The Relation of Rhythmic Activity to Music in the Education of the Future

Barnes, Earl

doi:10.2307/3383120

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In the early 1900s, music teacher manuals, conference papers, and listening guides identified this individual as having a good ear and exhibiting a reflective comportment rather than an extroverted one (Gustafson, 2005). Broadly speaking, such proclivities distinguished this deserving individual from the “drifter” (Mohler, 1924) or one who was “dancing mad” (Barnes, 1915).…”

Section: A Different Methodological Approach To Theorizing Participatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The predilection for excited physical stimulation was a primitive manifestation; small gestures and motionlessness distinguished quality of mind. Educators wrote that school music would save the child from shame and idleness (Barnes, 1915). A medical expert, employed by the Philadelphia High School for Girls, described jazz (by this time a rubric that included ragtime) as causing disease in young girls and society as a whole (Leonard, 1962; New York Times , 1922, p. 12).…”

Section: A Different Methodological Approach To Theorizing Participatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the beginning of music instruction's history, the popular press and intellectual journals defined the music making of Native Americans, Blacks, and immigrants as other than music (Radano, 2003)—what one educator in the early 20th century termed the music of the “dancing mad” (Barnes, 1915). Consequently, the genteel musical comportment associated with social elites and Whiteness exerted formative power on 19th‐century vocal instruction and music appreciation from the 1830s onward.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drifters and the Dancing Mad: The Public School Music Curriculum and the Fabrication of Boundaries for Participation

Gustafson

2008

Curriculum Inquiry

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Recent reforms in the general music curriculum have, for the most part, failed to lessen the attrition rates of African Americans from public school music programs. In this article I assert that an embodied ideal of cultural nobility, exemplified by Auguste Rodin's famous statue, The Thinker, has unconsciously operated as a template for participation. As a model comportment in the Western musical tradition, The Thinker has a broader relevance insofar as other school subjects emerged from similar cultural ideals.Beginning with the early period of public music instruction up to the present, I examine the construction of racial boundaries by linking a specific body comportment hailed as worthy by the music curriculum to historically constructed notions of Whiteness. This issue has been underexplored in research in both music and general education. For that reason, this article examines overlapping systems of reasoning about music, comportment, class, religion, language, nationality, and race in professional and popular texts from the early 1800s to the present. This positions public music instruction as authored, not by pedagogical insight alone, but through changes in musical taste, social practices, strategies of governing populations, and definitions of worthy citizenship.There are three levels of analysis. The first is a personal account of the early manifestations of attrition of African Americans from school music programs. The second level of analysis brings the problem of equity into proximity with the tradition of genteel comportment that permeated the training of the good ear or listener and the fabrication of the bona fide citizen. These, I argue are congruent with the historical construction of Whiteness as a standard mark of worthiness. At the third level of analysis, I take up present-day curriculum designs. This section discusses how the language of the music curriculum continues to draw boundaries for participation through protocols that regulate musical response. Here, I argue that the exclusion of popular genres such as hip-hop should be rethought in light of the evidence that shifting historical definitions for music fabricated an overly restrictive template for comportment, recognizing the prototype of Whiteness as the sole embodiment of merit.

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Section: A Different Methodological Approach To Theorizing Participatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Different Methodological Approach To Theorizing Participatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drifters and the Dancing Mad: The Public School Music Curriculum and the Fabrication of Boundaries for Participation

Gustafson

2008

Curriculum Inquiry

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“…A series of surveys taken at the turn of the century indicated music was not usually a favorite class among either boys or girls; however, among boys, music was more likely to be their least enjoyed course and less likely to be their favorite class in school. 42 The dislike of music among boys was of sufficient concern to be addressed in one of five questions posed in a published mock job interview for a teaching position. The school superintendent asked the candidate to discuss "what you think could be done to improve music in our upper grades.…”

Section: Boys' Likes and Dislikesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Missing Males” and Other Gender Issues in Music Education: Evidence from the Music Supervisors' Journal, 1914-1924

Koza¹

1993

Journal of Research in Music Education

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An analysis of gender-related references appearing in the Music Supervisors' Journal (MSJ) from 1914 through 1924 revealed that both coeducational and single-sex musical organizations abounded and that vocal and instrumental instruction for boys and girlswas advocated. When one sex or the other was singled out for consideration, however, the spotlight usually was focused on males. In addition to the "missing males" problem, writers in the MSJ discussed the role of music in the education of boys, career opportunities in music for males, the relationship of music to the nature and character development of boys, boys' musical likes and dislikes, the male singing voice, and music for the man at war. By contrast, little attention was devoted exclusively to females, their interests, or their problems. This analysis invites reflection on whether gender issues pertaining to females continue to be overlooked by the music education profession today.Boys' reluctance to participate in music education programs, particularly in school singing groups, is a reality that many contemporary music educators would identify as a problem. The eye-catching headline of an advertisement in a recent issue of a music education journal queried, "Need Male Singers In Your Vocal Program?" Apparently advertisers believed that such a headline would attract the attention of many music teachers; statistics suggest that there is a shortage of males in more than a few vocal programs. Relying on data reported by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, J. Terry Gates summed up gender ratios in secondary school music programs during the early 1980s:Instrumental and vocal music participation in American secondary schools shows sharp sex-related differences.... Although the sexes are equally divided in instrumental music involvement, the female percentage of the secondary school population involved in choral activities surpasses the male percentage by greater than a 5:2 margin.1

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The Relation of Rhythmic Activity to Music in the Education of the Future

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Drifters and the Dancing Mad: The Public School Music Curriculum and the Fabrication of Boundaries for Participation

Drifters and the Dancing Mad: The Public School Music Curriculum and the Fabrication of Boundaries for Participation

The “Missing Males” and Other Gender Issues in Music Education: Evidence from the Music Supervisors' Journal, 1914-1924

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