Harman-Bishop, Caroline Marguerite (2018) Aristotelian Virtue and Teaching and Learning in Music Performance
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Harman-Bishop, Caroline Marguerite (2018) Aristotelian virtue and teaching and learning in music performance. Ed.D thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/9009/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten:Theses http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Aristotelian virtue and teaching and learning in music performance Caroline Marguerite Harman-Bishop Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Under the supervision of Professor Penny Enslin School of Education College of Social Sciences University of Glasgow April 2018 i Abstract This study investigates the significance of Aristotelian virtue in teaching and learning in music performance. In response to a number of critical issues in professional practice, it is argued that virtue, framed within eudaimonistic happiness, should form an integral part of teaching and learning. Through an examination of Aristotle’s analysis of virtue, and primarily through his Nicomachean Ethics, virtue is presented as having the hallmarks of dynamic and responsive action and therefore as being of potential interest to teachers of music. Having acknowledged that music performance can be a particularly challenging arena, this study also considers why Aristotle, via his analysis in Politics of the reasons for educating students in music, provides further underlying reasons for its inclusion. By considering the work of one of his students, Aristoxenus, the investigation also establishes that here in Aristotle is a philosopher-teacher who is, we can be reassured, very much an informed music ‘amateur’. Noting the twofold importance that Aristotle gives to music in education, that is, how music contributes to our development and the worthwhile nature of understanding music for itself, the discussion explores and clarifies the notion of music performance. A range of frameworks are analysed and, after Godlovitch, personalism is defended as a framework. This is significant because personalism recognises the individual as both musician and human being. Thus, the demands, on both character and intellect, emerge strongly here as they do in Nicomachean Ethics. Having established that music performance is demanding, of both character and intellect, the virtue of courage is argued as crucial. The Aristotelian notion of courage is tested and its reaches extended, partly through the analysis of case studies. Ultimately, it is posited that courageous action forms part of eudaimonistic happiness. This study also considers Egan’s theory that ii intellectual disturbance occurs during stages of learning, thus providing further demands. It is argued that, in responding to such disturbance, teachers’ practice should embody characteristics of Aristotelian practical wisdom. In this way, it is posited that teachers act as valuable role models, both to their students and to their colleagues, including those colleagues new to the profession. With these challenges now identified and analysed, music performance is conceptualised as gift making. Importantly, this contributes to foregrounding the significant aspect of pleasure that is integral to Aristotelian virtuous action. The discussion closes by providing a defence of the position that Aristotelian virtue is of significance to teachers and students as they navigate their daily existence within the world of music performance. iii Table of contents Abstract i Acknowledgements v Author’s declaration vi Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Introductory framing 1 Perplexities of professional practice 2 Professional and personal contexts 5 Aims and methodology 7 Outline of chapters 10 Chapter 2 Aristotelian virtue 14 Positioning Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 14 The best type of life and happiness 19 Virtue 23 Virtue as function and goal 24 Aristotle’s definition of virtue 27 Virtue as skill 31 The relationship between Aristotelian happiness and virtue 37 Concluding remarks 38 Chapter 3 Aristotle and music education 39 The polis and the citizen 39 Education and the curriculum 40 Music in ancient Greece – general context 44 Aristotle’s influence in the musical world – a brief case study 45 Aristotle and the music curriculum 48 Chapter 4 The human effort of music performance 55 Introduction 55 Alternative approaches to the interpretative account 56 The interpretative account 59 An alternative view of interpretation 61 Energetics of performance 64 The skills account 68 Personalism 71 iv The music performer and significant others 72 The Aristotelian importance of music performance as human effort 78 Chapter 5 Courage: virtue and music performance 81 What is Aristotelian courage? 81 Is courage a feature of music performance? 88 More recent conceptions of courage 97 Courage redrawn 100 Conclusion 102 Chapter 6 Disturbance and practical wisdom 104 Professional context and learning disturbance 104 Kinship of Aristotelian virtues and practical wisdom: a necessary bond 114 Consonance and dissonance 121 Interpreting issues 123 Conclusion 137 Chapter 7 Gift making: Aristotelian virtue and music performance 141 Gifts and reciprocity 142 Music performance as gift making 147 Aristotelian virtue as gift making 153 Gift making as making meaning 154 Conclusion 159 Chapter 8 Conclusion 161 Areas for consideration 162 Three underlying principles for professional practice and further implications 167 Recommendations and further research 170 Summation 171 References 172 v Acknowledgements Thank you to Professor Penny Enslin for her magnificent support, careful guidance and wise humour. Thank you to my father, Brian John Harman, and brother, Richard Harman, and sisters Katherine Harman and Anne Share. Thank you to family and friends, and in particular Fiona Jackson, Joan Lister and Brian Dean. I would also like to thank Denise Porada for her steady support throughout the course. And I am grateful to students I have taught, colleagues and fellow students, and librarians. My heartfelt thanks go to my husband, Adrian Harman-Bishop. In memoriam Elisabeth Harman, a dear mother, and Rosalind Horsman, a dear friend. vi Author’s declaration I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this dissertation is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at The University of Glasgow or any other institution. Signature Printed name Caroline Marguerite Harman-Bishop 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Introductory framing The starting point of this defence of Aristotelian virtue in music education begins with the question: If Aristotelian virtue is a valuable premise upon which to take action in our lives, how can it help inform our response to challenges faced when becoming a music performer? While this dissertation is conceptual and philosophical in its investigation, here is a very practical issue: can Aristotelian virtue provide a worthwhile anchoring theme? For how we act informs what we do – and who we are. Music performance is certainly a demanding field of endeavour requiring intellectual and emotional stamina, love of, and respect for, music, and is likely to be of life-long participation if not of continued formal learning to the performer. It also requires physical stamina and awareness of self. And it may bring happiness. In the field of music education the focus is, necessarily, on the skills, techniques, knowledge and understanding collectively deemed necessary for students to acquire. A student’s music education is painstakingly built, note on note, into a curriculum vitae of sorts in which there may be moments of ‘crisis’ – critical passages. Where this learning takes on a different hue to many other academic disciplines is the fact that for the student music performer sometimes these can be particularly public. Anyone for example who witnessed the pain of the father waiting in the stage wings in the film Whiplash will identify with this. At a high-profile concert in which he plays in a jazz group, the son battles both an obsessive quest for perfection and the conductor, his reckless teacher. The teacher has demanded perfection – at all costs. Ambition fights ambition, and the music itself becomes a relentless partner in this quest for perfection. This scene makes for traumatic 2 viewing, partly because the viewer is made acutely aware that the father cannot shield, or comfort, his son. A student performer’s interaction with creating sound, their media, in very particular ways, musical, is offered, then, to the public – however and wherever that occurs. Perplexities of professional practice To illustrate some of the demands of musical learning I share the following additional vignettes. These stem from my professional life, and continue to perplex and astound in equal measure. These ‘critical moments’, or what I shall refer to as ‘disturbances’ or ‘breakages’, form in no small way the impetus for this investigation. This aspect, that of disturbance, is, I will argue, significant. I will return to these critical moments during the dissertation. Now though I give an initial account