Since post-war II, music education has advocated its presumed aesthetic benefits. "Aesthetic advocacy" became instituted through the abundance of publications by Bennett Reimer (e.g., 1970, 1989, 1995, 2003). That aesthetic meme is still influential. The debate about "Music Education as Aesthetic Education" MEAE may be…

The Tractate was written following the first meeting of leading music education scholars in Buffalo. It was not, however intended as a scholarly essay. Rather, it was a declaration of assorted, numerous issues the next few meetings of founding MayDay Group members could engage with in organizing efforts at creating an organization predicated on…

The overlapping of pragmatic philosophy and the Aristotelian concept of praxis is explored with application to music and music education. John Dewey's philosophy of "Art as Experience" is contrasted with tacit aesthetic assumptions about music that music teachers often hold as a result of the aesthetic meme inherited from their…

Music is a human action (praxis), guided by intentionality, that embodies sociality. The many significant "social" values of music, however, get lost in high-minded but faulty claims that music's essential value is to promote aesthetic experience. A survey of some basic aesthetic premises demonstrates that claims for "proper"…

This paper explores the effects and problems of one highly influential default setting of the "normal style template" of music education and proposes some alternatives. These do not require abandoning all traditional templates for school music. But re-setting the default settings does depend on reconsidering the promised function of…

Music education has many "elephants" in its classrooms: obvious major problems that go unmentioned and suffered silently. Two of the larger, more problematic "elephants" are identified, analyzed, and critiqued: (1) the hegemony of university schools of music on school music and the resulting focus in school music on…

This response by Thomas A. Regelski was solicited to complement the lead article in this issue, "Toward Convergence: Adapting Music Education to Contemporary Society and Participatory Culture" by Evan S. Tobias. The author notes that many interesting and vital questions and alternatives that are often studiously ignored, overlooked, or taken for…

In a seminal article, Philip Alperson (1991) first argued that a proper philosophy of music and music education should account for all musical "praxis." Nonetheless, his introduction of the concept of praxis into the philosophical discourse of music education seems to occasion either a yawn or hostility, despite having a much longer and more solid…

Axiology is the philosophical discipline that studies questions of value. It is centrally concerned, then, with both the arts and with ethics and morality. Music teaching clearly involves questions of musical value and, because the wellbeing of students is at stake, teaching engages a wide range of ethical responsibilities. However, music…

In his recent monograph, Chris Higgins (2011) offers a remarkably original, thoughtful, and provocative argument for "an ethics of professional practice" for teachers. His study brings together a wealth of ideas and authors not often discussed in relation to each other, and it draws out elusive themes and ideas often overlooked in most…

Considered socially, musical values are always relative in practice to the uses and purposes of observers, thus accounting for the variety of meanings and values different people--even experts--derive from the same musical occasion, or the different meanings and values the same person experiences on different occasions. Music education is a…

The "music appreciation as contemplation" paradigm of traditional aesthetics and music education assumes that music exists to be contemplated for itself. The resulting distantiation of music and music education from life creates a legitimation crisis for music education. Failing to make a noteworthy musical difference for society, a politics of…

Discusses how the outgrowth of the praxial philosophy in music education is misunderstood and has led to a lack of informed dialogue on the differences between praxis and philosophical bases for music education. Presents an interpretation of Aristotle's idea of praxis and considers praxis in terms of implications for music education. (CMK)

With its focus on reason and science, the 18th century began a history of increased specialization. As a result, professional degrees and certificates eventually came to define and control practices that had once been the domains of amateurs. By the end of the 19th century, many practices of lay enthusiasts had been pushed aside; where they were…

The idea of praxis, and thus the idea of music as praxis, is not widely known in the fields of music and music education. Nonetheless, musicians and music teachers typically take for granted as sacrosanct the noble sounding, metaphysical, even spiritual profundity of music hypothesized by mainstream aesthetic philosophies. Thus accounts of music…