Editorial

In The Educated Imagination, Northrop Frye asks us to imagine ourselves castaway on an uninhabited island in a southern sea. Beyond physical survival, and even the trappings of social life should we be joined by others, we might also come to dwell in a spiritual and imagined world expressed through such arts as poetry, dance, and music enacted through rituals and intertwined with myths. The stuff of this other reality that goes beyond the phenomenal world to express imaginative thought is especially characteristic of human beings. When we think of the arts, notwithstanding evidence of elephants and apes that paint or draw and cats and dogs that match or recognize particular musical pitches, we think especially of our own humanity. And should we be left on this island long enough, the world we create is likely to be imagined as well as physical.

What are likely to be the characteristics of this imagined world? Among them, we might expect it to be ethical in the sense of being associated with wider expectations of morality as the community establishes itself over time. We imagine, for example, parents teaching their children particular stories, poems, songs, and dances in the hope of cultivating the kinds of characteristics and dispositions that would make them good citizens of this community. Even though the music might not be explicitly ethical, nevertheless, musical practices have ethical valency in terms of excluding or including certain persons and valuing particular things. We might even think of establishing laws to govern conduct and the particular rights of specific people to be involved in making and taking music in certain ways.

This imagined world is also likely to be spiritual in the sense that it provides people with a sense of transcendence and imminence, of wonder, awe, mystery, and reverence for whatever lies beyond the phenomenal world and a greater sense of self-awareness, understanding, and consciousness of what lies within oneself. As such, the arts allow one to engage important existential questions: "Who am I?" "Where have I come from?" and "Where am I going?" that point outside oneself while also coming to a more profound sense of oneself. It is not that the arts explain these things so much that they present, enact, and clarify them for our understanding. Change is another quality we expect to encounter in this imagined world. Over time, change may transpire at differing rates, degrees, and in various respects. Were we not to constrict and restrain these artistic expressions, we might expect eventually to encounter a diversity of expression despite efforts to contain them within the frames of public expectations. And were sufficient time to pass, we might observe gradual changes and transformations in the norms and manifestations of these artistic creations.

Further, we would expect artistic imagination to be performative, that is, accomplished physically through such means as dancing to music, reciting of poems, singing of songs, playing of instruments, telling of stories, enacting of dramas, wearing of costumes, and painting of bodies. Rituals may also be created in which these imaginative expressions come together. We might expect certain people to have special affinity with particular arts and develop them to high levels of virtuosity while others may be content to watch, listen, and participate in artistic rituals as spectators and auditors and encourage those who may be in the limelight for a while. The physical enactment of imagination and its expression in artistic constructions would likely provide times of special delight and entertainment, serve to mark the social life of the community, and give voice to occasions of sorrow, joy, celebration, and the ordinary lived lives of individuals.

Writers in this issue deal with these matters specifically regarding music education. David Carr argues for the ethical connections with music and its role in "cultivating moral and spiritual virtue." Marja Heimonen links legal rights to music education and its aim to "create a more humane society in the spirit of ethical care for others." Anthony Palmer focuses on the experience of transcendence in his ongoing investigation of the spiritual dimensions of music education. Contra notions of control, containment, and the fear that breeds them, Randall Allsup...