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"

Introductory Remarks and Challenge to the Colloquium
Thomas A Regelski

Musicians have long been socialized to accept the aesthetic theory that 'good music' is 'good for its own sake'. This assumption is increasingly challenged by philosophers and sociologists of music, and social/cultural theorists in many disciplines. Nonetheless, given the assumption that music's value is 'for itself', music teachers assume further that teaching 'good music' must, in itself, automatically be good in some unspecified way. Unfortunately, this belief insufficiently considers how successful that teaching is when judged in terms of the pragmatic benefits (if any) for students' on-going musical lives and for the musical life of society. Because music education has failed to promote a musical difference that is tangible, and thus both noticeable and notable to students and society, it has suffered a legitimation crisis that requires ever-more words of advocacy in its behalf. The proposed solution is to regard music as a praxis that, being inherently social in nature and value, is 'good for' many important sociocultural needs and interests (including those traditionally associated with classical music); and to directly consider such social and pragmatic 'goods' in curriculum, teaching methods and materials, and among the key criteria for judging the success and contribution of music education and music educators.