The Cats of Music Education Series: David J Elliott - Music Matters Matters

Now that we’ve started, it seems natural to name this first set of blog posts “The Cats of Music Education”. We want to (re)introduce you to some important music education thinkers that have helped to shape our field and have been influential in the development of our approach. Where possible, we’ll try to share videos of them so we can get a sense of them as “persons” (thanks Dr Elliott).

So, now we present David Elliott, a former student of our last Cat - Bennett Reimer. Dr Elliott’s 1995 book “Music Matters” was a game changer for many music teachers and it expanded the field of music education philosophy (MEP). Elliott spent about 20 years refining the concepts presented within Music Matters and joined with Marissa Silverman to write Music Matters II or MM2 which was released in 2014.

Since Brad got his hands on a copy, it’s changed everything for us. Brad is on his fifth cover to cover reading and we’re both part of an MM2 reading group that wrestles with bringing the book to life in our classrooms.

If you’re keen, there’s a MM2 blog hosted by the authors here

You can buy the book!

You can rent the ebook here

You can read Ethan Hein’s musings resulting from his reading of MM2 here

BTW - this is a really important but very expensive book. If you happen to work for Oxford University Press, would you please make this book available as an ebook or Kindle? We need everyone to read this book!

Brad had to invent a new highlighting system for this book. Note: There are more sticky notes inside too!