Music, metaphor, and ideology: Toward a critical theory of forms in music education.

摘要

This theoretical study is concerned with the problem of ideology in music education. Building on a Critical Theory framework, the author maintains that systematic musical and educational thought, when allowed to "harden" through reification to the point where it is accepted as a true (or "given") representation of reality, becomes inimical to critical thought and can become a means by which the ideological representations of others may come to dominate one's thinking. Examples of this problem in music and music education are examined in some detail. Negative dialectics, through its endless cycle of negation, provides an appropriate model for understanding the paradoxical nature of reification, which is an inescapable part of consciousness and, by extension, learning. An awareness of the inescapability of reification enables one to avoid extreme subjectivism, or the belief that the objectification of knowledge can somehow be transcended and the cycle of reification broken.;Adorno's form/content dialectic is presented as a key way of thinking about phenomena that may allow music educators to explain the process of reification, with the hope that students might find such insights applicable to their experiences of the world in general. Specifically, forms are explained as the historical sedimentation of socially constructed ideas. Consequently, critical music educators should turn their attention to forms of all kind, not only musical forms but the forms of music instruction, especially those whose systematization makes them appear natural or unassailable. The notion of the frozen metaphor is advanced as a particularly helpful concept for understanding the ways in which forms of musical understanding become reified. In order that the processes through which their social contingency is constantly masked might be revealed, these forms, and by extension all musical subject matter, should be taught from a historical perspective whenever possible. Specific examples of reified forms in music education (theoretical systems, tonal hierarchies, historical or repertory canons, linguistic frameworks, and theories and methods of music education) are examined. And numerous suggestions as to how they might be interrogated and historicized are offered. The study concludes by discussing the potential challenges to critical practice facing music educators.;Keywords: music education, critical pedagogy, Critical Theory, ideology, dialectics, metaphor theory, critical music education, ideology critique, music education philosophy.