PARTE IV RESUMEN Y ANEXOS
11. REVISIÓN DE OBJETIVOS y CONCLUSIONES
(especially Paynter and Aston, 1970; and Paynter, 1982) have possibly done more than
any other individuals during the latter part of the twentieth century to shape current
music education practice in this country. For instance, Cox writes of the 'evolution of
Swanwick' (2002a, p. 113). Similarly Plummeridge has commented that Swanwick's `ideas and principles have become the source for much current thinking on curriculum design and classroom practice' (2002, p. 7). Paynter and Swanwick were also the founding editors, for fourteen years, of the British Journal of Music Education.
The sequence of Swanwick's main publications reveals the cumulative and eclectic development of a philosophy of music education that knits together various important strands concerned with the nature and value of music as an art and what the development of musical awareness and knowledge might mean in educational settings (1979; 1988; 1994; 1999). For Swanwick, music is a form of knowing or cognition (see also Serafine, 1988), a symbolic form and a mode of discourse, 'impregnated with metaphor' (for example, 1999, p. xii, with the notion of metaphor developed pp. 7-13). Music's value is thus connected to its nature in that 'Music is a way of thinking, a way of knowing. As a symbolic form it creates a space where new insights become possible ... this is ultimately why music is significant and valuable' (1999, p. 23). Music's value among the arts lies in its nature as 'a medium in which ideas about ourselves and others are articulated in sonorous shapes' (1999, p. 2).
His book, Musical knowledge: Intuition, analysis and music education (1994) is a valuable reference when considering what knowledge might mean in relation to music. As part of his argument, Swanwick divides knowledge into two main types, reflecting divisions noted earlier in this chapter, summarised in the following passage:
[Musical knowledge appears to be either propositional or direct, by acquaintance. Acquaintance knowledge is prime, for there is no other way of accessing music, and it is complex, having several layers. These I categorise as materials (knowing how), expression and form (knowing this) and value (knowing what's what). Of these it is valuing that characterises the deepest levels of musical experience. (1994, p. 25)
Knowledge is rarely as easily distinguishable as this and Swanwick has earlier explained that although the 'several strands' of knowledge are 'separable for the purpose of closer analysis' they are 'often woven together in our actual experience' (1994, pp. 14-15). This means such knowledge is essentially individual, as he concludes in the same book: 'Ultimately, all 'meaning', all 'knowledge' is a personal, individual interpretation of life experience' (1999, p. 176).
Nevertheless, his ways of thinking about different sorts of musical knowledge are helpful in their distinctions, as well as linking with aspects of Eraut's divisions of professional knowledge. Therefore, there follows a fuller description of each of Swanwick's 'layers'. However, it should be remembered that the following typology from Swanwick originally related to knowledge of the subject itself, rather than the applied professional, pedagogic, knowledge of a teacher.
Knowing
that
is factual and propositional, following Ryle (1949/1963). It involves information about music, including, for instance, technical vocabulary and knowledge about historical, geographical and sociological context. Swanwick considers this is the `most obvious and easily recognised category of knowledge', which can 'easily be acquired in non-musical ways' (1994, p. 15). Yet, because of that, it is 'musically inert: second-hand knowledge' (ibid. p. 16) although sometimes useful in illuminating other kinds of musical knowledge. This would, in some instances, link with that part of Eraut's public, codified knowledge held in an individual's personal knowledge.Although Swanwick also uses the term 'personal knowledge', his usage is in a slightly different sense from Eraut, being applied to first-hand knowledge acquired directly through musical experience, what he calls knowledge of music (p. 16), or 'direct'
knowledge (p. 26). This, he maintains, is far more important than propositional knowledge and subdivides into a further three sections:
Knowing how involves activity skills, such as aural skills, physical and manipulative
skills (as in playing an instrument), and notational skills. These cover what Swanwick refers to as 'coming to grips with the materials of music'. He also describes this as 'a type of knowledge that we display in action every day', and says of it that 'most knowing 'how' cannot be learned or displayed verbally' (ibid. p. 17). This has some connection with Eraut's process knowledge.
Knowing it or knowing this is knowledge by acquaintance — knowing this music, —
which is, according to Swanwick, the 'absolutely central core involved in knowing music'. Most of this 'is indeed likely to be tacit, unanalysed, unarticulated', however, `[m]any writers on aesthetics have stressed acquaintance knowledge as being absolutely fundamental in the arts' (1994, p. 17; and see, for example, Reid, 1986). As in knowing a person, it is only gained by repeated experiences (Reid, 1986). It is particularly concerned with expressive character and structural awareness. The former is 'not personal feelings in reaction to the music but a perception of what particular feeling qualities can be discovered by attending to the music itself.' These feelings are objective in the sense that they are
embodied in our experience of the music, arising from our interpretation of the musical object ... When we speak of expressive character we mean that a musical performance has about it a sense of individual expressive identity' (Swanwick, 1994, p. 18)
Structural awareness is concerned with the relationships between different constituents within the whole and 'overarches, complements and is fused with expressive playing' (ibid.).
Swanwick thus seems to use 'acquaintance knowledge' as the term not only for the blanket category of personal knowledge of music, as seen in, for instance, his equating of 'Intuitive, personal or acquaintance knowledge' (1994, p. 26), but also, during his exposition of the various strands of musical knowing, as a distinct, albeit 'core' kind of knowledge, which he places after his description of 'knowing how' (see p. 17) and ties to expression and form (see pp. 17-19), the elements by which acquaintance knowledge is revealed. However, he then removes it to its overarching function in his summary (see the quote above, 1994, p. 25). For ease of distinction I have left it here as a separate category (relating to expression and form) alongside knowing how (skills/materials) and knowing what's what (valuing) as, for me, it has an individual identity, especially given his insistence on materials, expression and form, and valuing as the component parts of these strands of knowledge. However, this is not, of course, to deny the essentially personal and experiential nature of all three of these categories.
Knowing what's what is attitudinal 'knowing' and Swanwick links it to Bloom's
affective domain (see Krathwohl, Bloom & Masia, 1964). As Swanwick says, 'We can respond to music with varying levels of commitment, or with none at all' (1994, p. 19). Again, it is dependent on accumulated experience and therefore, 'As a consequence, this knowledge of 'what's what' is deeply personal, highly subjective and varies not only between individuals but for any person over time, perhaps fluctuating from day to day' (ibid.). Although it involves 'experiential or direct valuing, when we as individuals find quality in an encounter', it also includes valuing at one remove, when we recognise particular music 'has value for others' even if we do not respond to it ourselves (ibid. p. 20). He distinguishes between meaning 'to' and meaning 'for' when one might appreciate the nature or worth of something, meaning 'to', even if it does not have much