Educating Ears: The Role of Sound in Music Learning

Abstract

School curricula in the United States tend to focus on students’ visual sense, making the teaching and learning of aural art a unique and challenging endeavor. In this philosophical inquiry with practical applications, I propose that the music curriculum be reevaluated with an ear toward the quality of sounds students hear daily as a foundation for heightened aural attention. Perhaps some music classes could more aptly be conceived as sound exploration classes, making school music opportunities accessible to more students and likely inspiring lifelong engagement with aural art. Music teachers will tend to offer a “sound” approach in their classrooms only to the extent that they themselves have had ample opportunities to explore their own aural interface with the world.