XVI Colloquium: July 12 - 19, 2005:
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
"Discourses and Practices of Hegemony, Power, and Exclusion in Music Education"

Power, Pedagogy and Border Events in Music and Music Education
David Lines
School of Music, University of Auckland

In this paper I examined the ways in which music and music education cultures have become fractured and disengaged from music as it exists in the daily lives of teachers and musicians. In particular, I focused on areas where music education tends to become detached from meaningful and democratic means of learning. In my paper, I argued that music is a natural pedagogical force-that is, it has the capacity to change the lives of those who interact with it. Paradoxically however, music education in its many forms (institutional, private practice, community music, media) aligns itself with cultural forces that block this natural educative feature that is basic to music.

I find that power relations at play and 'mentalities of rule' in music events and institutions can minimise opportunities for students and music listeners to engage in meaningful musicality and expression. In such circumstances, music learners interact with music in ways that are determined by discursive forces that undermine opportunities for educative change. Michel Foucault's concepts of power relations and governmentality (of self and others) are helpful in this respect. His ideas assist in the analysis of how a musical public become 'docile bodies' in relation to the musical contexts they engage in.

The restoration of education in music cultures rests in the meaningful artistic decisions and freedoms that can and do occur in situations such as 'border events'. We discussed ways in which these 'border events'-musical activities and engagements that operate at the fringes of rules and common expectation and procedures-can disrupt common ways of thinking and doing music, and can also foster new possibilities and potential for involvement in music education.