PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCHPHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH

in Choral Pedagogyin Choral Pedagogy

I. Doing Philosophy

II. Philosophy in the Context of Choral Music

are vehicles we think with.

Like mental lenses they contribute to how we perceive

phenomena and thus to what we may see.

Researchers owe much to ideas and the lenses they provide.

…a process of systematic inquiry by which data are gathered, analyzed, and interpreted in ways that contribute to the development of knowledge.

…often reflects a dialectic between:

provisional ideas (hypotheses)

exegetic ideas (theories)

…may also be mediated by

schemata

learned, highly organized, networked conceptual patterns

that actively create expectations as they encounter new data

Explanatory Constructs:

larger configurations of cognition, such as schemata and theories

theories are more passive mental data intentionally manipulated by thought

schemata are more actively a part of a researcher’s own cognitive processing procedures, evaluating incoming data, both sensory and mental, for “quality of fit”

We are tempted to assume that we see the world directly and immediately.

But our insight is always mediated by ideas, concepts and explanatory constructs... many of which we take for

granted and rarely question.

Researchers owe much to ideas….

But it’s sometimes difficult to think about ideas themselves…..

...that is, to think about how we think.

Philosophy is thinking about how we think.

Doing Philosophy

pursuit of wisdom

loving wisdom

thinking about thinking

Doing Philosophy

Philosophy is different from:

opinionpoint of viewpreferenceideologybelief

Doing Philosophy

“The opinion of a thousand jackasses is just that: the opinion of a thousand jackasses.”

The motivation of philosophy derives from an uneasiness with the status quo.

Doing Philosophy

A basic pre-requisite for doing philosophy:

An open mind uncluttered in so far as possible by pre-conceived or pre-determined parameters

Doing Philosophy

Basic tools of philosophical research:

critical reason/logic

language

Doing Philosophy

Three basic procedures in philosophic research:

Criticism...evaluate basic alternative modes of life and thought and formulate choices

Speculation…construct ideal futures or projections of desirable experiences

Analysis…clarification of thoughts, concepts, and the meaning of language

Doing Philosophy

Basic way of doing philosophy:

argument

“An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition.” --Monty Python

Doing Philosophy

Arguments and Non-Arguments

Every scene of this movie was filled with excitement for me. I particularly liked the action scenes on the river.

expression of support/enthusiasm, not an argument

I spent five hundred dollars to take this course and the professor appeared in blue jeans and tee shirt, which I consider bad taste. He may have known what he was talking about, but I couldn’t get past the clothes.

a complaint/grip, not an argument

The sincerest satisfaction in life comes in doing one’s duty and in being a dependable person.

a statement of point of view, not an argument

Doing Philosophy

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprise, either of virtue or mischief.” -Francis Bacon

“Women have great strengths, but they are strengths to help the man. A woman’s primary purpose in life and marriage is to help her husband succeed.” -James Robinson

Elaborated, but unsupported statements of opinion, not arguments.

Doing Philosophy

Basic ingredients of an argument:

Proposition (statement or assertion that is either true or false)

A proposition can be either: a premise, or a conclusion.

A first step toward understanding arguments is learning to identify premises and conclusions.

Unfortunately, they are not always explicit.

Doing Philosophy In a basic deductive argument if a

premise is false, so is everything else

“Garbage in….

…Garbage out.”

GIGO

Doing Philosophy

Validity and Soundness of Arguments

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal.

premises are true, inference is valid

All cats are animals. All pigs are animals. All pigs are cats.

premises are true, but improper inference

All movie stars live in Hollywood. Robert Redford is a movie star. Therefore Robert Redford lives in Hollywood.

false premise, but valid reasoning

a valid argument, but not a sound argument

Doing Philosophy

Philosophy pervades all research.

The purpose of this study is…...

To that end, the following research questions were designed for this study:

Sometimes said that only numbers (quantitative research) delivers objectivity….

Yet, such numbers relate to a premise. Statistics test premises, they do not generate them.

Doing Philosophy

Engagement with both relies essentially upon argument.

Philosophy is both a body of knowledge (history of ideas) and an ongoing, systematic method of inquiry

By means of analyses based on arguments, philosophers can do experiments: thought experiments, where variables are manipulated in imagination rather than in laboratories or in field work.

Doing Philosophy

Scientific method was born from philosophy

Positivism

Post-positivism critiques:

feminists

deconstructionists

…a process of systematic inquiry by which data are gathered, analyzed, and interpreted in ways that contribute to the development of knowledge.

the data for philosophical research are ideas, concepts, and explanatory constructs…philosophers inspect the architecture of such cognitive units, asking “How do we know what we know?” and “Why?”

philosophers are all about construct validity.

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

“challenge... the validity of extant ideas and practices. They systematically ask whether these ideas and practices are well grounded. They bypass the peripheral and trivial issues, going to the core of why things are as they seem to be and where they seem to be going. As such, they address central questions relating to (choral pedagogy) and challenge its very reason for being…by clarifying terms, exposing and evaluating assumptions, and developing systematic bodies of thought that connect with other ideas in respect to a wide range of issues touching on (choral pedagogy)”. --Estelle Jorgensen

In the context of choral pedagogy, philosophers may

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

What is this?

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

--James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, Sunday, January 22, 2001, p 30 Arts & Leisure (on why the 1980 edition of Grove’s decided not to have an entry on music).

Music

“For music, despite the saw about its being an international language, is many things to many people, places, and times.”

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy We “could find no one person who could have written on ‘music’ and the changing significance of the term through the ages.”

--Stanley Sadie, Editor of The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Music

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

Choral Pedagogy

• “…the deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit or evoke knowledge, attitudes, values, skills and sensibilities”

--Lawrence A. Cremin (definition of education)

In what ways does the context of choral music making impact and/or modify this definition?

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

Why choral music?

• “art for art’s sake”• socialization, enculturation, ethos,

teamwork, family, discipline, travel• learn how to develop and use your voice• makes you smarter• get to dress in formal clothes• ?

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

MUSIC PEDAGOGY

GENUSSpecies

Pedagogy Music

Pedagogy through music

Pedagogy in music

Music Pedagogy

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

MUSIC PEDAGOGY

GENUSSpecies

Pedagogy Music

CHORAL MUSIC PEDAGOGY

Pedagogy Choral Music

The introduction of “Choral” adds interesting wrinkles, because choral music (1) has text and (2) is done in groups.

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

1. Choral music has text

constructs associated with absolute music or “music alone” can be problematic, unless one postulates that text can be ignored

Historically, for example:

Choruses have functioned better in the context of general education than the “fine arts” as a whole, perhaps because of their relationship with text. For example:

The Greek Chorus, Church Choir, etc. are as much about ethos as music.

Vocal/choral music, not instrumental music, was first admitted as a curricular subject in US public schools

St. John’s College still requires every student to take chorus.

Philosophy and

Choral Pedagogy

1. Chorusing is a group activity

constructs derived from solo singing can be problematic acoustically and pedagogically

singing is not just singing; it has contexts, ensemble singing being one such context

this factor may have ramifications for many facets of choral musicking:

auditions, warm-ups, formation/placement, choir size, etc.

Approaches to choral pedagogy based on characteristics of the individual Approaches to choral pedagogy based on characteristics of the individual voice tend simply to transfer those particular characteristics to the group voice tend simply to transfer those particular characteristics to the group as a whole. A conductor works with an ensemble much like a voice as a whole. A conductor works with an ensemble much like a voice teacher works with a single student in a studio.teacher works with a single student in a studio.

An Example: Explicit Group Teaching and Associated Choral Sound Assumptions

The fundamental assumption here is that the whole (in this case the Choir and its sound) is simply the sum of its constituent parts (i.e., the individual human voices that comprise the Choir).

Canons of logic call this kind of faulty reasoning the . . .

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ChoirChoir==Yet, empirical research demonstrates that solo singing and choral singing are Yet, empirical research demonstrates that solo singing and choral singing are two distinct modes of phonation, i.e., people phonate differently in choirs than two distinct modes of phonation, i.e., people phonate differently in choirs than they do as soloists; and that acoustic properties of choral sound are different they do as soloists; and that acoustic properties of choral sound are different than those of individual sound.than those of individual sound.

Fallacy of Composition• Trying to apply what is true of an individual to the Trying to apply what is true of an individual to the

group as a whole…group as a whole…

• Assuming that characteristics of the parts Assuming that characteristics of the parts transfer to the characteristics of the whole made transfer to the characteristics of the whole made up of those parts…up of those parts…

• The whole is simply the sum of its parts. The whole is simply the sum of its parts.

• Example: “Each part of this machine is light; therefore, this must be a very Example: “Each part of this machine is light; therefore, this must be a very light machine.”light machine.”

Fallacy of Division• Individual parts are like and equal divisions of the Individual parts are like and equal divisions of the

whole…whole…

…and it’s sister, the

Both research and the canons of logic demonstrate that all sopranos or all basses, for instance, are not created equally. Even within the same choir, subject to the same training, they vary according to vocal output.

Fallacy of Division• Individual parts are NOT necessarily like and Individual parts are NOT necessarily like and

equal divisions of the whole…equal divisions of the whole…

Still, choral procedures persist in fallacious thinking: