Erfarenhet och Musikundervisning

Att passa in i skolvärlden

Abstract

Experience and Music Teaching
The school situation is essentially different from other situations in which children and young people find themselves. They often feel that there is no place for their own experience in the world of the school, despite the fact that this experience can seem relevant there. Sometimes the discrepancy between the production of knowledge in the adults’ world and that in the pupils’ world is so great that there is no possibility of active participation on the part of the pupils. Not least does this become apparent in Music. Experience is acquired through interaction with the world around, from which comes influences, attitudes and wishes. Thus experience can be said to have an active side, changing in value in accordance with the circumstances under which the experience is acquired. With the aid of a rich world of imagination we “read” past, present and future situations in the light of previous experience. We can assimilate what we experience the world to our own perspective, interpret it and then adapt it to fit in with new realities. This is the longitudinal aspect of the concept of experience, but there is a transverse aspect too, which has to do with how we by means of feeling interact with the world around when we are in the midst of a given situation. When it comes to a “musical encounter” it is evident that our different stores of experience must play a part in order for there to really be an encounter worth the name. Here there must be a holistic view of the concept of experience, taking in both sociocultural and emotional experience. This is especially the case with regard to Music, a subject which by its very nature is multidimensional and which often strikes up a resonance in the depths of our being. This means that dialogue and participation in music teaching have to be founded not merely upon what one has experienced externally but also – and indeed in the highest degree – upon what one has experienced internally, what one has felt. Thus it is a question of both a longitudinal and a transverse aspect of the concept of experience.