Editorial

At a time of educational globalization and internationalization, societal and cultural upheavals in various parts of the world, and political, religious, economic, and educational turmoil and tension, it is important to revisit and rethink traditional answers to pervasive and compelling music educational questions. Our writers in this issue grapple with an array of these important issues. They ask educational and musical questions that concern the capacities and objectives that classroom music teachers need to possess and the ways in which such teachers need to be prepared; the possibility of transcultural musical understandings and how these can be fostered; the merits of transnational borrowing of instructional approaches and ways in which such borrowings might be undertaken critically and carefully; the value of a Dionysian approach to music education that emphasizes ecstasy and the role of rock music in promoting a Dionysian approach to today’s music classrooms; and the ways in which a holistic approach to music education complicates, considers, and connects the various aspects of cognition, embodiment, emotion, and sociality within musicking. The tenor of the times and the challenges posed by these questions suggest different habits of thought and practice than those that have traditionally characterized music educators. Notions of open-endedness, transcultural and transnational understandings of music and music education, comparative approaches to music education and music educational borrowing, the music educational value of ecstasy and the possibilities of rock music in fostering it in school classrooms, and the implications of a holistic ontology of human experience in music education subvert taken-for-granted values within the field.

Our writers problematize these intractable matters and suggest solutions that are contingent, circumstantial, and invite critical engagement. Randall Allsup leads off this issue by reflecting on two important and interrelated questions: “What kind of music teacher do our students deserve?” and “How can university music teacher education programs better prepare a new generation of teachers to meet their needs?” In response to these questions, he posits that music teachers need to open-minded, resist the traditional master-disciple paradigm of music instruction, and embrace open-endedness as an educational value. Those who prepare music teachers should model these qualities for future teachers, challenge the traditional restrictions and limits imposed by the profession, and invent other more open-ended approaches.

Drawing on Terry Eagleton’s notion of the idea of culture, and citing the example of Daniel Baremboim’s Mark Whale explores the assertion by Daniel Baremboim, conductor of the Arab/Israeli West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has transcultural appeal beyond the borders of German culture. Whale offers a way that, notwithstanding music’s inextricable connection with particular cultures, allows musical encounters that transcend cultural boundaries. He proposes that the active choice to care about and attend to this music deepens one’s understanding not only of the music but of oneself.

From the perspective of comparative education, a field that is increasingly important in our time, Alexandra Kertz-Welzel examines the practice of borrowing educational practices from abroad. Within the context of an internationalized music education, she points to the dangers of uncritically transferring music educational practices from one place to another. In describing some of the parameters that need to be considered in music educational borrowings, Kertz-Welzel provides grounds for carefully considering the implications of such borrowings from other places and times.

In Part 1 of his essay published in the Philosophy of Music Education Review, vol. xx, no., x, Sean Steel proposed aspects of a Dionysian philosophy of contemporary music education, including what such an education might look like, and the values and barriers to curricular implementation. Here, in this second part of his argument, his focus shifts specifically to music. In particular, he considers the Dionysian in rock music, and the role that rock music could play in a high school curriculum consonant with a Dionysian philosophy of music education.

Drawing on the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari, Lauren Richerme offers a holistic approach to music and humanity. Taking into account the inseparability of cognition, embodiment, emotion, and sociality within musicking serves to complicate notions of self, music, and music teaching, and requires music teachers...