Review
Author(s): Acton Ostling, Jr.
Review by: Acton Ostling, Jr.
Source: The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 120-122
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3332739
Accessed: 09-05-2016 13:00 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Journal of Aesthetic Education
This content downloaded from 209.175.73.10 on Mon, 09 May 2016 13:00:57 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
120 Book Reviews
MUSIC, MIND, AND EDUCATION, by Keith Swanwick. London and
New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1988, 169 pp., $49.95, $16.95
paper.
There are times when it appears nearly impossible to reconcile information
obtained from the disciplines of psychology and philosophy. Often the re-
search specificity of the one tends to militate against the more global con-
cerns of the other. Since the conclusions of professionals in each field often
appear diverse and unrelated, if not in direct conflict, it is an eminently
knowledgeable nonprofessional who can provide a service by fusing
thoughts and forcing cohesion. Keith Swanwick has accomplished this in
Music, Mind, and Education-not unlike the effort of H. G. Wells in his Out-
line of History.
Mind, rather than "the mind," is significant in the title. Music develops
mind, and by "mind" the author means to avoid any idea of a calculating or
reading machine. To Swanwick "mind comprises the great network of sym-
bolic processes that human cultures have generated, sustained, and refined
through the ages." The overall view of the book is that formal music educa-
tion is inevitably and essentially musical criticism, in the best sense of that
term.
In introductory remarks the author relates that just about the time when
the writings of Susanne Langer had almost convinced him what music really
is, he had to encounter the phenomenon of mass-distributed popular music
and new challenges for any theory of music in compulsory schooling.
Swanwick, who is Professor of Music Education in London University, is a
practicing musician and educator whose professional interests lead to seek-
ing a high degree of knowledge in both music psychology and philosophy.
He expresses frustration over a lack of direction and a tendency toward ir-
relevant mechanistic diversions found in much music psychology, and
sought some remedy through the development of a useful theory appli-
cable to musical response, teaching, and curriculum.
At the outset I must betray enthusiasm for the book and its success in
fusing ideas from varied sources into just such a cohesive theory which
flexibly applies not only to the tracing of musical development in children,
but also the process all persons go through upon encountering music, each
time, no matter what level of age or experience. This is accomplished
through the image of a spiral-the result of observational research and
evaluation of children's compositions with assistance from colleague June
Tillman--differently conceived than that of the spiral curriculum devel-
oped in this country after Bruner. This spiral contains four response levels
and eight developmental modes-four to its left, four to its right. It con-
firms stages of development as taking place in sequence and asserts that
certain developments may be necessary for later stages to occur. It also con-
firms the valuing of music in a true sense through understanding.
Various opposites such as traditional values/focus on children, acousti-
cal materials/expressive character, instruction/encounter, cultural exclu-
siveness/intercultural, subjective dreaming/imaginative play, transferring
culture/transcending culture, bits-and-pieces/Gestalt, labeling/valuing,
This content downloaded from 209.175.73.10 on Mon, 09 May 2016 13:00:57 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Book Reviews 121
behavioral objectives/tacit knowing, are sampled and reconciled for as-
pects each might offer in the setting of compulsory schooling. Rather than
choosing sides in various theoretical debates, the author is able to combine
disparate ideas into one cohesive theory which views several of them more
as interactive extremes--pendulum swings if you will--rather than
conflicting opposites.
The book offers useful suggestions for dealing with the phenomenon of
mass-distributed popular music-indeed any music charged with extra-
musical labeling or status. Swanwick discusses impediments that can occur
at various levels of musical response and can interfere with receiving music
as music--even through the selling of classical music. ("Thrill to virtuoso
performances... you'll discover a depth of enjoyment in music that many
people never find.") A chapter devoted to "what makes music musical" con-
cludes with an interesting chart of five successive levels of musical response
and concomitant distractions that can interfere at each level. It is suggested
that "we avoid labeling altogether until the music has been really experi-
enced" and that "when music has become embroiled in local cultural prac-
tice or fads we would do well to avoid it in the curriculum."
Regarding intercultural presentations the author believes that musical
meaning is abstract enough to "travel" across boundaries of culture and
that we must work with musical processes as though they had a degree of
autonomy. Rather than leaving the reader with broad generalizations, the
author suggests specific procedures, often drawn from various kinds of re-
search. Swanwick realistically discusses limits to what the institution of the
school can and should try to accomplish and offers some reassuring state-
ments such as, "Teachers cannot be expected to be skilled in all the musics
of the world, but they must be sensitive to many and skilled in at least one."
The book does not include footnotes, but all thoughts from others are
amply attributed through more than 160 short (unintrusive) parenthetical
citations relating to a list of 138 references at the conclusion of the text.
Swanwick uses as illustrations (both pro and con) ideas or quotations from
such prominent names as Langer, Dewey, Margaret Mead, Bruner, Piaget,
Howard Gardner, Jacques-Dalcroze, Orff, Kodaly, Leonard Meyer,
Hanslick, and Freud, among others, and this variety alone makes the work
a valuable synthesizing experience. Of its 169 pages, 14 are devoted to the
list of references and index. Upon first impression it seems a rather small
book, but this is deceptive. The printing is readable (in the paperback edi-
tion reviewed) but somewhat reduced. Therefore, more is compressed into
its pages than an initial judgment by size would suggest, and the variety
and density of material consumes more reading time than an average text
of 155 pages does.
One disadvantage which the book has for American readers is its use of
British idiosyncrasies and acronyms presented in the text as though the
reader were familiar with them. Most acronyms can be found in full, but by
having to search the reference list. The impact of illustrating a point with
the difference between Radio 3 and Radio 1, for example, is somewhat less-
ened for those not familiar with the specific difference between them. It
This content downloaded from 209.175.73.10 on Mon, 09 May 2016 13:00:57 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
122 Book Reviews
must be added, however, that this factor in no way affects one's general un-
derstanding of the text and its conclusions.
An interesting contrast is provided through two lists of music education
maxims: one from composer/educator Murray Schafer (1975) and the other
from a Victorian piano teacher, Mrs. Curwen (1886). In terms of the book's
discussion of classification and framing in curriculum and teaching, the two
lists initially seem at odds. Yet Swanwick finds a common bond in the re-
spect each shows for the student and for the virtues of knowledge through
discovery. He sees each, despite their vastly different times, as indicative of
pendulum swings within his spiral.
At the beginning of this review I mentioned the Wells Outline of History.
The following is taken from his explanation of that book's task and intent:
And so this mental stir... found him... specially disposed to take a
comprehensive view of past and present things ... high standards of
detailed accuracy make it hopeless for us to go to the historians for
what is required.... To them one must look for accumulated mate-
rial, rather than assembled and massed effects.... This or that spe-
cialist might rage at his scandalous neglect of this or that precious
item of that specialist's monopoly; it would not matter very much ...
simpler undertaking was to collect, arrange, determine the propor-
tion of the parts and phases of the great adventure ... and write ... a
digest of a great mass of material.., .in the character of a popular
writer considering the needs of ordinary citizens like himself.
Swanwick has provided more than a digest, it is a fusion. Yet substitute
"knowledgeable" for "popular writer," and "music educators" for "ordi-
nary citizens," and the sentiments from this totally different work particu-
larly seem to summarize and mirror the importance of Swanwick's book.
Acton Ostling, Jr.
University of Louisville
This content downloaded from 209.175.73.10 on Mon, 09 May 2016 13:00:57 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
