that they each have an 'accent'. Smaller groups than whole-class or whole-band or whole-chorus are essential for student interaction, musical decision-making and individual choice. The musical pathways of both children and adults are many and various and educational systems have to recognise this diversity.

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Praxis

To what extent and in what situations is musical discourse specific to certain cultural practices? Is it always socially embedded? Or are symbolic forms in some way and to some degree culturally free-standing, universal? The answers are important, for if we think that an appropriate response to music can only occur within the particular culture of its origin, then there seems little point in performing or teaching outside of that context. On the other hand, if we take the view that local 'accents' are only skin-deep and that music is a 'universal' language, then musicians and educators can appeal to their respective audiences on the basis of these shared procedures.

This apparent dilemma has a long history which I shall not attempt to trace here, though the idea of universals can be found in Plato's allegory of the cave (Book VII of The Republic), where people trapped in their tunnel of their sensory experience see only vague representations, shadows of an ultimate reality. For Plato the only way to real knowledge is through philosophical deliberation which allows us to comprehend the unchanging, absolute 'forms', the essences that lie behind uncertain and misleading images. Of course, such rarified knowledge is not for everyone, but only for the chosen elite, for the 'guardians'. Apparently most of us are doomed to stumble around in the dark without any lamp of certainty.

Alternatively there is what has become known as the 'praxial' view of knowledge. Praxialism resists any attempt to universalise the nature and function of music. Music is 'good, 'right' or 'fitting', depending only on how well it works in action, that is to say as praxis. This position also has a long history stretching back probably as far as Aristotle and certainly to what have been called the mediaeval 'nominalists'. The contemporary concept of praxis has been influenced by sociology and anthropology and is concerned with the relativities of social custom and practice, with the recognition of differing 'accents' as equally valid. The issue is not whether or not something is essentially good but what it is 'good for' in its specific social context.

This sad old controversy is a forerunner of the traditional versus progressive argument that still haunts education. Essentialism lies behind educational traditionalism. An essentialist would want to focus on the structure and content of curriculum subjects, on traditional - 'tried and tested' teaching methods and on high 'standards' within accepted, worthwhile, 'good' traditions - usually those of Western Europe. The praxial alternative would have more sympathy with 'progressive' teaching methods, with the various cultures of students and may lay claim to the social relativism of certain forms of 'multi-cultural' education.

The 'praxial' approach to music education has recently been put advocated as the way forward, indeed, as a 'new' philosophy for music education. Of course, this is based on the belief that the reality, meaning and value of music can never be intrinsic or universal but lies in what is socially situated and culturally mediated (Elliott, 1995; Walker, 1996). Musical value resides in its specific cultural uses, in what it is 'good for' in the lives of people.

There is of course another way. We do not have to take the essentialist path that supposedly leads us to universally valid and absolutely certain knowledge. Nor are we obliged to follow the trail towards knowledge that is claimed to be specific to and reflective of a specific cultural group. As individuals we do not feel our way blindly towards some pre-existing 'truth', nor are we inert repositories of local cultural practice. Even if we may not approach universal truths we can at least arrive at some places of agreement. This is possible only through symbolic processes, through creating, sharing and negotiating meaning and values. Emergent meanings are indeed social products to the extent that they are 'creations that are formed in and through the defining activities of people as they interact' (Blumer, 1969: 4-5). But these defining activities are the discourses of language, mathematics, science, art, music and so on. There can be no symbolic interaction without interpreting minds engaging in symbolic forms.

Each individual exists in a particular set of discursive forms deriving from the social institutions in which she or he finds herself or himself. The resolution of these tensions, contradictions, and incompatibilities, provides a constant source of dialogue - - - (Kress, 1985: 31).

I take it that education is concerned with studying, engaging in and developing these discursive forms, forms which are plural rather than singular. They are not Platonic, essentialist, intrinsic or invariant universals but are constantly evolving, always 'reforming'. Nor are they sets of fixed, socially conditioned actions without the possibility of reflection, reconstitution or resistance. From this perspective what is exciting about music is not its role in cultural reproduction but its potential for development, for cultural renewal, for evolution.

Alan Merriam believes that the 'study of the dynamics of musical change is among the most potentially rewarding activities in ethnomusicology.' (Merriam, 1964: 319). Under certain conditions change is less likely, for example when music locked tightly into ceremonial, ritual or other strongly social practices. Change may be brought about by technological advances, by migration or travel, by more general cultural shifts - such as the intervention of formal education - and by literacy or economic prosperity. Merriam recounts that after an eight-year absence he returned once again to study the Flathead Indians and found that one of these people had also been living away from the Reservation. On returning to his tribe he had organised a group which became known as the Flathead ceremonial dancers. Using some traditional steps but not entire traditional dances, and performing in a manner not entirely unrelated to mainstream American show business, this troupe became a commercial success across the USA.

The potential changes wrought in Flathead musical culture were substantial: new dance steps, new types of song, new 'ethnographic explanations' - - - all the result of the activities traceable to the impetus of a single individual (Merriam, 1964: 317).

We may worry about the authenticity of this kind of cultural revision and we might wonder about the motives of the individual in this case. But the main message of Merriam's observation is clear: cultures are not for ever set in concrete.

The significance of change is also recognised by the social anthropologist Margaret Mead. Writing about the uncertain role of formal education in many cultures she tells us that:

- - - - out of the discontinuities and rapid changes which have accompanied these minglings of people has come another invention, one which perhaps would not have been born in any other setting than this one the belief in education as an instrument for the creation of new human values. the use of education for unknown ends (Mead, 1942: 107).

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The space between

This element of 'invention', the space opened up by change, is vital to us as individuals and to our cultures. Indeed, some room for manoeuvre exists even for the simplest forms of life. According to the philosopher Susanne Langer, for any organism, environment is a relative concept, depending on how circumstances are interpreted and on the organism's repertory of possible responses. It 'may or may not react with far-reaching effects upon its surroundings, but in any case it presents some mechanism which filters the impinging influences' (Langer, 1967: 26-27). And similarly for Capra, though writing from a very different perspective: 'the environment only triggers the structural changes; it does not specify or direct them'. In the interpretive act the system 'brings forth a world' (Capra, 1996:260).

The idea of interpretation assumes a qualitative difference for the human species as distinct from less complex organisms mainly because of the use of symbolic forms and our ability to ask the question, 'what would happen if?'. We are not merely driven by psychological stimuli, needs and emotions, nor are we totally regulated by cultural prescriptions, social roles and what Blumer calls 'reference group affiliations'. For Blumer the human being is an organism 'that engages in social interaction with itself by making indications to itself and responding to such indications' (Blumer, 1969: 14). This social interaction with ourselves and with others is through the medium of the forms of symbolic discourse. Precisely because of our use of symbol systems we are not merely responders but interpreters. We do not simply react to our environment, whether physical or cultural but we also reflect upon it.

From these writers we catch a vision of a world in which we, like any other organism, we have repertories of interpretive behaviour. Among these repertories are representational systems, symbolic repertories, forms of discourse, what Kress calls 'dialogue', Oakeshot calls 'conversation', Blumer calls 'symbolic interaction' and Capra 'bringing forth a world'. We each have some margin of manoeuvre kept open by access to symbol systems and especially by the playful metaphorical possibilities in artistic discourse.

Of course it is true that all music is culturally rooted, or 'situated' (Elliott, 1995). But this does not mean that music is in some way is 'uniquely reflective and expressive of a culture' (Walker, 1996: 11). This metaphor of 'reflection' here suggests the lingering shadows of old fashioned referentialism, where music is seen as symptomatic of cultural and political values or of the personal biography of the musician. Metaphorical 'likeness' - in the sense of music being 'like' or replicating society - has to be seen in the context of music's suggestive dissimilarities - allowing an element of free play, of speculative diaphor, what Lucy Green calls a 'chink of light'. 'It is through the experience of inherent meanings that we countenance that virtual aspect of musical meaning which is in itself free of symbolic content, free of gendered delineation' (Green, 1997: 250). As we have seen, in musical experience the possibility of breaking out into the light exists at three levels: at the point where we accept the illusion that sound is expressively shaped, when these shapes are perceived in new relationships and when we ourselves are to some extent changed by musical insights into what Langer called the life of feeling.

We have then to abandon the idea that music stands in a direct relationship with some kind of socially independent reality, as though it were a kind of mirror. Of course there are often strong connections between the music of particular groups and their life style and social position. But this is not to say that music simply embodies these social worlds. Musical discourse is inherently social, not in the deterministic sense of representing or 'reflecting' society but because any form of discourse depends upon negotiating within systems of shared meanings. Distinctive musical styles are maintained and developed through give-and-take in interpretive communities. Music thus takes place in a cultural context without necessarily being culturally determined, as Peter Martin reminds us.

Artworks are the product of activities shaped by a constant process of decision-making, of innumerable choices through which their creators imaginatively take account of the likely responses of others. This does not imply that artists will simply conform to such expectations - on the contrary, they may consider their whole purpose to be the challenging or subverting of established conventions (Martin, 1995: 193).

Far from being merely a mirror then, a copy of other forms of cultural activity, musical discourse, by virtue of its metaphorical power, can also be a window through which we can glimpse a different world. As with all forms of discourse, music bridges the space between individuals and between different cultural groups. There is some support here from social anthropology and enthnomusicology. Following a long and detailed study of music-making in one city, Ruth Finnegan notes that although musical enactment indeed arises in a social context it is also 'a unique and distinctive mode through which people both realise and transcend their social existence' (Finnegan, 1989: 339). Along with this goes an acknowledgment of the diversity of perspectives among individuals, even within the most tightly bound cultural practices. I too am not afraid of the word 'transcend'. There is neither mystical nor ideological lurking behind it and once in a while a dictionary definition can keep us from turning a relatively simple concept into a loaded 'ism'.

tran.scend: transcendere - to climb across, transcend; scandere - to climb, to rise above or go beyond the limits of, to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of, to overcome (Merriam-Websters Dictionary, 1997).

'Transcendentalism' is another story altogether and one that is certainly philosophically problematic. Transcendentalism suggests a belief in something 'prior to, or beyond, and above the universe or material existence'. This is certainly not the way I am using the word transcend, not is it how Karl Popper intends it to be taken.

The incredible thing about life, evolution, and mental growth, is just this method of giveandtake, this interaction between our actions and their results by which we constantly transcend ourselves, our talents, our gifts.

- - - The process of learning, of the growth of subjective knowledge, is always fundamentally the same. It is imaginative criticism. This is how we transcend our local and temporal environment (Popper, 1972: 147).

John Blacking also has observed music transcending social origins and uses.

A 'sound group' is a group of people who share a common musical language, together with common ideas about music and its uses. The membership of social groups can coincide with the distribution of verbal languages and cultures, or it can transcend them, as in parts of Europe and the Highlands of Papua new Guinea. Different social classes in the same society could be distinguished as different sound groups, or they could belong to the same sound group even though they might be deeply divided in other respects (Blacking, 1995: 232).

As to the idea of 'sound groups', a similar conclusion was arrived at some time ago by Gans. Rejecting the dichotomy of mass culture versus high art and conceiving instead of multiple 'taste cultures' and 'taste publics', Herbert Gans identified a multitude of value groups, rather than a simple cleavage into 'mass' and 'high' cultures. Any individual subscribes to any number of such groups at the same time and may change allegiances over time (Gans, 1974).

There is a constant trade in the marketplace of musical ideas. In this limited sense at least musical ideas transcend their origin. Although musical processes arise within specific social contexts they are not trapped within them. This should not surprise us if we remember that experiences are mediated by interpreting minds.

We can then agree with Jean-Jacques Nattiez that any musical work or performance arises from a particular context (Nattiez, 1987/ 1990). But all music has a musical context. To take an easy example, Schumann's Scenes From Childhood has its roots in the musical as well as the other symbolic worlds from which it came. I have no direct admission to the life and times of Schumann, living when and where he did, but I do have access to his artistic, musical and literary worlds, to what Nattiez calls the symbolic web. This is why I feel able to interpret and respond to this music. Music gives insight into the minds and cultures in and from which it originated.

For these reasons any attempt to explore the functions of music cannot be from the generality of semiotics or cultural studies but must be grounded in the particularity of musical experience itself, in musical 'events' of one kind or another. Although there may be relevant and important ideas in sociological, ethno-musicological and other literatures, the interface between minds and music is the central focus of the study of music. The space between each of us and between individuals and the world is busy with interpretive discourse. Karl Popper calls this 'World Three', a intermediate world between ourselves and what is not ourselves, a world of theories, theorems, formulae, stories, music, dances, paintings, poems, scientific classifications, mathematical calculations and so on (Popper, 1972). I think of this as 'the space between'.

In his book, Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said quotes with approval Hugo of St Victor, a 12th-century monk from Saxony.

The person who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign place (Said, 1993: 408).

There we have it. One of the aims of musicians and teachers of music may certainly be to enhance our 'homeland' - wherever we think that may be. And we also want our students to feel 'at home' in the wider world. But our ultimate aspiration is maintain something of the excitement of discovery that characterises most children and some few fortunate adults, excitement about the world in which we live, even the world next door. We should enjoy musical diversity - different musical accents, for education is not only about confirming personal and cultural identity but advocates acts of cultural interpretation which extend creative playfulness.

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REFERENCES

Blacking, J. (1995) Music, culture and experience: Selected Papers of John Blacking, R. Byron. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Blumer, H. (1969) Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Campbell, P., Shehan (1998) Songs in their heads: music and its meaning in children's lives, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Capra, F. (1996) The web of life, London: Harper Collins.

Elliott, D. J. (1995) Music matters: A new philosophy of music education, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Finnegan, R. (1989) The hidden musicians: music-making in an English town, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gans, H. J. (1974) High culture and popular culture, New York: Basic Books.

Godwin, J. (1986) Music, mysticism and magic: A sourcebook, London: Routledge.

Green, L. (1997) Music, gender, education, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kirchhoff, C. (1988) "The school and college band: wind band pedagogy in the United States", in Music Education in the United States: Contemporary Issues, J. T. Gates. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Kress, G. (1985) Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Langer, S. K. (1967) Mind: An essay on human feeling, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Leonhard, C. and R. W. House (1959) Foundations and principles of music education, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Martin, P. J. (1995) Sounds and society, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Mead, M. (1942) 'Our educational emphases in primitive perspective', American Journal of Sociology 48: 633-9. Also published in Tinker, Tailor, ed. Keddie, Penguin, 1973.

Merriam, A. P. (1964) The anthropology of music, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

Nattiez, J.-J. (1987/ 1990) Music and discourse: towards a semiology of music, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Popper, K. (1972) Objective knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Reimer, B. (1989) A philosophy of music education, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Ross, M. (1995) 'What's wrong withmchool music?', British Journal of Music Education 12(3): 185-201.

Said, E. W. (1993) Culture and imperialism, London: Chatto & Windus.

Walker, R. (1996) 'Music education freed from colonialism: a new praxis', International Journal of Music Education( 27): 2-15.