The Cats of Music Education Series: Christopher Small - Whose Music Do We Teach, Anyway?

Licence details Creator: Photo by Michele Curel | Credit: Michel Curel Copyright: © Michele Curel 2002

Christopher Small is a Cat of Music Education. We love him for a multitude of reasons but let’s start with our favourite story.

Whose Music Do We Teach, Anyway?

Small was invited to address the Music Educators National Conference (MENC - now known as NAMF) in Washington, D.C. in 1990. Let’s just absorb that for a moment - the national conference of the peak body - literally the who’s who of American (and probably a good number of international stakeholders too). OK, so, get that picture fixed in your mind - a room filled with music educators - good and great. Here he comes, stepping up to the lectern, clears his throat. Take it away Christopher:

“First of all I have to declare an interest—or rather lack of interest. I’m not interested in music at all. That’s to say, it’s a matter of indifference to me what happens to those great musical objects that are performed with such regularity in concert halls and operas houses, not to mention recording and broadcast studios, and I don’t much care whether or not they survive the twenty-first century”.

BOOM!

But wait, there’s more:

"And it doesn’t seem to me of the least importance whether or not the children in our schools get exposed to them…”

He then goes on to make a joke about what a funny word “exposed” is that’s funny every time.

And now, here’s the punchline for Gig Based Learners:

“What I believe we shall be treasuring above all is not so much any music objects, however splendid they may be, as the music act, musicking, that remarkable form of human encounter in which people come together to make meanings, to explore and affirm and, yes, celebrate for a while their common humanity and their sense of who they are and where they belong. Because that’s what seems to me the real nature of what is called music, and that’s what its function is in human life”.

There’s loads more gold but let’s cut to the chase and then, we encourage you to read the whole thing for yourself. Bring it home Christopher:

“I do not think our job as music teachers is to be guardians of past masterpieces but is rather to treasure and encourage that creativity and that musicality that is part of the universal human birthright, an you needn’t be too concerned in what forms it manifests itself.” Our charges will know, perhaps better than we do, what they need. But I think we should count ourselves lucky that there exists to hand an idiom for the creative work. If we take it and use it, we, our students and the idiom, will all be the richer for it”.

We’re not sure what kind of response he received or what the fallout was (let us know if you do) but, we believe, this call to arms is as relevant to us today as it was then and we (Brad and Pete) try to incorporate Small’s thinking about music and music education into everything we do in GBL. We’re also inspired by his courage to deliver an address like this to that audience. Wow!

You may have noticed the word “musicking” above. That’s a neologism invented by Small to capture his concept of music. He wanted us to reconceptualise music as a verb, as “something people do together”. So, he said, musicking (or “to music”) is “to take part in a musical performance, not just as performer but also as listener, or as a provider of material for performance— what we call composing—or in any other way, dancing, for example … or even someone taking tickets at the door or shifting the piano around”.

Small’s influence should be profound and widely felt in music education but we’re not sure that it is. So, we ask you to consider what Small said about music and music education at the conference in 1990, think about how you might change your practice if you conceived of music as a verb—something people do— and, what would your classroom might look like if you adopted Small’s concept of musicking. We think it might cause a revolution… It has for us.

Thanks Christopher Small, you are a Cat of Music Education.

If you’re inspired to learn more, the entire text of the speech is available online for free.

Web Link: https://www.giarts.org/article/whose-music-do-we-teach-anyway

The speech is also included in the book “The Christopher Small Reader”. This collection it’s a brilliant place to start learning more about Small’s work. Let us know if you get as jazzed about his work as we do.

Book: The Christopher Small Reader

This obit piece from the New York Times is also a good overview of his life and times.

Some legit reading too: Albi Odendaal, Olli-Taavetti Kankkunen, Hanna M. Nikkanen & Lauri Vakeva (2014) What's with the K? Exploring the implications of Christopher Small's ‘musicking’ for general music education, Music Education Research, 16:2, 162-175, https://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2013.859661

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