An open letter to my students, their families (aka “TLDR”)

Perhaps it’s because I’m past middle age. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been in this profession for a certain amount of time (over 25 years.) Perhaps it’s because it’s the time of year when students are filling out Choice Sheets and new students have been accepted to our campus. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been surrounded by educators, artists, musicians, and ‘students’ of all kinds my entire life. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been reading and reflecting on the works of current authors and researchers in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience & neuropsychology, the poly-crisis & meta-crisis, and more. Perhaps it’s because I, like everyone else, can see how much confusion and concern there is across the cultural, social, political, and natural landscape. Perhaps this letter is a way for me to “see my thinking” come to life. Perhaps this is too long and you won’t read. Perhaps….

Whatever the reasons, I feel compelled to describe why I continue to muddle through as a music educator and musician. And more importantly, I’m compelled to make the case for why and how music and the arts – the practice, performance, and study of it – is still as important as it has always been, and perhaps more important than ever.

COMMUNITY

“I am because we are” – Ubuntu saying

You should enroll in art, band, choir, dance, orchestra, and theater. You should join with the rest of us in this high-demand endeavor to express group-artistic goals. And you should do so because without groups (families, “tribes”, small communities) you could not exist. You would not and do not exist separate from your actual parents and family, and by extension, you would not exist without your friend groups and small communities. Not that long ago, being separated from your tribe, village, or community was a matter of life or death. Joining a group is one of the best things we can do to become more healthy and less foolish people.

The fragmentation of our world is obvious wherever we look. An ever-increasing certainty and belief in the power of the individual over the collective, the priority of “mine” over “ours” – these are pernicious and insidious across the landscape. This fragmentation can lead some students to prioritize the resume-building, economic-focused mindset of current educational thinking whereby we build, bit by bit, the most economically viable career path to ensure we can make enough money to support our “selves” – because the self is more important than the group. The argument I make here isn’t against self-reliance and economic capacity; rather, it’s against why it should matter more than anything else.

“I’m not going to major in music or art in college, so why should I continue on with music in high school?” “Musicians and artists don’t make as much money as doctors, engineers, and software developers, so why spend my precious time on these ‘skills’ when I already know what I’m going to do (and it isn’t music)?”

Arguments or thinking of this kind ignore the fact that every endeavor of any kind is accomplished in concert with others. Even the most brilliant and successful individuals studied and learned within a field from trusted mentors and ‘elders’ who shared their insights and discoveries. Learning to explore and express insights and experiences with others is at the heart of humanity. We, you and I, are not mere fragments who can do anything we want free from consequence. Rather, we are all connected, and are only able to discover and accomplish what we do because we are part of families, groups, and small communities everywhere. Playing music with others over the course of middle and high school is more than an extra-curricular affair, something that “colleges want to see on transcripts.”

And, for those who are so inclined, it should be noted that some of the most important discoveries and achievements in science specifically (which is often seen as more serious, real, or important than the arts) have been from people who had musical training (i.e. Albert Einstein, Frances Arnold, Oliver Sacks, Max Planck, Richard Feynman.)

Music and performing arts are inherently important and valuable. Yes, they may be of some worth from the economic perspective; but, before our current economically driven social norms emerged around the 1600s, art and music were the cornerstone of culture (whether in religious, natural, or daily family life.) There are no cultures that have not had art and music as part of their foundation. Art and music are the external expression of the implicit feeling of belonging and shared experience. Being in a performing arts group is foundational to life and learning. The compartmentalization of ‘subjects’ in schools has many drawbacks, not the least of which is the confused idea that life and learning is done best by taking it apart and looking at it in all its distinct bits, but then failing to put it all back together again with a renewed and deeper sense of its value and meaning. Removing arts and music from life is what can happen when this compartmentalization goes too far.

EDUCATION AS EDUCING

“Educe” – to draw out something hidden, latent, or reserved

Children are not vessels to be filled, but lamps to be lit.

Too often education broadly speaking (and certainly the education system specifically) is focused on filling students with information rather than lighting the fires of curiosity, discovery, and creativity. When music (and any other field of study) is approached with the spirit of discovering or revealing student’s hidden talents and gifts, the need to fill them with information is much less important. Certainly, there are lessons to pass on, but they should be passed on by igniting the spirit of inquiry and creativity, rather than through a complicated model of ‘information processing.’

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

That’s just a cliché heading. But what is practice? What are the kinds of things that are practiced? Music practice, sure. Dance practice, of course. And athletic practice, definitely. (In fact a similar argument can and should be made about the value of athleticism and fitness, but I digress.) But what about medical practice, or law practice, or even scientific practice, or religious practice? Without practice, action is scattered, hit-or-miss, and overly repetitive (or not repetitive enough) and fails to achieve enduring or meaningful results. 

4 E’s of Cognitive Science

“Art and music are frivolous, irrelevant hobbies that don’t apply in the real world; therefore, I will take classes that actually matter, like computer science….”

Embodied, Embedded, Extended, and Enacted – The four E’s of cognitive science have been developed and explored by scientists in various fields for decades in an attempt to understand what intelligence is (an endeavor that began as far back as René Descartes in the 1600s.)

Intelligence or cognition is embodied. Because we are living beings with bodies we are able to understand and know things about our world through immediate contact with the world around us. For instance, we can understand how someone else “feels” only because we have a body with feelings too. We can examine the natural world with our eyes, ears, nose, touch, and taste and in these ways we can express our intelligence.

Intelligence is embedded. We live with others (plants, animals, and people) and it is through our moment-to-moment interaction with them that we develop our intelligence. The implicit learning we share with others is what we’re talking about here. Children learn by living with their parents, by being immersed in their families and communities. Communication, language, and the sharing of experience is only possible because we are embedded within such groups.

Intelligence is extended. As is often told through biology, animals and people are able to use tools. Tools allow us to extend our intelligence. For example, as we use a stick to grab something far away we begin to “feel” through the stick into the world. We’re no longer feeling the stick itself, but rather, feeling the world through it.

Intelligence is enacted. Because we have bodies we are also able to interact with the world, to discover cause-and-effect relationships. Without action, and interaction, there can be no intelligence.

The 4E’s Through a Music Lens

Embodied – The voice and rhythm are inherent in all people. All people can sing and feel a pulse, can create rhythm and respond to it. And we do so via the body without which these are not possible. As such, intelligence is afforded by the body, and is not simply a “product of the mind” as cartesian thinking asserts.

Embedded – The power of music is greater than the sum of its parts. Music is a feeling deep within our biological nature, a way that people have communicated before language developed tens of thousands of years ago. Intonation, phrasing, and rhythm develop first in newborn babies; and they prefer “prosody” – the music of speech, and especially from their mothers – over normal speech. Musicians and performers live, work, and play within communities to express and explore the intonation, phrasing, and rhythm of being human. Our intelligence is embedded in our culture and relationships.

Extended – Learning to play an instrument or to train the musical voice helps to extend our cognition and intelligence in profound ways. The feeling of expression learned by training and developing the voice and in learning to play a percussion or wind instrument, or in learning to dance or use color guard equipment, goes beyond mere skill and actually deepens our relationship to the world and our place in it. Intelligence is extended through our flute, saxophone, trombone, flag and rifle. We are able to express and deepen our intelligence by extension through these “tools” or instruments. And in a similar way, the wearing of costumes and masks allows us to develop our intelligence by seeing ‘through’ the mask and costume to truths unavailable otherwise.

Enacted – The consistent practice of music or drama demonstrates that action does indeed speak louder than words. No matter how potentially effective our analysis and critical thinking of a given musical passage is, it MUST be acted upon for it to matter. Without interaction there can be no intelligence – therefore, each moment of practicing or performing music demonstrates and draws out our inherent intelligence and cognition.

TWO MORE E’s to CONSIDER – EMOTIONAL and EXAPTED

Intelligence is emotional. Without the ability to care for someone or to care about various actions more than others, intelligence would not be possible. The body’s emotional response to its environment is not separate from the mind (intelligence); no, it’s at the very core of being intelligent humans that we have feelings and cares about each other and the world. The study, practice, and performance of the arts, drama, and music put us in direct contact with our emotional intelligence.

Intelligence is exapted. Here are a few classic examples of exaptation. One, the tongue in humans was originally evolved to grasp and manipulate food to eat. But, over the thousands of years of evolution, the tongue was exapted to give rise to music and then speech. Another example of exaptation is that feathers were originally for mating display and for warmth, but when little by little over eons, those who had longer and bigger feathers were evading prey and were able to jump a little further, then glide a little longer, feathers were exapted for flying.

The exaptation of music, drama, and art shows up in the metaphorical thinking they afford their practitioner. The ability to think in metaphor is at the heart of cognition as argued by Douglas Hoffstader and many others. Developing musical thinking, artistic thinking, or dramatic thinking gives us the ability to exapt these into all areas of life.

Why all that matters

It’s not that computer science isn’t valuable (an often cited example of why students are dropping music and art from their lives), but rather since it is a tool of extraordinary power, the question must be asked to what end is this power directed? If it is directed towards making more available the arts and shared human experiences such as music, then by all means it can be important. But it is a mistake to consider it more important than music. I hope that my continued argument will make this assertion more apparent. When students further develop their musical abilities, when they grow together through the performance and study of music, drama, and the arts they are furthering their intelligence and cognition. Because so much of education focuses on information over participation, filling vessels instead of lighting lamps, we are potentially subject to “propositional tyranny.”

The 4 P’s of Knowing

Propositional, Procedural, Perspectival, Participatory

Developed by the cognitive scientist, philosopher, and cutting-edge thinker and interlocutor John Vervaeke, the “4 P’s of Knowing” are a powerful insight into how we come to know things about ourselves and our relationship with the world.

Propositional Knowing is the kind of knowing associated with semantic knowing. For instance, the statement “a clarinet is a woodwind” or “cats are mammals” are both examples of propositional knowing. Propositional knowing is also associated with a sense of truth and conviction. “I know that cats are mammals.” In concert with the other types of knowing described below, propositional knowing is useful and helps to clarify and solve the various problems of the world. But over the past several decades and perhaps going back a few centuries, the world of propositions (ideas and ideals) has begun to dominate in a kind of “propositional tyranny.”

Procedural Knowing is the kind of knowing associated with ‘know-how’ or how to do something. Knowing how to ride a bike or how to play the Bb major scale are both examples of procedural knowing. Procedural knowing is associated with power. The power to do things is very important for our survival as a species. There are hundreds of examples in current culture and over the centuries of how skill development and know-how helped civilization advance, from stone masons, to architects, to engineers, to farmers, to artists, to physicians, to scientists, and more. Again, this kind of knowing brings a sense of power.

Perspectival Knowing is the kind of knowing associated with a point of view. When I say “I know what it’s like to perform at a marching band or winter guard contest” or “I know what it’s like to play in tune with other musicians” I do so from an experience only available from that moment in time, also known as “situational awareness.” Whereas propositional knowing is associated with truth per se or conviction, and procedural knowing is associated with power, perspectival knowing is associated with a sense of presence.

Participatory Knowing is the kind of knowing associated with the agent-arena relationship, something similarly described in biology as “niche construction.” Briefly described, an agent lives within an arena. Biological organisms or agents make changes in their environment and the environment causes changes in the organism. In the agent-arena of music and performing arts, the experience of rehearsing and performing in band halls, gymnasiums, marching fields, and football stadiums causes changes in the performers, while the performers shape their environment (including the attention of audiences.) These same places take on a unique feeling, even reverence, a place where others’ attention is turned towards the potential magic-making moment of art, music, and drama.

Since prehistoric times, caves, hollows, grottos, plateaus, mountains, hills, and landscapes of all kinds have affected us by being ‘natural’ theaters, venues, and stages where human expression and cultural bonding occurred. Thousands of years of architecture has shown how meaningful natural spaces like these were to us for sharing the things that mattered the most. We have been involved in serious niche construction for millenia and it has, in turn, shaped us. When we walk into a library we immediately act and behave and even think in different ways. And similarly, when we walk into grand theaters, arenas, or concert halls we are called to action in a particular way.

AGENT-ARENA RELATIONSHIP – AFFORDANCE

In this context, an affordance can be described as the relationship between the agent and the arena. As an example, what is walking? Where does it exist? Is the walking in the floor or is the walking in me? It’s the relationship between the two where the walking exists (the relationship affords the walking) – this is where Participatory Knowing exists.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN 4 E’s and 4 P’s

There is significant overlap between these two models (and I’m clear they are only models), but the point I would like to make here is this. The non-propositional kinds of knowing are the ‘place’ from which the propositional kinds emerge. But over the course of the past several decades and centuries, we have slowly turned this relationship upside down and have become increasingly more likely to think and believe that propositions are the foundation of knowing and understanding. But how is it that we’ve come to over-value our propositions and under-value the non-propositional?

HEMISPHERIC HYPOTHESIS and the IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC

In his groundbreaking works, The Master and His Emissary (2009) and The Matter with Things (2021), Iain McGilchrist developed 3o years of research into what could be referred to as the hemispheric hypothesis. This is not a hypothesis in the sense of a simple hunch or theory, but rather the stunning synthesis of thousands of pages of work by neurologists, neuropsychologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, novelists, playwrights, musicians, artists, and more. Not only is this a stunning synthesis of other’s work, but a synthesis of his own experiences in literature and medicine.

He is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford where he taught literature before training in medicine. He is an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society if Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlehem and Maudley Hospital, London, and has researched in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore.

In over almost 2000 pages between the two works, he carefully illustrates how the differences in the way the hemispheres attend to the world have shaped the world we live in. It is an impossible task to condense 30 years of study and practice in just a few sentences, but it will be important for the further purposes of my open-letter, so I will give it my best effort to describe briefly and succinctly some of the findings of The Master and His Emissary.

EAT AND AVOID BEING EATEN

The left hemisphere has the advantage over the right hemisphere by seeing the parts, the static slices of life, and the explicit. It is with the left hemisphere that we learned to grasp things, a bit of food for instance, and this is how it is that homo sapiens became mostly right handed (which as we know is controlled by the left hemisphere.) By contrast, the right hemisphere has the advantage over the left hemisphere in that it attends to the world by sensing wholes, the Gestalt, and the implicit. It is with this kind of attention that we can scan the world broadly, including the important ability to avoid being eaten.

The right can see the unity of both division and unity (both/and thinking) whereas the left can see the division of the unity (either/or thinking); but critically, the right can see the unity of both both/and and either/or, whereas the left can only see the division of either/or. And it is important to reiterate that the division of the world through either/or thinking is not a result of the two hemispheres working in (healthy) opposition to one another, but rather as a result of only the left hemisphere’s either/or thinking.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF ALL THIS??

“How does all this apply to joining band or choir?” I’ll admit it’s all a bit much. One could say “It’s too hard to apply this much thinking, philosophy, and research to the simple choice of joining a high school orchestra or dance group. Either choose it or don’t. What’s the big deal? There are lots of choices to make in life and band won’t always fit. Quit trying to convince me. I’ll just make a choice and move on.”

“And if the world is as messed up as you suggest, why not just double down on engineering, political campaigning and influence, computer programming, and letting technology save us? How can music or the arts be of any real use?”

LEFT HEMISPHERIC BIAS TOWARDS UTILITARIANISM

The left hemisphere with its attention on grasping and manipulating the world around it tends to see all endeavors as either useful or not which leads to a closed-loop thinking which presupposes that ‘things’ or behaviors of any sort are only valuable due to their use. And, as the thinking goes, since there’s not really any point to music or art, dispensing with it in favor of more useful things is the best course of action. We can’t solve climate change or effect peace in war-torn regions by playing a song or drawing. But even if this kind of thinking was directed towards mostly positive goals such as these, the way the left hemisphere would go about it would be to look at everything in a divided way, examining this bit and that bit, but then rarely (practically never) being able to bring them back together again in a meaningful way – in a way that might actually help.

Music is mostly a right hemispheric experience, at least in the way that most of us experience music. Music, being non-verbal, exists apart from the language-based world (and propositional knowing) of the left hemisphere. As explored above in the briefest of mentions, the right hemisphere attends to the world by sensing wholes, the Gestalt, and the implicit. It can “see” how things are all interrelated, whereas the left hemisphere can only see how everything is different. If the poly-crisis or meta-crisis is largely the result of failing to see how the solutions of one generation cause the problems of the next, then it is not more left-hemispheric thinking that we need. It has hopefully become more obvious by now that what is needed is more right-hemispheric attention. And since music is one of the ways in which the brain can attend to things as wholes rather than parts, then it follows that the study, practice, and performance of music may in fact be one of the ways we help to solve the problems of this and previous generations without (or at least mitigating against) causing the next.

SO I SHOULD JOIN BAND TO SAVE THE WORLD??

The answer may lie in what kind of world we find worth saving.

———————

EPILOGUE

Music predates language as the original way we communicate. Music is therefore more foundational to the human experience than the language of propositions (“facts and figures.”)

Uncovering and discovering the music that emerges from all of us together is only possible through participation. The music performed by an ensemble is greater than the sum of its parts. The dance performed by the troupe is greater than the sum of its dancers or their movements. One can’t simply ‘think’ their way step by step, in a linear fashion, to develop their cognitive and intellectual capabilities. They must do so through the 4 E’s mentioned above. We develop our intelligence through being embodied people who are embedded in meaningful communities; and we develop it through extending our cognition through instruments and enacting our intelligence through consistent movement and practice. And all of these occur through the non-propositional, through participation.

Meaning, Value, and Purpose

Meaning sits at the intersection between value and purpose. Meaning happens in the moment, whereas both value and purpose are about the past and the future. To explore and express ourselves through dramatic works, through movement and dance, through playing great music we do so in the moment. To learn from and embrace our past and to envision a future which is worth fighting for, we need more music, not less; we need more poetry, not more information; we need each other, not A.I.

We know what is most valuable to us by considering which area(s) of life we would want to continue after we are gone. And the degree to which we feel we are currently making a difference in that realm is the degree to which we feel our lives are meaningful. The practice, study, performance, and creation of art, drama, dance, and music can be a bridge from the past to the future that we build in the moment, through every song, every poem, and every dance. Our lives are our greatest works of art.

POST SCRIPT

It would be foolish for me to leave you with the impression that I believe music and art matter far more than any other field of endeavor: math, science, politics, or engineering. Rather, what I have attempted to share is how out of balance things are. By writing this open-letter to my students and their families, I have tried to describe my own rationale for pursuing music education, and music myself. I am painfully aware that I fall short of the mark every day, but I have enough confidence in myself, and in our relationship as teachers and students, that what I am sharing with you matters. Great art, like life, requires proper balance. Yet, unlike the left-hemispheric view that you can either be an artist or a doctor, either a musician or an engineer, the right-hemispheric view sees that you can (and should) be both.

After all the talk of intelligence, perhaps it would be one of the most intelligent things I could do to make the argument for why music and the arts still matter, and perhaps matter more than ever before. Whatever gaps or shortcomings I’ve left in my argument, or feathers I’ve ruffled, Perhaps you will join me in pursuing the truth, goodness, and beauty of our shared humanity through music and the arts.

Ponder East

Sunday, March 10, 2024