Music Learning and Language Learning

Abstract

The extent to which research programs based on either the organismic or the mechanistic (Pepper, 1942) model contribute to our understanding of music learning is debatable.In practice, many teachers engage in their daily teaching activities without considering the theoretical bases upon which their teaching approaches are founded.However, in music, as in other disciplines, a great difference exists between the two models in the naturalistic descriptions of fundamental human activities and theoretical explanations of cognitive processes.Constructivism is rooted in the organismic model (Overton, 1984).In an organismic-based research program, humans are studied from the perspective that they are innately active and that they possess "inherent organization and psychological functions" (p.202).Living organisms are the source of action in that they act upon the environment.For example, the plant metaphor may be used to describe inherent organization in that the seed is genetically predisposed to blossom a particular color and to grow to a particular height.Researchers such as Werner (1948), Piaget (1952), and Chomsky (1965) provide examples of theories that are fundamentally organismic in nature.On the other hand, empiricism is rooted in the

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