ABSTRACT

Since the publication of Bennett Reimer`s A Philosophy of Music Education (1970), the so called Music Education as Aesthetic Education (MERE) which is the main concept expressed in the book has exerted strong influence on the music education not only in the United States of America but also many countries around the world including Korea. Its main contribution is to change the main focus of music education from external values to internal ones. But lately many scholars have raised the issue on the validity of the MERE concept itself. David Elliott`s Music Matters (MM, 1995) is the first main culmination of such doubts as well as the presentation of his new Praxial Philosophy of Music Education. The purpose of this study is to compare Reimer`s A Philosophy of Music Education with Elliott`s Music Matters. In order to facilitate the comparison. I extracts eight main issues from Reimei`s and Elliott`s books themselves as well as other relevant articles mainly by the same authors. Those issues are: philosophy and aesthetic; artistic creation and creativity; music malting and musicianship; works of art; music listening and music education; conceptual knowledge; the value of music and music education; music and other arts. Reimer`s and Elliott`s opinions on each issue are presented first, then the discussion on the relevant controversial points is followed. Following is the summary of the findings of this study. 1. Reimer has chosen so called absolute expressionism as the foundation of his philosophy. This approach has been proved successful for clarifying the essential nature and necessity of music education. Elliott has based his philosophy on the praxialism which emphasizes the action and the context in music. 2. Reamer says that aesthetic experience is the process of exploring and discovering the expressive qualities. The insight of feeling can be achieved by the interaction between the aesthetic perceptions and reactions. Elliott emphasizes the social and contextual aspects of the music making. He called the procedural and non-verbal knowledge gained through such music making as musicianship. 3. Reamer defines the works of art as presentational forms discerned through aesthetic perceptions. He also argues that we can recognize the meaning of the work of art not by the conceptualization but by the structuralization of the aesthetic perceptions. Elliott defines the work of art as multi-dimensional cognitive challenge. He suggests the six dimensions of such challenge in order to stress the importance of contextual viewpoint.