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Two! Four! Six! Eight! How do we Appreciate? Music Appreciation – Perceiving it, Understanding it

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Norman Mehr  and
Lu Elrod
Norman Mehr
Affiliation:
Elementary Music Specialist, Los Angeles Unified School District
Lu Elrod
Affiliation:
Professor of Music, California State University, Los Angeles
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Extract

An accountable program of elementary classroom music must have an educational function. In other words, it must perform an educational service. This involves more than the singing of songs or the attempt to hold the interest of children with ‘fun’ activities.

The educational assumption behind most elementary classroom music programs is that the children through their musical experiences in the classroom will somehow learn to ‘appreciate’ music. The term ‘appreciate’, however, is vague and means different things to different people. Does it mean that children will learn to love the music of the masters by listening to great music on recordings and being told stories about the meaning of the music and the lives of composers? Does appreciating music mean identifying instruments and labeling the form? Does it mean identifying the composer and the period of the music from hearing it? Does it mean naming a certain number of composers and a certain number of the works of each? Does it have anything to do with preference for and liking of the music of the masters?

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , July 1986 , pp. 129 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Gordon, Edwin (1971) The Psychology of Music Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Mehr, Norman (1985) ‘Helping children perceive melody’. Music Educators Journal 71, 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, Bennett (1970) A Philosophy of Music Education. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar