ABSTRACT
Bernstein's concept of recontextualisation is useful for considering the selection and translation of disciplinary knowledge into the context of the school and for considering the ever-present dialect between theory and practice in the domain of music education and in musicking itself. The purpose of western music education appears to be fated to a cyclical ideological antagonism between a focus on ‘music as knowledge' and ‘knowledge about music'. Music as knowledge comprises the socially contextualised applied knowledge of musicking; playing, singing, and song writing, in our time most strongly associated with popular music. In ancient Greek education, music was most often regarded as a servant for text and music's initial role in education was a ‘vehicle and mnemonic for verbal instruction'. A major early innovation for western music education was the introduction of the monochord as a pedagogical tool from around the ninth century.
