Current Musicology, No. 94 (Fall 2012) © 2012 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York 165 Wayne D. Bowman and Ana Lucía Frega, eds. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education. London and New York: Oxford University Press. Reviewed by Joseph Abramo All musicians, regardless of their chosen area of study, take on the role of an educator at some point in their career. As Luis Alfonso Estrada Rodgriquez writes, “[m]any musicians devote time in their lives in one way or another to teaching. This is, however, an activity that in many cases was not taken into account in their studies” (240). In particular, music theorists and musicologists often serve as instructors in higher education and, therefore, devote many hours to the pedagogy of music. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education, edited by Wayne Bowman and Ana Lucía Frega—a collection of writings from leading, contemporary music educa- tion philosophers—provides a useful resource for those academics of music that find themselves in this common position. In this review, first I briefly provide the historical progression of music education philosophy over the last forty years in order to situate the ideas and themes for readers outside the field of music education. Second, I highlight some important themes within the book, focusing on connections among the chapters rather than addressing them separately. Third, I suggest how academics outside of the field of education may apply it to higher education. Finally, I remark on the connection between theory and practice in this text and music education scholarship and look to the future. The Context of Music Education Philosophy Although typically thought of as confined to music in k–12 contexts, music education as a discipline encompasses a wider variety of contexts. As Bowman and Frega note in their introductory chapter, “[s]chools . . . are not the only places where music education occurs; nor are the profes- sion’s concerns restricted to school–age children in institutional settings” (19). Whether in a garage, where teenagers teach each other rock songs; a bedroom, where novice musicians use recording software to create music; or a municipal recreation hall, where young and old perform in community choirs, bands, and orchestras, the education of music takes place when anyone engages with music, even when there is no official “teacher” present. Because of the diversity of settings, what constitutes music education is not limited to formal education of school–aged students, but includes any Current Musicology 166 situation where people work alone or come together in a social setting to create, discuss, and, ultimately, learn about music. While the environments of music education are diverse, music education philosophy remains cohesive because of its pragmatic and practice–oriented inquiry rather than theorizing education removed from practice. Educators consider philosophy as valuable only when considered in relation to practice. As Sandra Stauffer notes in her chapter on “place” or context in education, If the questions [music educators] ask engage only the remote, abstract, and decontextualized, neglecting the proximate, the concrete, and situatedness of lived experience—or musical and instructional actions, for that mat- ter—then we should not be surprised when philosophy becomes a reified entity instead of a living practice or disposition. (451) Music educators’ philosophizing is always an applied philosophy aimed at improving practice. This pragmatic approach has led to a series of distinctions and eli- sions within the philosophy of music education. For one, music education philosophers are quick to distinguish philosophy—which questions the discipline and seeks new pedagogical possibilities—from advocacy—which is the defense of music education’s status quo. But while music education philosophers make this distinction, they do not often distinguish between philosophy and theory, and are just as likely to borrow from Pierre Bourdieu or Edward Said as they are from Aristotle or Nietzsche. Keith Swanwick in his chapter, however, discriminates between these two related modes of inquiry. “There is one significant and important difference between theoriz- ing and philosophizing. Theories may be put to the test of evidence, whereas philosophy seems often to depend on internal consistencies and is most often an evidence–free zone” (329). One may argue with Swanwick’s distinction, of course. Regardless, “music education philosophy” designates not an orthodox adherence to the codes, languages, and procedures of traditional philosophical discourse, but a diverse “theoretical” and “philosophical” examination of the education of music aimed—although not always sim- plistically, literally, or directly—at the improvement of the practice of music. The History and Current Practice of Music Education Philosophy Music education philosophy within the last forty years can be divided into philosophical schools. The first school of aesthetic education finds its roots in the changes in US education precipitated by the launching of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviets in 1959. Fearing the loss of dominance as a world power, legislators devoted increased government funds to public Joseph Abramo 167 education. While lawmakers employed these funds to improve the scientific and mathematical fluency and literacy of students, all disciplines, including music, benefited from this increased support. One result was a reinvigora- tion of music education and the rise of the philosophical idea of aesthetic education, which largely purported that music education is the careful study of exemplary works of art to arouse the aesthetic experience and to create informed consumers of music. In his chapter on encouraging students to take an active role in their learning, Harold Fiske articulates the main tenet of aesthetic education: “underlying music education should be activities attendant to detailed pattern perception and realization of between–pattern interrelationships” (325). No music education philosopher is more identified with aesthetic education than Bennett Reimer, who, in his three different editions of A Philosophy of Music Education (1970, 1989, 2003), put forth a philosophy based on, among other things, Susan Langer’s aesthetics, which construes music as symbolic expressionism. Reimer took up this position to argue that feelings—those complex, ineffable moods all people feel—are symbolized by emotions—which are musical gestures. Music—which, as an “emotion,” is a sonic symbolization of a feeling—could be a gateway to learn about and express feelings, which are unreachable by other symbol systems, specifically language. This led him to argue famously that “[c]reating music as musi- cians, and listening to music creatively, do precisely and exactly for feeling what writing and reading do for reasoning” (2003: 93, italics in original). Music education thus has the ability to educate parts of our essential hu- man experience inaccessible by other disciplines. In this handbook, Reimer continues this articulation of aesthetic education in his chapter by stating, “[n]o matter what else we do as teachers of music, we must sooner or later fall back on language, while at the same time recognizing its inadequacy to do what matters most—make more available what musical sounds can do that language cannot” (126). Aesthetic education remained the dominant philosophy of music education until the 1990s, when so–called praxial music education began to challenge the assumptions of aesthetic education. As Thomas Regelski defines it in his chapter, “praxis is a ‘doing’ that puts knowledge and skill into the service of the always unique needs of people” (297). Praxial philosophers began to question the disinterested position and largely Western–art–music focus of aesthetic education. In his chapter, Lauri Väkevä suggests that “[p]raxial critiques are sometimes based on the claim that the modernist account of aesthetic experience does not offer a sufficiently inclusive ac- count of music, because of its alleged special relation between a distinctive or special aesthetic object (musical work) and inner life” (97). According to Current Musicology 168 Howard, praxial educators also question the Cartesian dualism: “Those who justify the arts as an education of the emotions (and they are legion) even as the sciences educate reason, fall squarely into the trap of the ‘domineering dichotomy’ between the reasoned mind and the emotive body” (258). Although it has many proponents, like aesthetic education, praxial education has largely been associated with one author—in this case, David Elliott. Elliott, who was a student of Reimer, argued in his book Music Matters (1995) that Reimer’s aesthetic education failed to account for culture and “doing” of music. Aesthetic education treats music as a series of objects that a listener disinterestedly beholds and contemplates. For Elliott, the meanings and values of music, instead, lie in the traditions and practices that give rise to that supposed object. Somewhat similar to Christopher Small’s musicking (1998), Elliott proposed a praxial music education steeped in musicing,1 the “doing” of music in relation to the traditions, practices, and cultures in which specific music practices are embedded. Such a position takes a multicultural and sociological view of music, dispensing with aesthetic education’s notion of disinterested, Western listeners to include musical practices from other traditions. As Debra Bradley notes in this volume, Music Matters argues that music is not merely a collection of works to be studied, analyzed, or “appreciated.” It is, rather, a mode of action that can only be understood by active involvement in making and listening to music. Describing music as a diverse human practice and a shared human endeavor, the text acknowledges the various ways that humans engage in music as a social phenomenon. (421) Elliott, in his chapter with Marissa Silverman, continues to critique Reimer and aesthetic education. They note, “Reimer . . . depends on Langer to rationalize the nature and value of music and music education, thus tying his philosophy to a deeply flawed theory that is rooted in the untenable notion that musical experience and musical value are not emotional” (58). Reimer responds to praxial criticisms of aesthetic education in this volume by countering that praxial music education fails to access the essence and nature of music. While philosophers going back to ancient history have recognized that music is implicated, somehow, in a diversity of values, and music education practioners have always promoted music study as serving a great variety of associated benefits, the turn [toward praxial music education] more recently allies music education with strikingly more substantial social issues, and the service of them as being an inherent dimension of music and the proper if not primary source of the aims of music education . . . [because] many of those needs, as evident in the view of sociology, are equally or better fulfilled by a great many other endeavors. (114, 120)2 Joseph Abramo 169 In her chapter, Debra Bradley adds that “[a]lthough Elliott made a strong case for other forms of music–making in education—including listening, composing, and improvising—Music Matters may have provided advocates of large ensembles with a renewed sense of purpose at a time when many were beginning to question their relevance” (422). While praxial education did diversify conceptions of music education, as Allsup (2012) notes, it failed to account for the interpretive turn in the humanities—from considering music as a text of closed singular meaning to texts of opened meanings. And as a result, a third wave of music education philosophy, which may be described as one influenced by postmodernist discourses, including poststructuralism, postcolonialism, feminism, and queer theory, has arisen within the last fifteen years. These approaches are in line with other areas of scholarship that approach music education philosophy reflexively—allowing musical subjectivities, socially–constructed identities, and discourses of power to influence how people interpret music. In general, this volume includes voices from aesthetic and praxial educations, and postmodernist perspectives, although feminist and queer standpoints are noticeably absent.3 But it can be argued that these waves and “camps” have not helped to free up thinking within music education philosophy. As Swanwick notes in his chapter on the parameters of music education philosophy, “the use of the ‘ism’ suffix tends to label rival philo- sophical protagonists and, while potentially making philosophical waves, may divert attention from the specificity of particular musical or educational transactions” (334). As a result, some of this volume reads as superfluous infighting along the “–ism” camps of aesthetic and praxial educations. Despite this diversity, as a whole, music education philosophy is profoundly influenced by the works of John Dewey, and his presence is felt in this volume. This influence seems inevitable considering his writings on education—including most significantly, Democracy and Education (1916)—and esthetics4—particularly Art as Experience (1934). For Dewey, the musical experience is not merely emotional, it is educative. As Väkevä notes in his chapter specifically on Dewey’s esthetics and educational theories, “instead of conceiving of music primarily as one of the (fine) arts, supposedly privileging in its capacity to evoke aesthetic experience, Dewey seems to suggest that we consider it as an integral part of everyday quest for meaning” (102). This meaning is embedded in a social and egalitarian environment, which he envisioned and described as “democratic.” But, “[h]ere ‘democracy’ does not refer to a mere political mechanism; it refers, rather, to the ethical ideal of community life that remains alert and open to different interpretations” (103). Current Musicology 170 Dewey’s shifting influence also shows the development of music educa- tion philosophy. Earlier on, the “esthetic Dewey” played a more prominent role. Reimer’s three editions of A Philosophy, (1970, 1989, 2003) for example, only cites Art as Experience. But more recently, authors have focused on “Dewey the educator” and proponent of democracy. Writers like Allsup (2003, 2012) and Woodford (2005)—two other voices noticeably absent from this volume—have devoted their scholarly careers to imagining and enacting a more democratic music education in the Deweyian tradition. This outlines the shift of music education philosophers’ view of music as an object to music as a social activity as well as the increasing turn to educational sources rather than aesthetic and musicological texts. This, of course, mirrors the development of the wider discipline of music as well as the humanities move towards interdisciplinary inquiries. Ethics, Music, and Education Chapters by Thomas Regelski, Debra Bradley, and Charlene Morton deal with ethics directly or indirectly, which have the potential to contribute to music scholarship in general. In his chapter devoted specifically to the subject, Regelski notes that “[a] teacher’s responsibility is fully an ethical matter, concerned to bring about right results for those served (the students) and in turn for society” (303) and defines three formal ethical theories that apply to teaching: duty ethics, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. “Duty [ethics] propose obligations that follow from certain postulated standards of ethical conduct . . . .[such as] the Ten Commandments” (287). Regelski introduces types of duty ethics applicable to music teaching. First, teachers should be at the service of the students. The music program should therefore not be a preexisting format into which students are force–fitted, or that limits students’ musical options by addressing only a narrow range of possibilities. Too often, however, school music programs take on an autonomous status, and students are seen as serving the program rather than the program existing to serve their needs. (288, italics in original) Second, the teacher should “do no harm.” This includes avoiding practice routines that induce repetitive stress. Third, students have the right to be safe, including the prevention of psychological harm through what he calls “callous audition systems” and other educationally suspect practices. Fourth, teachers must also show beneficence towards the needy, tailoring their instruction to aid those who need remediation. Fifth, music teachers have a duty to promote free expression. As Regelski notes, this is difficult to fulfill in Joseph Abramo 171 large ensembles: the duty of free expression “is breached, in particular, when directors ‘perform’ student ensembles as though the students were merely pipe organs, with them becoming mere means for serving the teacher’s own musical or professional ends” (292). The second ethical theory, consequentialist ethics, focuses on goals realizing results. According to Regelski, consequentialist ethics posit that “for an action to be ethical, consequences should be useful for those effected” (293), but also “being acutely aware that some actions—even well–intended ones—can have negative consequences” (294). “This rules out using embar- rassment, ‘no pain, no gain’ pedagogies, competitive strategies that produce only one ‘winner’ and many ‘losers’” (295). While educators help students develop musical skill and knowledge, they must be aware of the potentially negative effects on the students’ health and well–being. Third, virtue ethics emphasize the personal integrity of the teacher. Regelski makes a distinction between techne—a prosaic “making of practical things”—and poēisis—the higher “excellent making” and warns of narrowly focusing on techne at the expense of poēisis: [W]hen teaching is approached as techne—as a kind of craft–like collec- tion of routinized skills, strategies, and reusable “tools”; as a technical “means” to “ends” that are taken for granted—it deteriorates into a kind of factory–like process that treats students like interchangeable parts on an assembly line. (296) Other areas of “ethical” music teaching are covered in Bradley’s chapter, which levels a postcolonial critique of music education philosophy. She questions the use of so–called world and multicultural pedagogical repertoire in schools that, rather than promoting diversity and expanding access to varying discourses, epistemologies, and music practices from around the world, unwittingly support and reproduce Eurocentric racial stereotypes. Such exoticism and Orientalizing, she argues, have the opposite effect of the intended aims of multicultural education. But moving beyond this critical multicultural perspective, she uses postcolonialism as a lens to read instruction. She describes the use of only unfamiliar music in curricula as a form of control forced upon students: “Where music education fails to help students make musical connections to their lives outside school, many infer that they are simply ‘not musical,’ or that their areas of musical interest lack value” (415). Instead, she calls for educators to embrace students’ knowledge and preferences garnered outside of the classroom to educate them about music. Finally, she examines colonialist impulses in aesthetic education, particularly Reimer’s (1989) once–hegemonic influence in the field: “Written to provide answers rather than raise questions about the nature and value of Current Musicology 172 music and music education, A Philosophy, however unwittingly, served as a colonizing influence on the thought and actions of many music educators” (418). Bradley, instead, envisions a music education philosophy that is not prescriptive but is open to asking more questions than it answers. Furthering the inquiry into ethical considerations in music education, Morton’s unique and fresh chapter on the intersection of environmentalism and music education asks how students should relate to their environments musically and aurally. At first, as she notes, environmental studies seem the domain of biology and geology. But, as we begin to think of musicians’ and music teachers’ use of materials, the connection appears more immediate: [A]ll music education resource—every tuba, drum, music stand, and sheet of music—begin and end as part of Planet Earth . . . . Those who make musical or instructional materials from natural resources and those who transport them to schools all require clean water, air, and food to sustain their labors . . . . Matters like these and the ethical concerns they generate should figure significantly in discourses about music and music education. (477) Therefore, rather than focusing on “emotion–based aesthetics,” which has become the staple of music education, educators should strive towards an “eco–aesthetics” where students become attuned to their environment. In this way, music education can help secure a more sustainable planet. Morton argues that the skills of attentive listening and becoming aware of one’s sonic environment can inform the largely non–musical skill of attending to one’s natural environment. While this may be outside of what some consider the purview of the music educator, it is in line with holistic, interdisciplinary approaches prominent in contemporary educational theory. Music Pedagogy in Higher Education These writings on ethics have particular worth to higher education because they question some commonly practiced but often under–theorized pedagogies. For example, in the “studio,” where the teacher wields considerable power, breeches of ethics easily can, and often do, take place and the instructor causes psychological harm through abuse, negative reinforcement, and establishment of unnecessary hierarchies. Similarly, in large ensembles, conductors often play upon their students like a “pipe organ” merely imposing didactic direction on how to perform, rather than inquiring about students’ interpretation of the works or revealing to them conductors’ processes of coming to interpretive decisions. Equally as pernicious, they often institute auditions and “seat challenges” simply to create a neo–liberal, market–like competition. Joseph Abramo 173 Consequentialist ethics question whether the practices educators and students take part in achieve the goals they desire. Despite sight–singing’s universal place in music schools, does such a practice engender the types of cognition and reading skills instructors suppose it does? Are there other ways of teaching musical cognition that will better benefit all students or specific constituencies of students? All of Regelski’s ethical models also question higher education’s wide- spread adoption of the conservatory model, which emphasizes performance. This has a deleterious effect on the strengths of students admitted into music programs. As John Kratus notes in his chapter on teaching composition, It is common practice in North American colleges of music to admit into music teacher degree programs students who exhibit high levels of performance proficiency. Rarely is compositional ability considered in admission decisions for preservice music educators. This bias favoring performance over creativity makes no sense. (373) Music education candidates, who will be expected to employ a variety of musical skills in their profession—performing, composing, analysis, etc.—should be admitted into the program based on their demonstration of all those skills, not performance alone. Some of the authors in this volume extend this argument to also question the didactic styles of education derived from under–theorized performance pedagogy, prominent in the conservatory model. As Kratus notes, In many traditional music–teaching settings, the teacher provides the music, either through model or notation, and students respond in ac- cordance with the teacher’s instructions. In a composition classroom, the music comes from the students and the teacher responds in accordance with the needs of the students and the qualities of their music. (380–381) In this paradigm, students are not merely receivers of knowledge and copiers of exemplary practice; they construct knowledge and practice for themselves. This approach, which has been labeled constructivism and is currently the dominant education philosophy in all disciplines, is a “stu- dent–centered” approach that allows students more artistic and curricular agency in the classroom.5 A common way to approach the classroom in a constructivist manner is to invert the order of instruction by letting students derive rules from experience, rather than the traditional explication of rules that are later applied to practice. As Ricardo Mandolini notes in his chapter on heuristics and creativity, the teaching of creativity should not start by proposing general rules but should analyze first how individualities work and proceed. . . . Current Musicology 174 [T]eachers [should] let students actively shape and direct their own learning process, generating new interactions between and among ideas, gestures, and behaviors. (353) The critical pedagogue Paulo Freire (1970), who applied Marxist theory to education, referred to a non–constructivist educational paradigm—where teachers fail to allow student agency and instead see them as passive re- ceptacles in which educators deposit knowledge—as the “banking system of education.” This banking system of education is commonly found in so–called “music appreciation” courses, where the canon is deposited into students’ minds only to be regurgitated without any deep knowledge of the works. This, in the alignment of the economic and cultural fields Bourdieu (1993) points out, deposits “culture” into passive students in order to make them sufficiently bourgeois. But as Higgins notes in his chapter, in the contemporary multi–mediated world, enculturation and exposure to classics is antediluvian. With the rise of MP3 players, peer–to–peer digital exchange, and the panopoly of web–based connoisseurship, criticism, and fandom, there may never have been a generation more invested in listening and in sharing what they hear and what they think about music that they hear. In such a world it is difficult to conceive of our task as exposing the young to music! (223) Instead of the “clap for credit” paradigm, as it is sometimes called, “music appreciation” should be about building up discursive skills on musics of different traditions, including traditional analysis, sociological perspectives, critical and cultural theory, and even rudimentary performance. Such an approach to music education for non–majors more appropriately prepares them for engagement with music in the twenty–first century. These problems with performance, creativity, and music appreciation in the university are not happenchance but are the result of broader conflicts in education of the arts. Higgins notes in his chapter that music education is an “impossible profession” because it is constituted by three inherent tensions. First, music educators have always struggled to balance between the demands of a broad liberal arts education and the narrower vocational education. Whether it is performance, musicology, or education, music programs have aimed at providing students an enriching “whole–person” education while preparing them for a profession in ensembles, the academy, or public education. But, as Howard notes in his chapter on the aims of music education, at least in the public school setting, a vocational focus is too narrow: Joseph Abramo 175 Music education is not to be confused with vocational training, not even in music itself. To put it simply, music education is not conservatory training. It is not in the business of training professional performers. It is in the business of enlightening the public about music’s various facets and influences from many perspectives, including how artists think. (259, italics in original) A second tension Higgins notes is the conflict between so–called high and low cultures. Reflecting on his graduate studies when some of his fellow students cited examples of popular culture in class for shock value, Higgins argues that creating a distinction between high and low is educationally dubious: Either a textual example is rich, illuminating, and apropos, or it isn’t. Often the point [of reference a piece of popular culture by students] was simply transgression of the perceived ground rules and the example was thus not helpful for the discussion. One can imagine trite and barren references to King Lear and serious, fresh, and fertile references to Homer Simpson. (220) This type of “transgression” points to the subaltern status popular, non–ca- nonical, non–Western art musics often hold in schools of music, a status Nettl referred to as “The Untouchables” (1995:96). A third tension Higgins describes is that the role of the teacher as musi- cian and teacher as pedagogue are often in conflict. “[T]eaching and music . . . do not always harmonize” (225), especially within the contemporary educational climate of increased narrowing of the curriculum and privileging of prescriptive teaching often referred to as instrumentalism. This tension is embedded in practices and institutions, with school administrators and politicians’ search for reliable student results and the indefinable often non–linear nature of arts education. While Higgins has a broadening view of popular culture—probably, somewhat ironically, because he is not a musician—many of the authors doubt popular musics’ values even though its study has gained considerable attention in music education scholarship. In his chapter on music education as cultivating a relationship between self and sound, Randall Pabich, for example, who thinks that heavy metal “tends to be simple and repetitive” (136), fails to consider uses and meanings of popular music by progressive rock bands like Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan. These bands and their listeners appropriate modernist notions of complexity and virtuosity to carve out a masculinist and connoisseur identity to the alterity of the “uninformed” and “mainstream” listening public. Similarly, Walker argues in his chapter that Britney Spears—whose music he claims is technically simple Current Musicology 176 and contains infantile lyrics—is inherently inferior to Beethoven—who is universal and complex—in order to refute what he considers the postmodern argument that “all music is valuable” (387). Like some factions within aca- demia, this text still clings to untenable distinctions between high and low based on canonical/non–canonical distinctions, as Higgins critiques. A more nuanced and integrative look at popular music and culture could release popular music from its “untouchable” status, and allow higher–education instructors to use it in powerful, boundary–crossing ways. Looking Towards the Future: Music Education as Fiction What can this text tell readers about the future of music education philoso- phy? First, the text articulates the current assumptions of connecting theory to practice. In his intriguing chapter, which will be of particular interest to composers, Mandolini uses heuristics—which he defines as “a realm of learning and knowing by doing, and a discipline that inquires into the means and methodologies of invention and discovery”—to advocate for “favoring fiction as a framework” (347). Heuristics, for Mandolini, are useful devices that are “made up” to make sense of the world. Their merits lie not in their verifiable truthfulness, but in their utility for creating meaning. In this sense, musical compositions, which do not make truth claims like language, are useful fictions. John Cage’s use of indeterminacy, for example, is not the removal of human desire, but is the opposite; “the absence of will that Cage installs at the heart of his composition process is in fact another form of will” (350, italics in original). Similarly, Iannis Xenakis’ positivistic approaches to composition were not objective. Instead, “[m]athmateics and probabilistic formulae were not necessary compositional preconditions for Xenakis: rather, they were used heuristically” (350). The result, Mandolini concludes, is that the musical “‘work’ and ‘device’ are two very different entities: a work is evaluated through a final result, whereas a device implies a continuous process of becoming” (361). This is an interpretive and phenomenological approach to musical compositions which argues that “concepts do not preexist creative action but follow its completion” (364). Beyond its application to composition, Mandolini’s understanding of heuristics articulates the framing of music education philosophy within its vocational roots and its predilection to philosophize while “doing.” In this sense, while praxis is most readily identified with a particular strain of music education philosophy, it can stand for the field in general: a striving for a theoretical practice. But practice and theory are not as easily reconcilable as music education philosophers may suggest. As Heidegger (1977) notes, the word theory itself comes from a divorced, “passive” look upon those who “do.” Joseph Abramo 177 The word “theory” stems from the Greek theõrein....The verb theõrein grew out of the coalescing of two root words, thea and horaõ. Thea (c. theatre) is the outward look, the aspect, in which something shows itself. . . . The second root word in theõrein, horaõ, means: to look at something attentively, to look it over, to view it closely. (163, 166) Theory’s etymology in “theatre” shows its origins in the separation of thinking about and doing, particularly in an “artistic” arena. This tension be- tween “those who claim to theorize while doing” and “those who contemplate the ‘doing’ of music in order to theorize” underlines divisions within schools of music that Phelan and Rodríguez describe in their chapters: the DMA versus the PhD, performers versus academics, the conservatory versus the university. In this sense, music education philosophy’s praxial leanings are a heuristic in Mandolini’s meaning: a useful and necessary fiction. This is not necessarily negative; it is simply to argue that, like other disciplines, music education is built upon an assumption: the assumption of the possibility of melding theory to practice. But this fiction has the possibility of reconciling these fissures within higher education. Music education, the “impossible profession” (Higgins:227), is the common vocation in higher education that all musicians—theorists, performers, composers, musicologists—in all settings—conservatory, liberal arts, university—participate in. Music education is the “fiction” that binds all musicians in academia. But how may music educators, despite the age and ability of their students, enact this fiction of melding theory with practice? How may they continue to question assumptions and imagine a variety of philosophical stances that question dominant paradigms? For Bowman and Frega, this is where philosophy has the potential to take educators. In their afterword, they state, “[w]e believe that the future of music education will continue to follow these trajectories: towards plurality, contingency, and reflexivity” (506). As a whole, this text covers much ground in the field of music education research, providing a variety of perspectives, highlighting perennial debates among proponents of aesthetic and praxial educations, moving into areas such as ethics, and attempting to move along those trajectories Bowman and Frega outline. For musical academics not in the field of education, this text provides a glimpse into the current state and evolution of contemporary music education philosophy. Becoming familiar with current philosophical thought in music education, whether one identifies as an educator or not, helps to inform musicians’ practice and to put students at the center of the educational experience. Current Musicology 178 Notes 1. While Small employs his “musicking” in order to account for an anthropological and sociological accounting of classical music practice, Elliott introduces his “musicing” [sic] to explore how music is transferred from one party to another—something, he argues, missing from aesthetic education philosophy. 2. For a more complete response to Elliott and praxial education’s critique of Reimer and aesthetic education see Reimer (2003). 3. For some examples of feminist and queer theory in music education see Gould (2012), Koza (2003), as well as the periodical Gender, Education, Music, Society (GEMS). For a review of feminist literature in music education see Lamb, Dolloff, and Howe (2002). 4. Dewey consciously used the American “esthetic” to articulate his particular aesthetics, therefore, when referring to Dewey, I use his spelling. 5. For an introduction to constructivism, see Fosnot (1996). References Allsup, Randall Everett. 2003. Mutual learning and democratic action in instrumental music education. Journal of Research in Music Education 51, No. 1: 24–37. _______. 2012. Music education and human flourishing: a meditation on democratic origins. British Journal of Music Education 29, no. 2: 171–179. _______. 2012. The compositional turn in music education: from closed forms to open texts. In Composing our future: Preparing music educators to teach composition, ed. Michele Kaschub and Janice Smith, 57–69. 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