Brooke Niblett

Music Belongs in the HeART: My Philosophy of Music in Education

Why does anyone pursue music as a hobby? A field of study? A profession? I fully
believe that the reason any of us pursue music is that at one point in our lives, we experienced a
moment where music touched us in a way that cannot be explained except to say that it touched
our heart. I chose to study music purely for this reason; I want to introduce children to a
medium that can express their innermost emotions and thoughts without any words at all. As a
future educator, it is important to develop a philosophy of music education based on ones values
and beliefs as a person and musician to prepare ourselves for the big question our future students
will ask us: Why is this music class even important? As an ESFJ Myers-Briggs personality
type, I can be described as a caregiver, and in this philosophy I will describe what it means to
be an expressionist who values what the music means to each individual child by catering to
his/her own journey in music.
My ESFJ personality means that I am primarily an Extrovert who Senses, Feels, and
Judges. My subtitle is the Caregiver (Portrait of an ESFJ, n.d.). As an extrovert, I deal with
things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit in with your personal value system
(Portrait of an ESFJ, n.d., P. 1). This correlates with my expressionist philosophy of music
pertaining to how we feel about music. In my personality, I am responsible and take pride in my
work. At the same time, I love people and try very hard to ensure people love me back. As an
educator, I value students and their feelings toward music and have a genuine interest in what
they have to say. Because I enjoy tradition and tend to follow rules regardless of how I feel about
them, I know that as an educator I will be consistent in classroom management and order.
Because I am a caregiver, I believe school should be a safe and nurturing environment for
students to learn by qualified teachers who care about their success. The education taught at the

Brooke Niblett
school is to prepare them for adulthood and their future integration into society. Music education
allows students to expand their thinking into a creative way to benefit and learn from others in a
global world. It is no secret that our world has globalized through technology we are all able to
work together globally in more ways than ever before. Music exists as the only universal
language that unites us as human. I contend that every human being has in fact been touched
emotionally and/or psychologically through music and that reason alone is enough for every
child to experience it in their public education.
Music is the organization of sounds that together evoke and/or express emotion in the
composer and/or the listener. I hold a heteronomous philosophy, specifically expressionism, in
that the meaning of music comes from something external of the work itself; it expresses the
emotions of the composer, the text, and/or the performer (Labuta & Smith, 1997, p. 45). In
every music class any child or young adult takes in their lifetime, the educator should primarily
focus on why a composer would use his/her specific strategies in each work. The next question
should be how does this work make you feel and what musical elements exemplify these
emotions? Burmeister (2013) stated, Music as play must be considered in this context because
of its universality in the experiences of all men (p. 107). This explains why any human listens to
music in the first place it speaks to our emotions.
While praxial music education values the importance of the elements of music only, I
maintain that aesthetic music education holds much more value in our society as it is not the
actual notes on the page that speak to the heart, but the entire experience of music. It is ludicrous
to leave out the most important part of each work the why. Leonhard and House (2013)
explained why aesthetic education benefits students when they stated, Man has physical,
intellectual, ethical, and aesthetic potentials Through aesthetic education he finds true self-

Brooke Niblett
realization He discovers means for satisfying a basic and pervasive need of all human beings,
namely, the need for symbolic experience (p. 112).
As an expressionist, I cannot accept the notion that every composer sat down and wrote
notes on a page strategically to simply make a pleasing sound every chord, dynamic level, and
articulation works together to emulate an experience and feeling. Leonard and House (n.d.)
contended that all humans experience life through our feelings, and music represents universal
experiences of struggle and fulfillment, intensity and release, rise and fall, movement and
repose, and even, finally, life and death (p. 113). In music education, these universal
experiences should be the reason for formal analysis and instruction.
The role of the music teacher is to lead participation in activities that instruct the
elements of music, as well as to nurture a safe place for students to share their personal reactions
and emotions toward music. It is our job to create experiences that will provide students with the
knowledge they need to be successful in the field of music, if they were to decide for themselves
to pursue music further. I plan to do this by using activities that include working together to
create something larger than what we can do alone, such as composing and improvising together,
working in smaller groups, and presenting a finished product to the entire class. These group
activities prepare students for a world filled with other people that they will soon have to work
with. I also plan to utilize creative activities that produce reflection on music, such as creativity
journals and writing reflections on music we have analyzed and performed.
Because of my dominant and organized nature, I will have an orderly classroom in which
students will know from the first day what I expect of them in respect to classroom order, daily
routine, and classroom atmosphere. I want to have a relationship with my students that ensures

Brooke Niblett
their safety so that they will feel comfortable enough to share their feelings when we work on
music even to share when music makes them feel sad or angry. I imagine my future classroom
to have many colors and visual representations of elements we will be learning including word
walls, and pictures of composers and historical contexts. The room will stimulate all the senses
so that all children, regardless of their strengths and learning styles, will feel welcomed in my
classroom.
Elliott (2013) stated, Fundamentally, music is something that people do (p. 135). While
his praxial philosophy of education differs dramatically from my aesthetic view, I agree with this
statement wholeheartedly. Music remains important to listen to and to reflect upon, but in my
classroom we will do music, (Elliotts word is musicing) just as much as we listen to music.
Students must learning the elements of music - tempo, dynamics, texture, melody, and harmony
because the elements explain the aesthetics the why even better. I will implement
improvisation and composition into lesson plans, for what better way is there to express our own
emotions than through improvising a melody? In this case, the music comes directly from the
heart of each person.
To assess my students, I will use a variety of techniques. I have found that small and
succinct quizzes distinguish easily if each child understands the topics covered in class. While
many music classes focus on self-reflection and self-assessment, I feel that the needs of the many
do not outweigh the few. For this reason, I will assess students in a more formal way to ensure
each one understands the material covered. These small quizzes could contain as few as 3 true or
false questions, depending on the topic, to notify the instructor of each childs understanding. In
music, students will attain skills such as working with others, speaking in front of the class, and
playing an instrument. I value individual playing tests in performance ensembles because it

Brooke Niblett
allows the teacher to hear every students progress to assess them formally, and it strengthens the
student in the ability to perform alone.
In a music symposium, my colleagues and I discovered truths that we feel every music
education curriculum should integrate into the music curriculum. My two favorite statements are
that music educators should introduce all students to music, and that we should introduce all
music to students. The difference is clear: all students should have experience with music while
in public school, and they should have experienced all kinds of music from different historical
periods, cultures, and styles. By participating in school-wide events such as concerts, meetings,
sporting events, and other functions as a music class, I am able to give a musical experience not
only to my students but also to the entire student body. Leonhard and House (2013) contended
that music educators should understand the unique contribution that music can make to the total
function of the school, and by participating in school-wide functions, I will be able to do just
that. All music has a place in public music education - nothing should be purposefully omitted
because a student in my class may find a personal connection with any particular style of music.
Music speaks to the heart of everyone. For this reason, it should be implemented in all
school systems to provide a well-rounded education to all children who will one day have to
interact with all the world. Music is the one experience we have that brings us together as
human. Through an organized and nurturing classroom environment, an aesthetic music
education experience that also values the musical elements will give students the chance to
express their own emotions while understanding others. It is my hope that by focusing on
personal emotions and experiences with music, that more of my students will value music as an
art and will pursue it as a lifetime experience.

Brooke Niblett
Works Cited and Referenced
Burmeister, C.A. (2013).The role of music in general education. In M.L. Mark (Ed.), Music
education: Source readings from Ancient Greece to today (pp. 106-107). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Elliot, D.J. (2013). The praxial philosophy of music education. In M.L. Mark (Ed.), Music
education: Source readings from Ancient Greece to today (pp. 135-137). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Labuta, J.A., & Smith, D.A. (1997). Music education: Historical contexts and perspectives.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Incorporated.
Leonhard, C., & House, R.W. (2013). The objectives and processes of education. In M.L. Mark
(Ed.), Music education: Source readings from Ancient Greece to today (pp. 108-116).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Portrait of an ESFJ (n.d.). BSM Consulting, Inc. Retrieved from
https://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESFJ.html.