Music Matters: Why I Don't Feel Included in These Musics or Matters

Abstract

As I read David Elliott's (1995) book, Music Matters, I do not see my experiences in teaching and learning music, the ones that I puzzle over, the challenges and successes that I value as profound learning opportunities represented. I see my musical training and all that I am supposed to know about explained well and even explained anew. I do not think that Elliott intentionally left me out of his book, and I think he will argue that he meant to include me and, perhaps, that I am even in there. Our differences are based on our identities as musicians, and the problem is that my identity has shifted radically since my formal education in to the extent that I feel as if I barely fit into the category of music educator. As a feminist (a precarious title at best) I am no longer accepting of the ways girls are positioned and neglected in musicing, or the ways boys are damaged by too much privileging, and I want these concerns and problematic identities on the table, or in the book. More recently, I have started working with city kids in a youth choir who have challenged me with race and class issues and taught me that education methods are not universal; they legitimize the experiences of white suburban children. Identity issues of city children are not part of our professional conversations or teacher training. So how do I write myself, the experiences I have had, and the students I work with into this book, or at least clarify our presence? I will pry open Elliott's definition of musicing with help from Christopher Small (1990) who agrees that is a verb, but finds musical meaning by centering on relationships in relationships between person and person, between person and society, between humanity and the natural world, etc. (p. 5). I will also argue that a primary reason for making is identity affirmation, and that Elliott has hinted at this in his text, but mostly he is concerned with technical and performative aspects of musicing which offer musicers limited identities. Because context is the playground for identity formation, I will visit Elliott's discussion of context and offer some extensions. I then give several examples from my own teaching of contexts that suggest diversified issues for Elliott's theorizing. As an aside, I approach all of this from my feminist politics that celebrates and recognizes difference. In this paper, I do not plan to spin out or

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