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Music theatre: at the crest of music education's third wave
Author(s) -
Legg Robert,
Green Alex
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the curriculum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1469-3704
pISSN - 0958-5176
DOI - 10.1080/09585176.2015.1060893
Subject(s) - music education , third wave , ideology , musical , sociology , dominance (genetics) , musical composition , aesthetics , french new wave , pedagogy , epistemology , visual arts , art , philosophy , political science , politics , biochemistry , political economy , chemistry , law , gene , movie theater
In the United Kingdom, curricular music education has seen two main waves of development and is in the process of shaping a third. Ideas from the second wave have maintained theoretical dominance to the present day, despite the concerns expressed by some about their practical implementation. This paper suggests that problems with the implementation of second‐wave ideas have been caused by hermeneutic complexities inherent to the word ‘music’ as well as by an ongoing ideological debate about the proper purpose of music education. It is proposed here that by approaching musical learning in the emergent third wave through the sub‐discipline of ‘music theatre’ – and by conceiving that term in its broadest sense – this interpretive difficulty can be avoided whilst many practical advantages may be reaped. The notion of music theatre as a key component of music education's third wave is explored alongside its theoretical prerequisites, and a number of questions are identified for further consideration.