XV Colloquium: June 10 - 12, 2004:
The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
"Music for Life: Re-visioning Music Education as a Part of General/Comprehensive Schooling"

Music in Curricular and Extra-Curricular Settings: Reflections on selected projects
Wilfried Gruhn

Model 1: NON-WESTERN MUSIC IN THE CLASSROOM
Authenticity of presenting non-western music in cross-cultural music education

In recent times, non-western music is recognized as an important issue in music education as a means of cultural integration. Since Germany has turned into a country with an increasing number of immigrants, the need for a tolerant openness toward cultural diversity and for disputes on cross-cultural experiences increases. Therefore, the elaboration of adequate teaching materials and the development of appropriate ways of introducing and presenting examples of foreign cultures authentically has been emphasized. Music plays an important role in cross-cultural education. Teacher training programs at universities and music academies as well as new curricula at public schools try to incrementally integrate cross-cultural studies. The difficulty, however, is to find persons experienced in another culture who are able to teach it authentically. Hence it is extremely important not only to gather information about non-western music, but to introduce it practically.

The model primarily addresses secondary schools. For implementation in schools, an institution from outside Europe, a (German) Music Academy and several secondary schools from a local school district are supposed to collaborate. The foreign institution selects musicians who are given a fellowship to study Western Music in Germany. As part of this program, the local host (a Music Academy or University of Music) establishes an in-service program for music teachers at local secondary schools. Here, the fellows function as native musicians of their culture and present their music by teaching instruments, conducting ensembles, and giving practical and theoretical information on their ethnic music and its social, cultural, and historical background.

The goal of this model is to introduce students to music from another culture and to present different types and styles authentically by native musicians of that particular culture so that the social context of the music and its cultural traditions can emerge. The main goal is to prepare a better recognition of what is different in that music, and consequently a better understanding of a different culture. This may help students to think more critically about their own cultural identity and to develop a more subtle sensitivity for cultural differences.

Model 2: KLANGNETZE / RESPONSE / CREATE AND DISCOVER
Collaboration of students in schools and professional musicians

"Klangnetze" (sound nets) addresses pupils of all schools from elementary to secondary level (elementary schools, high schools, schools for special learners, vocational schools). This model is developed in Austria, but there are similar programs in other European countries such as “Create and Discover� (UK), or “Response� (Germany). In these projects regular school classes and professional musicians join for collaboration. The intention is to introduce pupils at any level and in all types of schools to modern music which is experimental and non-traditional. It focuses mainly on composing and improvising rather than performing key-works of avant-garde music.

Pupils shall discover sound qualities of their environment, explore any kind of materials with regard to their application to music, and express their own music as a group. It is neither intended to promote compositions if individuals nor to present excellent performances of soloists. The rational of this project focuses on intensive teamwork. Small groups of participants search for, explore, experiment, and discuss their musical ideas by means of more or less elaborated improvisations. Then, short musical parts are created which can be combined to become more extended compositions. Finally, these team-works are to be performed in a public recital.

To run a project, three persons collaborate as a core team: two musicians (instrumentalists, composers) and a music teacher who develop a concept for a particular school and a particular grade. All activities are coordinated by a project manager who is responsible for a particular region. Participants of a region plan and conduct a project, which can be performed in different places in collaboration with the project manager.

The project pursues two general principles:
1. Children and juveniles discover their everyday "soundscape", explore new ways of musical production and expression, and learn to listen to music in a new way by improvising and inventing their own music. Methodologically, the project supports explorative learning by doing. Here, the process is more important than the product.

2. All activities are based upon team work. Small flexible teams are preferred to respond to a given situation in an appropriate and productive way, to support individual ideas, and find the best possible solution for an unexpected problem.

Model 3: MUSIC HUMANIZING HOSPITALS
A project of the Centre de Formation de Musiciens Intervenant, Strasbourg (C.F.M.I.),
developed and conducted by Victor Flusser

This project is designed for professional musicians who have received a special instruction to work in a hospital introducing live music, presented by instrumentalists and singers from a school or academy or university of music, to an institution of everyday life (here: a hospital) where they implement a new artistic environment. The intention is to humanize processes in a hospital and to improve the quality of life especially for long-term hospitalized patients and in-service staff. Music, here, is used as a means of communication and interaction between all groups within a hospital: patients, their relatives and the medical and nursing team. Musicians who participate in this project have to be carefully prepared for their sensitive work, to accept and respond to the deep feelings and strong emotions in an appropriate, sensitive, but always musical way.

Obviously, conflicts might occur between musicians, who are trained as musicians, and music therapists, who are specialized in music therapy. This difficult intersection of musical communication and medical care has to be critically observed. However, in Music Therapy music functions as a means of therapeutic intervention with a clear medical indication, whereas the idea of Music Humanizing Hospitals is to integrate music as an art form into the environment of a hospital. This is not a competition with music therapy, rather it brings emotion, pleasure, sensitivity, and partnership to the entire institution of a hospital. This calls for two competencies:

[1] the competence of a musician to perform with instruments and voices and
[2] the competence to relate musical gestures and their emotional potential to others.

In this concept, musicians have to be accepted by the institution: the medical staff, the doctors, the nurses, the patients, the visitors. Musicians are all around, they perform in the lobby, in elevators, in rooms for medical treatment, in sickrooms. The intention is to communicate with the patients through musical gestures and emotions and, therefore, relate music to the special needs of people who live and work in hospital..

"Music may assist in the process of making hospitals more humane, improve the quality of life for in-patients and nursing staff. Music attempts to reach for the innermost sources of energy in man.

The musicians are professionals in their own right, moreover, specially trained for their work in the hospital: they can lead up to a new awareness of art and culture, they are capable of developing musical communication and interaction between musicians, patients, their relatives and nursing teams, and they carry musical projects [of their education] into the community.

The musicians are psychologically prepared to share deep feelings with people. In the sensitive atmosphere emotions like surprise, joy, relief from stress, even from fear and grief are released. As the musician fits his work into the hospital routine acknowledging the rules and regulations (s)he will be respected for his professionalism by the nursing team." (Victor Flusser, director of C.F.M.I., in an introduction to the program)