Misconceptions Underplay Western Ways of Musicking: A Hermeneutic Investigation

Abstract

This paper draws on a hermeneutic project to reflect on culturally developed notions that distance individuals from their intrinsic musicality. Participant experience offers insight into misconceptions of human musicality in Western communities where unrecognised cultural directives label musical beings as either musical or non-musical. Embedded in language, cultural influences restrict free musicking such that everyday practices inhibit the development of musical skills and dictate life-long inhibition. Iargue that to ignore this phenomenon is to perpetuate an unnecessary and harmful reduction of human being.

(Re)centering Indigenous Perspectives in Music Education in Latin America

“…(Re)centering Indigenous perspectives in music education in Latin America. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 18 (3): 200-225. http://doi.org/10.22176/act18.3.200 207 as musicians (literate) and the non-musicians (illiterate), which restricts the social duty of a musician to the role of musical interpreter for the expert critic (limited to those with certain cultural capital), and leaves aside the "other" practical musicians who are not valued because there is a lack of academic validation of the importance of such musical practices in more informal and practical contexts (Bourdieu 1984;Ruddock 2017;Shifres and Gonnet 2015). The former situation leads to questioning the role of music education as a way to teach music as an "object" worthy of appreciation merely from an aesthetic approach informed by a Eurocentric-universalist view.…”

(Re)centrando las Perspectivas Indígenas en la Educación Musical en América Latina

“…Las músicas que no son producidas ni reproducidas dentro del modelo conservatorio pasan a formar parte de una periferia musical, y con ello las personas que son sus portadoras. La música como objeto de arte crea una brecha entre quiénes serán reconocidos como músicos (alfabetizados) y los no músicos (no alfabetizados), lo cual restringe el quehacer social del músico a un papel de intérprete musical para la crítica experta (limitada a las personas con cierto capital cultural), y dejando a los "otros" músicos prácticas que no son valoradas por carecer de un aval académico que valide la importancia de tal quehacer musical en contextos más informales y prácticos (Bourdieu 1984;Ruddock 2017;Shifres y Gonnet 2015). Lo anterior, conduce a cuestionar el papel de la educación musical como vía para la enseñanza de la música como un "objeto" digno de ser apreciado meramente desde un enfoque estético, informado por una visión eurocentrista-universalista.…”