ABSTRACT
American music education was founded on discourses of character “improvement,” “cultivation,” and “refinement,” all of which were based on Western classical musical superiority. This chapter provides an historical analysis of the beginnings of music education in the United States, the ideology on which music education was founded as a means by which to shed light on contemporary music practices and beliefs. William Woodbridge and Lowell Mason, influenced by Pestalozzi and Fellenberg, advocated for music education to be a part of public school curriculum based on the assumption that “appropriate” and “proper” music instruction were tied to moral betterment. Thus, school music was necessary as a moral imperative—the impact of music on a person’s morality—deeming music instruction necessary as a means of “governing” students’ morality. The influence of Mason’s music teaching manuals and resources as well as his music teaching philosophy on music education today is far greater than one might expect. The pedagogy with which he taught singing, his belief system about “appropriate” music, “proper” singing, and the influence of “good” music on morality are all embedded in the assumptions, ideology, and belief system with which modern day music education is immersed. By placing common teaching practices and beliefs within their original context, we can begin to interrogate the ways in which they are presumed to be neutral and superior. An historical analysis dismantles and demystifies standards and methods that have been touted as ahistorical and universally applicable, thus challenging the uncritical reverence of those methods.
