Letting Go of Papa's Hand: Music Education Without Music?

Abstract

It seems to be the destiny of Music Education that it be tied in junior relationship with other subjects - Music of course, and more recently, Anthropology. Understood as Education in Music, the subject is assumed to concern itself with how music is taught and learned. The author suggests that Music Education should also be understood, in questions of research, as Education about Music, thus allowing it to make a more direct contribution to the Humanities, and in particular, to cultural studies. By way of a case-study, the article outlines the ways in which Education about Music influenced a generation of writers in 19th-century France, and spread itself 'secretly' into their literary work.