Preface

 

David Hargreaves & Alexandra Lamont (2017)

 

Preface in The Psychology of Musical Development

 

For me, one of the most interesting parts of this Preface was the decision of musicianship and what is meant by “engagement with music”. 

 

Hargreaves & Lamont say that previously ‘musician’ was only used to describe people who produced music:  i.e. composers, improvisers, and performers. 

 

Listeners, even when audience members, were seen as being in a passive or reactive role. 

 

However, they cite Rickard & Chin (2017) as providing evidence for a “musicianship of listening”, which is said to be just as valid as the musicianship held by producers of music. 

 

Therefore, the term ‘non-musician’ is essentially redundant.

 

Similarly, Hargreaves, MacDonald and Miell (2012a) are quoted as saying:

 

we are all musical

 

and

 

every human being has a biological and social guarantee of musicianship … and that the technical and expressive aspects of musical performance demand skills that everyone is capable of learning given the appropriate environmental intervention.

 

Trevarthen (2002, 2012) supports this by describing how the first communication between babies and the adults who care for them as musical, with more in common with music than spoken language.

 

However, there isn’t enough provision for musical skills to be developed in young children, and so they start to see themselves as “unmusical”. 

 

Using one of my favourite quotes, Hargreaves & Lamont end with the words of Pablo Picasso:

 

Every child is an artist.

 

The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

 

References mentioned here:

Rickard, N S and Chin, TC (2017) Defining the musical identity of “Non-Musicians'”. In R A R MacDonald, D J Hargreaves and D E Miell (eds.) Handbook of musical identities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 288-303.