The phenomenology of music

implications for teenage identities and music education

Charles Ford

Lucy Green

pp. 147-167

in: Frederik Pio, Øivind Varkøy (eds), Philosophy of music education challenged: Heideggerian inspirations, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

Many writings about the philosophy of music and music education have focussed on concepts of meaning, metaphor, emotions and expression, invariably from the perspective of the individual listener or composer. This essay develops an alternative, phenomenological approach grounded in the writings of Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. On the basis of these writers' discussions of musical being, the time of music, and its internal dialectics, we present an understanding of "style" as the primary basis for the mediation between production, musical experience and music learning. The essay suggests that music comes into presence within, and resounds, a nonconceptual and collective socio-historical world, feeding into the identity-formation of, in particular, teenagers. Through this, we offer a way of understanding why, as has often been argued, a purely conceptual music education can never be entirely satisfactory.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Heidegger Martin

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich