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Musical Education Why is music taught differently from all of the other arts? In painting, sculpture, poetry, and photography, there is an emphasis on creating original works, whereas if one pursues a study of music, one will find that the emphasis is shifted towards duplication of works which have already been created. I find this very strange: shouldn't music be taught from a perspective of composition, which will encourage the student to think creatively and to express their own thoughts in an original manner, rather than from a perspective of performance, which will only teach the student to duplicate exactly the ideas of others, thus discouraging independent thought? It might be said that the other artistic dsciplines also study the works of others; photographers study Ansel Adams, and painters study Monet and Leonardo. I would agree, but I must point out that the purpose of this study is to encourage perfection of the student's creative ability, and not to promote a slavish copying of the works of others, as is the case with music. No one studies a portrait by Leonardo so they can then copy it in exact detail; they study it to learn principles which can be applied to their own original work. It might also be said that if we neglect the study of music performance, no one will know how to play the great musical works of bygone centuries, but I think that this argument is illogical in two ways. First, if we teach students how to compose their own works, we must of necessity teach them how to read music, and it would be the easiest thing for that student to perform other's as well as their own musical compositions. Secondly, I am not advocating a total abandonment of the teaching of musical performance; that would be as silly as not teaching children how to write if they can already speak. I believe that the neglect of compositional education fosters an erronous attitude toward original thought by subtly telling the student the the older works are more worthy of study than the student's own compositions -- an axiom which can only be proven true or false by the passage of long periods of time. This also causes the student to regard the older works as "normal", and if his own work differs substantially from what has gone before, he will be led to believe that it is in some way "abnormal" or "deviant". The solution to this problem is simple: to teach musical composition, as well as technical ability on the student's instrument of choice, thereby enabling the student to fully realize his potential as an artist. Back |