Essay On Music Education

As a Music Educator, I personally believe that music, itself, is a powerful language that can evoke the deepest of emotions and to enable us to find ourselves.

The first of my personal beliefs is that all students, regardless of their abilities or background, are musical, and should be given the opportunity to learn and discover their hidden potential. Through a mixture of informal and non-formal teaching and learning approaches in Music, students will find value and take charge of their own learning in one way or another. In informal teaching and learning, students are self-directed and will most likely be learning music aurally through music recordings with their peers whilst the teacher acts as a facilitator from the sides and not give

Musicking, or to music, ‘is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing’ (Small,1998, p.90). As musicking takes centre stage in the teaching and learning of music in my classes, students are more engaged in their learning and are able to relate to what they are learning and take charge of it as well. Complementing this is a key principle of music education by Keith Swanwick – “fluency first before music literacy” (Swanwick,2012). Fluency in this instance is the ability to learn by ear, which eventually will tap on the use of extended musical memory and improvisation which are essential in musicking. Whilst summing up his philosophical perspective on music education, Swanwick claimed that “music has the potential to take us beyond ourselves, our own small space in time and our local tribe,” and that teachers have the ability to align their curricular experiences in ways that are suited for extending knowledge and building on the students’ capacity for knowing and understanding music more fully