Multicultural Musics in the Classroom · 2008. 11. 15. · Multicultural Music Education 2 Abstract At a time when “we are no longer citizens of only one country but also citizens

Multicultural Music Education 1

Running head: MULTICULTURAL MUSIC EDUCATION

Multicultural Musics in the Classroom:

Acts of Violence or Acts of Love?

Susan Davis

E20.2055 Cultural Psychology

May 5, 2008


Abstract

At a time when “we are no longer citizens of only one country but also citizens of the world”

(Hugonnier, 2007, p. 139), multiculturalism in education is an imperative. However,

incorporating multiculturalism into education in a sensitive and dynamic manner can often be

complicated. In this paper I examine the responsibility of music educators in the United States to

provide a truly multicultural music education to their students. I investigate issues of

malpractice, authenticity, and race as potential acts of violence and intercultural sensibilities,

dialogue and a respectful mind as potential acts of love.


Multicultural Musics in the Classroom:

Acts of Violence or Acts of Love?

Music education philosophy in the last century has tended toward a tripartite classroom

model: imperialistic, paternalistic, and egalitarian. The music teacher’s role in an imperialistic

classroom is to perpetuate reverence for the highest forms of art. Western classical music is

privileged, particularly that of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and their ilk, while other styles are

considered inferior. Within a paternalistic classroom, the teacher takes on the authoritative role

of determining the music studied. More styles may be accepted than in an imperialistic setting,

yet only the teacher has the power to choose music worthy of study. In the egalitarian classroom,

however, power is shared amongst the teacher and students. Everyone in the class ideally has the

chance to determine the music studied and all music is deemed worthy of exploration. Some

teachers choose to meander between these three frameworks as their personal philosophies shift.

I would suggest that in the 21st century, where “New global realities increasingly define the

contexts in which youth growing up live, learn, love, and work,” (Suárez-Orozco & Sattin, 2007,

p. 11) the music education classroom can no longer propagate the imperialistic and paternalistic

models of music education. We can no longer allow "monocultural music education in a

multicultural world” (Robinson, 2002, p. 230). All teachers must embrace the egalitarian music

classroom or they will be in danger of engendering violent acts of oppression toward their

students.

Although multicultural music education was initiated in the United States in the early

1900’s, the powerful models of imperialism and paternalism have kept multicultural music

education from gaining widespread acceptance until the last twenty or thirty years of the 20th

century. Unfortunately, higher education institutions training public school music teachers have


often been the leading proponents of imperialistic music education (Belz, 2006). Tides began to

turn in 1967 at the Tanglewood Symposium, a gathering intended to define a unified United

States music education philosophy (Reimer, 2002). The educators present drew up The

Tanglewood Declaration and included the designation that “The musical repertory should be

expanded to involve music of our time in its rich variety, including currently popular teenage

music and avant-garde music, American folk music, and the music of other cultures” (p. 3). This

validation of multicultural music initiated the burgeoning of multicultural music education into

the latter half of the 20th century and continues today in the 21st century.

Prominent North American music educators, including Patricia Shehan Campbell, Terese

Volk and David Elliott have in many ways devoted their careers to advocacy and promotion of

multicultural music education. Today multicultural music is mandated in many states’ learning

standards for the arts. New York State learning standard four (New York State Education

Department [NYSED], 1996), “Understanding the Cultural Dimensions and Contributions of the

Arts,” states, “Students will develop a performing and listening repertoire of music of various

genres, styles, and cultures that represent the peoples of the world and their manifestations in the

United States. Students will recognize the cultural features of a variety of musical compositions

and performances and understand the functions of music within the culture” (p. 2) While such

state acknowledgement of the value of multicultural music is welcomed and imperative, the

practical implementation of multicultural music in the classroom is not without difficulties.

Any time we take a cultural artifact or experience out of its original context we risk

enacting violence on the artifact and the people who created it. Any time we engage in the act of

teaching, we risk alienating and oppressing our students. Any time we attempt to contextualize

an experience that is foreign to our own view of the world, we risk misrepresenting the


happening and all who customarily engage in it. How then, as music educators, do we handle the

responsibility that has been entrusted to us – that of providing a truly multicultural music

education to our students? Is it possible to perform and engage multicultural music in the

classrooms of the United States without engendering acts of violence toward other cultures? Can

music classrooms be instead a place of empowerment and acts of love toward all students?

The purpose of this paper is to examine multicultural music education as it is practiced in

United States public school classrooms today and to determine the answers to the questions

posed above. My reason for doing so is threefold: (1) many music educators still endorse the

paternalistic mindset of the classroom, limiting the scope of multicultural musics introduced to

students (2) music teachers who do choose to introduce multicultural musics often treat them like

Western classical pieces in terms of analysis and performance, thereby diluting their genuineness

(3) the 21st century issues of migration and globalization “on steroids” (Suárez-Orozco, Class

lecture notes, April, 17, 2008) call for a radical shift in the music education paradigm. I will

begin by defining multicultural music education, then I will consider potential acts of violence in

multicultural music education - including malpractice, inauthenticity, racism and oppression -

and potential acts of love – including open dialogue, intercultural sensibilities, and a respectful

and ethical mind (Gardner, 2006). Finally, I will weave these ideas into a charge for the future of

public school music education programs.

Multicultural Music Education

What is multicultural music education? Dunbar-Hall (2002) writes of the phrase:

Despite its global use, the term is confusing because each of its three words has its own

sets of contexts, implications, and agendas. The result is that, when all three are

combined, they produce another hybrid set of meanings. One of the main problems with


the phrase multicultural music education, then, is that, because its three levels of

reference are rarely separated, subsequent discussion tends to lack clarity, agreement on

definition, and direction in educational philosophy, teaching strategies, and expected

outcomes. (p. 58)

Many others have likewise deemed the phrase problematic (Volk, 2002; Lundquist, 2002;

Palmer, 2002; Szego, 2005). For the purpose of this discussion, I will use multicultural music

education in an inclusive sense: referring not only to studying the musics of people from other

countries, but also to examining the music of minority populations within the United States, to

looking at jazz music, popular music forms, traditional Western art forms and varieties of

electronic music. My intent is to establish an egalitarian education dynamic where all musics are

acceptable and open to inquiry.

David Elliott’s praxial music education philosophy endorses this diversification of

curricula. Being focused on the human activity of music making, Elliott argues, “If MUSIC1

consists in a diversity of music cultures, then MUSIC is inherently multicultural. And if MUSIC

is inherently multicultural, then music education ought to be multicultural in essence” (1995, p.

207). Elliott (1989) has proposed a “dynamic multiculturalism” in music, after the work of

Pratte. This dynamic multicultural curriculum is inductive (students formulate ideas from the

bottom up), interactive (all students participate and communicate) and inclusive (all cultures are

valued and no one music is revered above another). Elliott feels that a dynamic multicultural

model has the potential to offer students the possibility of relating both to world musics and to

1 Elliott (1995) specifies MUSIC as the meta-description “diverse human practice,” Musics as worldwide individual musical practices, and music as specific sound events. (p. 44)


world peoples. This dynamism is the essence of what I envision a truly multicultural music

education should entail.

Acts of Violence

When music teachers take the musical expressions of another culture and fail to

understand the music in a genuine context; when music teachers selectively perform

multicultural musics only on holidays (e.g., Cinco de Mayo or the Chinese New Year); when

music teachers choose to interpret multicultural musics through the Western traditional lens

(evaluating the formal elements of music: pitch, rhythm, dynamics, harmony, etc.), they may be

unwittingly acting as “cultural invaders.” Freire explains that cultural invaders "penetrate the

cultural context of another group in disrespect of the latters potentialities; they impose their own

view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing

their expression” (Freire, 2007, p. 152). Freire calls this practice "an act of violence" whether it

is sophisticated or harsh. Watkinson (1997) elaborates on this notion of violence in education:

The culture of violence built into the bricks and mortar of schools is acted out in the

classrooms, the halls, and the playgrounds. Rarely is the violence motivated by ill will. In

fact, to many, the policies and practices appear normal - quite ordinary - even harmless.

But if these ordinary and everyday policies and practices burden or harm students

psychologically, mentally, culturally, spiritually, economically, or physically, then they

are violent. (p. 6)

In keeping with this delineation of violence, I propose that music teachers must be cautious of

the following acts of violence, when undertaking a multicultural music education curriculum:

malpractice, inauthenticity, racism and oppression.


In the field of medicine, malpractice is defined as “professional negligence (by a

healthcare provider) that causes an injury” (Wikipedia, 2008). In the field of education we do not

customarily use this term, however I would suggest that teachers might also fall prey to

educational malpractice. Teachers that neglect proper training, research, and preparation for their

areas of discipline are in danger of causing psychological, emotional and cognitive injuries to

their students.

The case of music teachers engaging with multicultural music education is no exception.

While public schools and government agencies advocate for multicultural music education, most

higher education teacher training programs completely neglect or limit their course offerings in

multicultural music education. Robinson (2002) has acknowledged that, "The majority of the

world's music traditions are currently left out in the training of musicians and music teachers” (p.

230).

I recently examined the course offerings at multiple music education programs in New

York State to see where multicultural music education is positioned in the curriculum. At Ithaca

College, music education majors are required to take one class called, “Multicultural

Perspectives in Music Education” and they may also have the opportunity to participate in

special programs of African singing and drumming circles. In the State University of New York

(SUNY) at Potsdam, there is one class offered in “Multiculturalism in the Classroom” and,

similar to Ithaca, African drumming is offered for student participation. African drumming

ensembles are also part of the program at SUNY Fredonia, however the college does not appear

to have any classes solely devoted to multicultural music education. Here at New York

University (NYU), graduate music education majors can take a course offered in Community

Music that engages multiple nontraditional, multi-ethnic music making settings, however there is


no performance requirement linked to this class. Of course, multicultural music education may

be inserted into methods classes at NYU, Queens College, Columbia University and Brooklyn

Conservatory of Music, to name a few, but there are no courses at these New York City based

universities completely devoted to making and teaching multicultural musics. How can that be

considered adequate teacher preparation?

Most of the programs training the very teachers who are supposed to implement

multicultural music education practices in public school are still entrenched in the imperialistic

mindset privileging the study of Western classical art music. They themselves are not venturing

into the unfamiliar terrain of the music of Others. Gardner writes, “Models set by teachers

constitute a crucial starting point” (2006, p. 110). If music teachers are not given multicultural

music education models to emulate in college, they will have a substantial challenge ahead of

them in their careers.

If a teacher has not been exposed to multicultural musics during their post-secondary

experience, how do they prepare to teach such musics to their students? They are forced to

educate themselves, through research, community music programs, private lessons on

nontraditional instruments, and conference sessions. This leads to a wide array of practices.

Some teachers will take time to travel and study with true culture bearers in a musical practice.

Some teachers will cautiously introduce their students to multicultural musics through videos and

other forms of media. Some teachers will choose to teach the multicultural songs printed in their

music texts, not knowing if they are truly authentic, and not understanding the historical and

cultural contexts behind the music. Some teachers will completely ignore the imperative to teach

multicultural musics out of fear or because of their own lack of training.


Educational malpractice can be a byproduct of many of these situations. Teachers who

simply show videos don’t allow their students the opportunity to engage musics of many peoples

through performance and to appreciate them in an embodied way. Students who learn in a

procedural manner, where they participate in musical tasks through singing, playing,

improvising, and performing musical works, exhibit a wider distribution of brain activity and

show more long-term effects of learning (Altenmüller, Gruhn, Parlitz, and Liebert, 2000; Gruhn,

2004). In addition, if a dialogue about the cultures and contexts of music making does not

accompany video viewings, it is likely that students will passively watch the videos without

retaining any significant messages of intercultural acceptance and value (Abril, 2006a).

Teachers who sporadically choose so-called multicultural musics out of mandated texts

risk the possibility that the musics have been Westernized (Palmer, 1992). In some cases a modal

melody may be transferred and assigned chords in a more traditional Western fashion. In other

cases, ornaments are removed from elaborately embellished melodies or lyric translations are

imprecise and inadequate. Some teachers may choose to use a Westernized multicultural work as

a teaching tool or to open up dialogue, which is understandable. However, the real damage is

done when teachers do not investigate the legitimacy of the musics they share and instead pass

off music as representative of a culture when it is really a deceptive fabrication.

Teachers who do not even engage musics outside of their “comfort zone,” however, send

implicit messages to students that these musics are not valued nor are they respected. This can be

a critical dynamic in New York City classrooms where students in one class may hail from India,

Puerto Rico, Haiti, Mexico, the Philippines, mainland China and the United States. If, for

example, Hindustani music, Mariachi, Salsa or Cantonese Opera are never explored or

acknowledged, the identities of students from these cultures in the class may be marginalized by


the hidden curriculum privileging Western music. This is a form of what Crowther (2003) calls

tacit cultural exclusionism. In this case, classroom practices affirm the superiority of one culture

over another, but in subtle ways, as “broader attitudes embedded within institutions and

practices…. neither recognized nor intended as exclusionist” (p. 121). Gardner (2006) has also

recognized that “The literary, graphic, and experiential curricula selected by teachers; the way

that these curricula materials are treated; and perhaps, especially, the materials that are not

selected or are prematurely dismissed exert a powerful effect” (p. 110). Tacit exclusionism is

potentially the most “violent” form of educational malpractice because its imperialistic nature

subconsciously serves to reinforce the perceived prejudicial divide between United States

citizens and Others (meaning immigrants).

The reification act of transferring musical artifacts and experiences into a multicultural

music classroom inevitably also generates questions of authenticity. “To what degree [is]

compromise…acceptable before the essence of a music is lost and no longer representative of the

tradition under study?” (Palmer, 1992, p. 32) In other words, to what degree is compromise

acceptable before music becomes an inauthentic representation of its culture? How do teachers

remain authentic to a culture, a musical style, a context and the meaning of multicultural musics?

Palmer sees values of authenticity as moving along a continuum from “Absolute Authenticity,”

to Compromise. He characterizes absolute authenticity as:

1. performance by the culture's practitioners, recognized generally by the culture as

artistic and representative;

2. use of instruments as specified by the composer or group creating the music;

3. use of the correct language as specified by the composer or group creating the music;

4. for an audience made up by the culture's members; and


5. in a setting normally used in the culture. (p. 32-3)

Based on this definition, typical multicultural music education is automatically inauthentic,

because it is removed at very least from the cultural setting and the culture’s members (the

audience). Abril explicates the passage from the primary or authentic source to the end users –

the school. He writes:

In school, music is separated from its primary source many times over. Music is passed

from its primary source (composer, grandmother) to an intermediary (arranger,

performer, notation, recording) and channeled through a publisher or presenter to the

teacher and finally to students. To confound matters, there are variants of melodies,

lyrics, dances, games, and performance styles. (2006b, p. 40)

Palmer’s conclusion, which Abril echoes, is that the burden of authenticity lies with the

sensitivity of the music educator in the act of reinterpreting world musics for their students. The

teacher must proceed with “appropriate respect” for the traditions under study, or risk damage to

the identity of students, and their perceptions of varied cultural representations.

If a teacher does not adequately research the context of a particular music she wants to

introduce, she may unknowingly offend her students or their families because of music’s many

complex meanings and associations. For example, Hindustani art music expressed through the

sarangi (a bowed type of lute from India) may be very beautiful and even entrancing to the

Western ear. Yet, it would be helpful for a teacher to know that this music is also associated with

the courtesan singers of brothels (Qureshi, 2000), having been used in acts of enticement. Indian

students in the class might be at very least perplexed, but even affronted by this choice of music

for classroom study if it were not addressed appropriately.


Similarly, teachers are not always able to create teaching environments that accurately

contextualize multicultural musics. Sloboda (2001) explores this notion regarding “techno”

music:

Techno is not ‘performed,’ ‘composed’ or ‘appraised’ within parameters that fit neatly

with UK National Curriculum formulations. The music is constructed in real time out of

computer-manipulated elements at the disposal of a DJ. Its primary function is to support

communal (but individualistic) dancing designed to induce certain altered states of

awareness. Dancers may only experience the intended effects after several continuous

hours of engagement. A short extract experienced in a classroom setting provides an

incomplete, even misleading, basis for appraisal. The basis for valid appraisal exists only

for someone attending a techno club and dancing to the music. No classroom teacher

could hope to adequately address issues relating to techno with their students without

specific understanding of, and exposure to, that sub-genre and its role for its habitual

users. (p. 248-249)

Sloboda acknowledges that the meaning of techno is only truly manifest while dancing in a

techno club. A teacher must comprehend this and perhaps even experience it himself, in order to

engage students in a worthwhile discussion and participatory lesson. Otherwise, the value that

students attribute to techno music, especially if they own it, might be disparaged and dismissed

as superficial.

Szego (2005) also fears that multicultural music education not informed by true culture

bearers may be detrimental. She admits to being hesitant to performing West African music with

her students because of her own lack of direct knowledge. She also empathizes with the inner

conflict of a Euro-American colleague who refuses to perform spirituals with his children’s choir


because he grew up in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960’s and he saw firsthand the atrocious

treatment of African-Americans during early school integration. He does not feel he can

adequately represent the emotion and depth of meaning the spirituals had during that time period

to his choir members. Some may consider his conviction to be unreasonable. Or, perhaps his

sensitivity should be commended. Szego uses this example to express the “highly personal

conditions” that can underpin even a very popular musical form and our need to be sympathetic.

While Szego does call for engagement that is grounded in sensitivity, she does ultimately believe

that educators must engage the tensions brought about by pursuing authentic performance

representations.

Another area of latent tension that can often be overlooked in multicultural music

education is the dynamic of race and racism. Bradley (2006) has tackled this issue because of her

concerns about race and privilege in music education. She writes about the persistent

imperialistic attitude in music education, particularly higher education – that certain styles of

music are associated with “aesthetic wealth” and others “aesthetic poverty.” She specifically

refers to the College Music Society’s vision statement that expresses disdain for “primal forms of

artistic expression,” (p. 4) linking them to crime and homelessness. Bradley expresses that this

statement exhibits a covert form of racism. She goes on to argue in the article that

multiculturalism is really a coded word for race and she believes that “our failure to recognize

how race haunts our projects of multiculturalism contributes to reproducing the status quo” (p.

11). She conveys disappointment in the way that multicultural musics may be used in music

programs merely as “something different;” something to “spice up” the concert. This can be an

exploitation of culture and race. Bradley suggests that anti-racism education, as opposed to

simply multiculturalism, is needed to dismantle prejudicial attitudes.


Szego, similarly, (2005) warns, “Sometimes only a small gesture given in the absence of

substance - like putting a sombrero on the recorder player who toots “Guantanamera” - has the

capacity to fix a stereotypical image in students’ or audience members’ consciousness” (p. 213).

Szego is right to be wary of such stereotypical images. They serve to perpetuate

misunderstanding of other cultures and it is often misunderstanding that leads to fear or racism.

This music education practice of putting a sombrero on the recorder player who plays a Mexican

song, or having the girls who sing “Sakura” wear kimonos, or even having a fiddle club don

cowboy hats and boots is questionable. It seems comparable to Ruth Benedict’s acerbic criticism

(1934) of insular ethnological volumes:

Mating or death practices are illustrated by bits of behaviour [sic] selected

indiscriminately from the most different cultures, and the discussion builds up a kind of

mechanical Frankenstein’s monster with a right eye from Fiji, a left from Europe, one leg

from Tierra del Fuego, and one from Tahiti, and all the fingers and toes from still

different regions. Such a figure corresponds to no reality in the past or present…. (p. 49)

Music education programs that choose to endorse and display these simplistic representations of

culture are unsophisticated and they are ineffectual in the act of student’s “understanding the

cultural dimensions and contributions of the arts” (NYSED, 1996, p. 2).

Acts of Love

How then can we move from the problematization of multicultural music education into a

satisfactory space of resolution and progression? We must extend acts of love (Freire, 2007),

rather than perpetuate acts of violence. We must, as fellow teachers, move forward employing

both a respectful and ethical mind in our work in the classroom (Gardner, 2006). Teachers with a

respectful mind respond “sympathetically and constructively to differences among individuals


and among groups; seeking to understand and work with those who are different; extending

beyond mere tolerance and political correctness” (p. 157). Teachers with an ethical mind strive

toward “good work and good citizenship” (p. 158). They earnestly pursue a consistently

professional posture. Pragmatically, this means that teachers must respect all of their students

and endeavor to put aside preconceived notions of culture before they enter the classroom. They

must be willing to share a comprehensive world view of music with their students and be able to

engage in a dialogue that does not ignore the contexts of all music; including the historical,

political, social, cultural, religious, ceremonial, gender-driven, sexuality infused and stylistic

concerns, in an age-appropriate and sensitive way. Freire (2007) writes: “Founding itself upon

love, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust

between the dialoguers is the logical consequence” (p. 91).

If a teacher approaches multicultural musics with integrity and careful scholarship, both

students and teachers may gain greater understanding of their own and others’ cultures.

However, it is critical that a dialogue accompanies multicultural music activities. Abril (2006a)

found that students who learned in a strictly musical concept learning modality offered primarily

music-concept based responses to the sentence completion exercises, “I learned that…. And I

learned to….” However, students who were taught in a sociocultural modality, engaging in

discussions about performance styles, stereotypes and prejudice, expressed more openness

toward others’ music. We learn from this that the various methods of teaching multicultural

music education do have an impact on student learning outcomes. Abril cautions music educators

about the hazards of assuming multicultural music experiences alone are enough to advance

mindsets of tolerance and acceptance. He writes, “On the contrary, if educators do not engage


students in explicit discussion surrounding sociocultural issues, students may react negatively to

the unfamiliar musical styles or cultures” (p. 40).

Woodford (2005) is equally indignant about the lack of dialogue that is often the case in

school music classrooms. He argues:

The aim of multicultural music education is usually only to acculturate children to

existing cultural and group practices – that is, to develop their musical and cultural

literacy - and not to prepare them as individuals who can intelligently participate in the

shaping and hybridization of musical values or, in more extreme cases, choose to reject

values and practices judged overly restrictive, cruel, or inhumane. Children are supposed

to engage in musical border crossing and exploration, which is potentially liberating and

mind-expanding. But they are seldom encouraged to criticize music or to exercise “real”

choice. (p. 77)

Woodford remains skeptical about multicultural music education because of this failing.

However, I believe that open dialogue, in the manner of that recommended by Freire, is

encouraged and accepted more and more in the classroom. As many become cognizant of the

fact that the future earning potential in the United States economy relies on higher order thinking

patterns and the ability to synthesize information (Pink, 2005; Gardner, 2006), teachers are being

refocused to support meta-cognition and analysis of activities in the classroom. I think we can

also find hope in the words of bell hooks (as cited in Bradley, 2006): “multiculturalism compels

educators to recognize the narrow boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in

the classroom. It forces us all to recognize our complicity in accepting and perpetuating biases of

any kind” (p. 13). As we recognize our own participation in prejudice and misrepresentation, we


are able to dialogue with our students, creating a scaffold to support their exploration of musical

and cultural concerns.

David Elliott (2007) has recently advocated for music teachers to “socialize and

justice(!)” (p. 84) music education in this very manner. Elliott believes strongly that music

education is lagging behind other fields in bringing social justice issues to the foreground. Elliott

argues that music’s function has often been as a conduit for awareness and social change (e.g., a

voice for the Civil Rights movement or threatened minorities like the Inuit community of

Nunavut, Canada). Elliott exhorts, “We need to empower music students and music education

majors as artistic and socially just musical citizens [sic]” (p.87). Neglecting issues of social

justice, therefore, in the music classroom is actually an incomplete representation of the field of

music.

In addition to this kind of vigorous dialogue, students and teachers alike must nurture

intercultural sensibilities. Intercultural sensibilities are grounded in empathy, or “the ability to

stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts” (Pink, p. 159). This

quality must be cultivated at a time when, as Hugonnier (2007) says, “we are no longer citizens

of only one country but also citizens of the world” (p. 139). Süssmuth (2007) additionally

emphasizes that “educational policies must equip youth with the ability to live peacefully with

persons from other cultures, religions, ethnicities, and social backgrounds” (p. 202). I would add

that teachers must also be equipped to live amicably with others and model sensitivity to their

students.

Awareness of each student’s cultural orientation is imperative for teachers today to

prepare an appropriate multicultural music curriculum. Szego (2005) recalls Kushner’s work

with Muslim children in British schools where the children were forced to navigate conflicting


messages between school and home. In that particular case, the parents of the children were

telling them that singing and playing instruments is “morally suspect,” (p. 203) but the teachers

were encouraging the students to participate in musical activities. In many cases it takes time for

these obscured tensions to reveal themselves, but a teacher who is perceptive and knowledgeable

about possible junctures of cultural friction may be better equipped to anticipate or resolve such

matters considerately.

Bradley (2006) writes about striving to develop multicultural human subjectivity in her

students, or the “processual, emergent category of practice characterized by acknowledged

feelings of connectedness to people in other places and cultures, in open-mindedness toward

previously unfamiliar cultures, and through concern for social justice” (p. 17). She refers to one

experience whereby her choir, the Mississauga Festival Youth Choir, learned the South African

freedom song Haleluya! Pelo Tsa Rona. As part of the process of learning the song, she

discussed with them the context of “apartheid, racism, and the ongoing fight for social justice” (p.

16) in South Africa. When the students performed the piece at Prison Fellowship International’s

convocation in Canada that year, the members of the South African delegation present

immediately jumped up and began singing and dancing with the choir. Bradley explains that this

moment of synergy between her Canadian youth choir and the South African delegates was a

tremendously meaningful event for many of her students. They had not completely perceived the

significance of that freedom song until they saw it claimed by the South Africans. Bradley

attributes part of the power of the experience to the dialogue that preceded the performance and

attempted to position this work of music in its original context.

Teachers who strive to immerse themselves in music and culture in an authentic manner

often act as models for developing such multicultural human subjectivity and intercultural


sensibilities. In the case of teacher, Kathy Armstrong (DesRochers, F., 2001), she traveled to

Ghana and studied with master drummer Kwasi for months. She learned from Kwasi, the culture

bearer, the pedagogical practices of Ghanaian drumming performance on authentic instruments,

but she also learned about cultural norms related to the musical practice. She learned that music

for the Ghanaian people is a way of communicating joy, grief, friendship, love, peace, nature and

contrition. It is linked to social norms, ceremonies, rituals and traditions. She saw this firsthand

and she respected the music in its natural environment. When she brought the singing, drumming

and dancing traditions back home, she was able to share her passion with her students.

Eventually, she arranged to bring a group of her students with her to Ghana to participate for

themselves in the music and the lives of this modest people. While in Ghana, they ate the food of

the people, they participated in their music, and observed their ceremonies. Kathy’s students

eagerly embraced the culture with respect and sensitivity even when they didn’t understand

completely the traditions. Ultimately they were exhilarated and humbled by the life-changing,

transnational experience.

Intercultural sensibilities can sometimes, however, lead to a pervasive fear of offending

others and, as a result, inactivity. Rasmussen (2004) offers comfort for those who experience

such ambivalent feelings about performing Other’s music with appropriate sensitivity.

My hang-up about playing the music of a people “whose blood doesn’t flow in my veins”

has pretty much dissipated after living in Indonesia researching Islamic musical arts for

two years (1995-96 and 1999). In Jakarta I witnessed live performance of rock and roll,

reggae, nuevo flamenco, jazz, oldies, Western art music, disco, pop-musak, Christian

hymns, and Arab religious and pop music - to name just a few of the kinds of “foreign”

music that Indonesians play professionally. Not only do Indonesians “cover” these


musics, I believe they identify with them as their own. Their attitudes have done much to

allay some of the insecurities I acquired through academic socialization about performing

music of the “Other.” [sic] (p. 217)

Should we say that the Indonesian’s performing rock and roll or reggae is inauthentic?

Rasmussen seems to feel that their experience has as much validity as that of a true culture

bearer. Johnson (2000) tackles this issue of the subjective and variable nature of authenticity in

the context of education. She compares the performance of a Colombian Christmas song by

children in Colombia to a performance of the same song by children in Canada at a school

concert. She suggests that any efforts to declare one of these performances more authentic than

the other are problematic and unproductive. Finally, Swanwick (as cited in Johnson, 2000) has

encouraged music educators not to be limited by stringent interpretations of authenticity. He

acknowledges the malleable and transformative nature of music as it passes from person to

person and generation to generation:

culture is not merely transmitted, perpetuated or preserved but is constantly being re-

interpreted. As a vital element of this process, music is - in the best sense of the term -

recreational; helping us and our cultures to renew, to transform. It is essentially human to

be at once an inheritor, part of a culture, and an innovator, creatively striving within or

against tradition. (p. 282)

Swanwick’s incisive description reminds us that music is ever transforming as composers and

songwriters push conventional boundaries, or different musical styles fuse together, or as

interpretations are informed by scholarly investigation.

Ultimately any multicultural music experience can take on authenticity if it is

experienced as such by the students involved. It can also, as we have discussed earlier, be


inauthentic and harmful. The crucial difference is a teacher who is able to engage points of

tension – inauthenticity, Westernized musical examples, hidden messages in lyrics, or multiple

interpretations – and create a safe environment for all students to express their feelings,

perceptions, even their dislike of the musical artifacts explored; and to metabolize the experience

in a new way. In this way, “Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the

process of becoming – as unfinished, uncompleted beings, in and with a likewise unfinished

reality” (Freire, 2007, p. 84).

Concluding thoughts

“Precious few schools today are organized to nurture the habits of mind, higher-order

cognitive and metacognitive skills, communication skills, interpersonal sensibilities, values, and

cultural sophistication needed to engage an ever more complex globally linked world” (Suárez-

Orozco & Sattin, 2007, p. 12). However, an excellent multicultural music education program has

the opportunity to develop these mental practices in students. Multicultural musics offer a safe

point of entry into discussions of culture, people, traditions, expression, perceptions, and identity.

Ideally, in an egalitarian multicultural music classroom, teachers would be cognizant of “cultural

validity, bias and practicality” (Abril, 2006b, p. 38) in selecting music, they would support both

teacher and student reflection and dialogue (Freire, 2007), they would model respectful and

ethical practices in both preparation and execution of planning lessons, and they would strive for

musics to mirror and oppose the identities and mindsets of their students so that class discussion

would be relevant and engaging. As Elliott (1995) writes, the “truly multi-cultural MUSIC

curriculum connects the individual self with the personhood of other musicers and audiences in

other times and places” (p. 209) and in so doing reinforces the habits of mind that Suárez-Orozco

and Sattin acknowledge. This is the kind of multicultural music education that I advocate for and


believe is imperative for the United States as we endeavor to meet the challenges posed by the

21st century. Future discussions need to address ways that we can ensure teachers receive the

training and preparation necessary to accomplish this massive undertaking.

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Multicultural Musics in the Classroom · 2008. 11. 15. · Multicultural Music Education 2 Abstract At a time when “we are no longer citizens of only one country but also citizens