Christian Musicians Who Know Teach More Effectively part 1

Christian Musicians Who Know Teach More Effectively part 1

            Some Christian music educators, who are not praxialists, seem to live under the false impression that a music education praxis that requires musical performance as a major part of its goals is a late twentieth or early twenty first century notion.  For this reason I am including a quote from Aristotle (c. 384 BC—c.322 BC) about his philosophy of educating young people to be able to make quality judgments concerning music.  “We must now return to the question raised earlier—must they learn to sing themselves and play instruments with their own hands?  Clearly actual participation in performing is going to make a big difference to the quality of the person that will be produced; it is impossible, or at any rate very difficult, to produce good judges of musical performance from among those who have never themselves performed.  And all that we have been saying makes it clear that musical education must include actual   performing; and it is not difficult to decide what is appropriate and what is not for different ages, or to find an answer to those who assert that learning to perform is vulgar and degrading.  Since, as we have seen, actual performance is needed to make a good critic, they should while young do much playing and singing, and then, when they are older, give up performing; they will then, thanks to what they have learned in their youth, be able to enjoy music aright and give good judgments.”  Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin.  Music in the Western World A History of Documents. P. 11, quoting Aristotle’s The Politics (part of 307—316)

                Why should Christian music educators be concerned with musical performance in the process of developing a student’s life-long preparation in music?  As Aristotle put it centuries ago, performing is essential to the development of a person who will be able to make “good judgments” about music.  One of music education’s major problems in the twenty first century is the failure to develop Christians who understand musical performance and what it is capable of doing to the whole-life of the performer and listener.  The music appreciator must have the ability to perform or as Aristotle asserted it will be “impossible, or at any rate very difficult” to prepare a person to make quality life-long decisions of music’s quality and value.