The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 55 - ‘Soul, Spirit and Sound In Music Education Pt2' Dr Diana Harris
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This episode has an accompanying article in Music Teacher Magazine, our media partner. Head to https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk to read it. Thank you to our Sponsor Faber Music. Visit https://www.fabermusic.com/education and use Podcast1 at the check out for money off. This podcast is brought to you by Soundstorm.
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstore Music Education Hub and our sponsor, Faber Music. And as a listener of this podcast, you can get 20% of Faber titles by heading to FaberMusic.com forward slash education and using the code podcast one in the checkout. This episode of the Music Education Podcast has an accompanying article in Music Teacher Magazine. And you can read it by heading to musicteachermagazine.co.uk. Now the subject of this episode and the article is soul, spirit, and sound in music education. So this particular episode is actually part two, but you don't need to listen to part one to have any context or understanding of what's going on, it's just a chat with my second guest. And my second guest is Dr. Diana Harris. The conversation really delves into some practical ideas and philosophical ideas around bringing that deeper musical connection into curriculum. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation, part one, and the accompanying article as well. And ultimately, I hope it spurs some new ideas and some deeper thinking into this deeper part of musical education. Dinah, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Can we start off with a bit of who you are and what you do?
SPEAKER_01Yes, well, I'm now retired and very happily retired. I uh taught music in secondary schools for 20 years. Uh towards the end of that time, um I did a doctorate in music education um at UEA and then started working for the Open University. Mostly postgrads, um, teacher training, um, but otherwise some masters um courses, particularly um sort of philosophy of music education, really, and and all the aspects to do with how you do research, so research education. Um, and then the the remaining time I had doctoral students who were all doing um ed D's, so doctorates in education, and uh occasionally I got ones to do with music. More often I got ones to do with um gender, sometimes to do with research methods, um, and also because my um main research had been to do with music education and Muslims, um I always seemed to get anybody who was a Muslim just because I had some background into that area.
SPEAKER_03Cool, okay, thank you. And bearing in mind the inspiration behind our conversation, you've also written some things about some specific things to do with religion and spirituality and music education in that way. Do you want to give us a summary of what they are that would be sort of irrelevant?
SPEAKER_01Well, again, I started off with music education and Muslims, and in particular to do with um how we could encourage uh more Muslims to take part in music, but from the point of view of their education and um that nothing we did in school would be against their religion, although when you get into the subject you you discover there are quite a lot of things which um would be haram for them. Having written that, I was asked if I would write something similar for the other religions. Um all the other ones. All the other ones. Um but actually music wasn't such an issue in the other religions, and uh it wasn't something I particularly wanted to do at the time, but I was very interested in aspects of spirituality. Um it sounds as if that's going to be specifically to do with uh other with religion, um, but I'll come on to that. But so to begin with, I was looking at how um the importance really of music within different religious um settings. And I got a book already to write on that, um but also in there was my um uh the work to do with um spirituality not needing to be just to do with religion, and that it was a a concept in its own right that you could take out of religion. So um it was rejected. It was accepted, it was accepted in England, um, but then I can't remember who I was publishing it with, but their music department moved to America and they would not have anything to do with spirituality in the title. And seeing the book was about spirituality, I wasn't really prepared to take spirituality out of the title. So I've I've carried on looking at aspects of spirituality. I started the um I started um same, spirituality and music education, um, and we had various conferences um in the first few years, and then I decided someone else should take over, and no one really did. So it doesn't really exist. Um but we had some very successful conferences in um one in Birmingham, one in Lithuania, one in South Africa, and I don't really know. Uh there's still some writing to do with it, um, but it doesn't exist on the website any longer. Um there's not a sort of community of us, which is a shame. Um so yes, so then it was it was a case really of looking at what spirituality means, and more importantly, what it doesn't mean, really. I mean, I think it's an incredibly difficult thing to define. Um, and one of the things that I keep coming back to, um there's uh the Erica's, um I can't remember what they're named, Clive and maybe Jane. Anyway, they've written quite a lot, and and they said that trying to define it was impossible, and it was it was like trying to bottle the wind or extinguish a fire or dam a flowing stream, and and that actually it was something um that was sort of quite nebulous, which isn't really very useful for music educators, um, but something to do with sort of awe and wonder and space, really. And written a couple of articles based on the idea of sound escapes, escaping through sound, so using sound to escape into a place that you wouldn't perhaps get to any other way. Um and also in because it's in an educational context, it was going to be done in a sound way. So this was this came back to the idea that what we're doing in education is is not going to be promoting things um vulgar pop songs, or you know, we're going to be careful about vulgar pop songs. Well, so do I, but it's not great in a classroom. Um you can piss all that bit out if you like. Um but from the point of view of being careful about how we allowed children to express emotions, being being aware that we might be touching emotions that were going to be sensitive. So the whole idea that spirituality can touch emotions. And of course, sound by its very nature just sort of escapes once you've made it, it's gone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because I I think that the reason for wanting to do an episode and an article around this idea was my experience of my my experience as a musician has been very much one of uh I've been an Aural player or an oral player, I've learnt in that way, and I connect with music in a in a way that I can't really explain. Not that I'm trying to put myself on some kind of magical, mystical level, but I've always found in music education settings, quite often in these conversations that I have on here with very interesting people, but it seems to be missing this way that I connect with music. I can't explain that in words, which is really, really inconvenient. Um but but it's this but I also find that most of the musicians that I work with connect in that same way, but those that thing that we don't know what it is doesn't seem to get brought up in um music education conversations that I have very often, and indeed in I don't know, curriculum for exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_01What is it that we can do in the in the curriculum? Um, one of the things I've done is to combine it with art. Um I I start off by doing relaxing exercises. I mean, my when I was teaching the people were used to my classes lying on the floor, um, and just relaxing, relax you know, go through a relaxing your body experience. And then I would uh take small short pieces of music, complete variety of music, and they would and I would expect them to listen while they were lying down in silence or whatever the first one was, and then we would have all sorts of art materials that they could express themselves if they wanted to, in any way they wanted to. And they could also write if they wanted to, and they could do nothing if they wanted to. That was part of the the whole point of it. But if they were doing nothing, they couldn't interrupt the other people who who were doing things. And when they'd done that, they had the option to that was the exercise, it's finished. Um if they wanted to, they could talk about it. Um and those conversations were really, really interesting. And I suppose one of the things that I'm saying is that we need to give children space. We need to give children space to think and feel, and you can't do that. You can't give them that space in the way I want to give them that space while they're sitting at their desks in a chair with all the things they might be fidgeting with, and with the word music on the curriculum that they didn't want to come and do in the first place.
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SPEAKER_03Lovely. No, great great well sort of takeaway, really. I th for for me, what I get from that as a is a what would be most a surprising, thought-provoking thing is just the idea of giving space. So being able to connect with are you kind of saying you can't connect with music unless you have the space in which to do that? And the time. So t yeah, time, okay, so time and f what what about physical space? Because I know, for example, when I'm doing something musical on a being a musician capacity, actually, where you do that acoustically makes a difference. But you know, to uh to use a word that I overuse probably the vibe of a space is hugely important when it just comes down to how much time you're gonna spend there, how much you're gonna get out of it. The lighting, the and you know, in my experience, particularly in state schools, uh the vibe is not great. You know, it's not do you think that has an effect on young people's actual ability to connect in that way?
SPEAKER_01Undoubtedly, yeah. And in the same way as the way you set up your classroom has an impact on the way children work. A very good place to do this is a drama studio.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Great.
SPEAKER_01Because it's usually quiet. It's somewhere where they go where they are not expecting to be doing um sort of academic curriculum type of stuff, and it's where they often do have within drama more space to to think about themselves and how they're going to express themselves and things. So it's a good place to be. Um, and then the art room often is as well. I mean, I think it's important to from my point of view, it was important to take them out of the space where they were doing a bit of composition or a bit of working on keyboards or a bit of to take them somewhere different. I mean, if we'd had a church, I would have taken them into a church.
SPEAKER_03Oh, amazing. Let's let's talk about that then, because that's you know, the the perfect acoustic space. Well, not the perfect acoustic space, because it's you know awful to record in in some senses, but inspirational in others, um, and just what peaceful places.
SPEAKER_01That connect connection with religion and spaces and well, yes, but that's that's one of the things you have to of course be careful with the fact that it is connected with religion. But other things do go on in churches as well. And when I have taken pupils into a church, because obviously we do for performing and you know things, there's usually a feeling they usually get that sense of the awe and wonder and the spaciousness of where they are. They are usually quieter. You know, they're not always, you've always got one or two, obviously, who are going to create a problem, but there are people people children who've never been into a church, or probably a mosque, or a temple, and and go in and already you're part way to the experience of something that's different.
SPEAKER_03Just by being there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean that awe and wonder that's seems to be the closest that we've got into explaining this thing that we don't know what would Yeah, this thing we don't know what we're talking about. Yes, exactly. It's quite awkward to do a podcast to write an article about something that you can't articulate.
SPEAKER_01Yes. The the last thing I wrote, which was for the um International Handbook in Holistic Education, I was talking about um stochastic process. Now, stochastic process is a mathematical term, and it's where you have certain knowns and certain unknowns, and you manipulate them in certain ways to come up with what you want to come up with. Um and this is where spirituality is so like creativity, because you have to have certain knowns, you have to have certain boundaries, you have to prepare what you're going to do, you can't just say uh just go into this place and run around. So you've got certain knowns, but there's the unknown of what it what you feel, and what you feel can't be wrong. And this is one of the really important things I think with spirituality. Okay, I say it can't be wrong. It can be it could be, for exact for example, poor judgment if you if you think that a piece of music is you know, you put something on like Prokofiev, um, Romeo and Juliet, you know, the fight the the the the fight scene and they then want to to go out and shoot someone themselves. I mean, you know, it doesn't happen here, but it might do in America. So I'm not saying that uh you could it can't go wrong, but basically what that child feels can't be wrong. And it's how you then work with what a child is feeling that is the important part. So you have to be prepared for what comes. And like in interviewing, really, if you if you're interviewing someone about something that's very sensitive, and they then uh tap into something which is very emotional for them and leaves them, and at the end of the interview, they're left feeling um you know devastated by by something. You've got to have got in something in place to be able to help that person at that time. So you've got to be aware if you're going to do something where you're trying to get some innermost feelings of a child, that those innermost feelings um might be frightening. Okay, right. So you've got to be aware afterwards um if someone is trouble appears to be troubled, so you need to sort of know your your pupils. It's only happened to only happen to me once. Um and I I was able to talk to them later on. But if it had been worse, you you know you would then have gone asked for sort of the school to to take it over and them have some some you know chance to talk to a counsellor or someone that it it mattered to because these are deep, we're talking about deep uh feelings that you might release.
SPEAKER_03And how cool that we're having a conversation about this stuff and we're talking about how someone might need therapy after it because it's that intense. Whereas if we're talking about a lesson, I don't know, in um reading notation or composing or some kind of the new model music curriculum, those discussions don't come into it because uh students aren't uh interacting on that level, which is weird because that's what music is. So do do do you think that we're uh within the sort of wider school system? Um we're uh we need uh to teach this uh magical mystical connection that we're talking about, or do you think it's just offering an experience? Do you think maybe students would have had this before, say, for example, in a society that was more wild widely religious in a religion that uh welcomes music, for example?
SPEAKER_01You know, do you think it's something that we've lost or I think it perhaps is, and I think possibly partly because for a lot of people they're not in touch with nature any longer. Which is another place where I think you have the space and the time to reflect. Um and yes, I think we I'm more interested in giving the opportunity than trying to teach. Something which fundamentally isn't, I don't really see how you can teach. And I'm not saying throw out all the music curriculum, but I am saying, you know, at times like you know, the end of term when lots of other experiences are offered, or people go off on a day trip, to have some, you know, a time when you can offer children an a different sort of experience, a different sort of way of listening. But the but the other thing is music will already be touching virtually every person in your classroom. So it'll be in different types of music and different ways. But I think sometimes that music is used, particularly maybe pop music, and this isn't a criticism in any way whatsoever, but I think it's sometimes used to block out then thinking. You know, you have lots of really loud music that takes you away maybe from from the things that might be going on in your teenage life. And that and there's a place for that as well, absolutely a place for that as well. But it's uh it it's almost the reverse. It's using music to say to shut out feelings. Not I mean, obviously, not everybody would do that.
SPEAKER_03Hmm. I'm I'm interested in that because I suppose in my head the definition of this deep connection with music is actually about that, about going to a different place and feeling something that not necessarily you're consistently feeling, it's just conjuring something else up. So if that type of music you know takes you to another place and makes you feel something different, surely that's the same, like uh a sad listening to a sad song when you're sad that makes you feel happy, for example.
SPEAKER_01Or that allows you to express that sadness that brings the tears, which will bring you relief. Release. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you've you expressed that much better than I did. Cut out that bit that I said. No, no, let's leave it in, then I'll feel really great. Yeah, you'll look really good, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, right, that's okay then.
SPEAKER_03Hmm. Um I'm can we steer it briefly, or maybe not briefly, but towards the religious end of the spectrum and your understanding of that, because obviously the sort of spirituality sort of side of that can be non-religious or you know, non-religious experience or connection with music. But what about the yeah, religious connection with it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was really interesting because I did a lot of research with music teachers, music, music educators, music performers, um people and academics about what they thought spiritual at spirituality was. And for a large number of them, it was connected with religion. And it is it is with me, no, I'll put that on the table. Um I'm a Buddhist now, and they don't have much music in Buddhist um when you're doing sort of talas and things. Um what about the chanting? Yeah, the chanting, yeah, but it's it is musical, but it's a at a very basic level in terms of the notes, the rhythms, you know, all of the things which we which make up music. And they would a lot of them wouldn't say it was music. Um But the the most interesting thing with talking to musicians were some pe one person in particular, but it wasn't only him, um, a professional double bass player, who said he wasn't religious at all. But that when he was playing music that was written for a religious reason, he felt more spiritual. So I think that that is very interesting, because obviously those people who were writing it for a religious reason, in the majority of cases, would have had that um religious faith themselves. And then so there's something in that music which to someone who isn't religious is still innately spiritual. But in terms of whether it's religious or whether it's not, um, it was very interesting the difference that it made in different types of religion at different times. Um, I mean, you've you've still got some um Scottish faiths who don't have an organ, don't have they do, they will do some singing, but they don't have any instruments, which is very much like a lot of uh Muslim communities who won't have instruments but will have some singing.
SPEAKER_03Can I ask how you feel it works in the complex system of uh schools that we have in the UK and how faith operates in them? I'm not sure of the particularly correct terminology, but you have schools that will have an ethos, like a for example, I worked in school that had a Christian ethos, but it wasn't a Christian school, but then there is going to a Catholic school, so you know so I don't really know the the technical terminology for all the different um uh types of school there are, but what how do you feel about that? For example, you know, children of different religions singing in the not not the religion that they're in, or children who are not religious, singing a religious song, or that or that kind of thing. What do you what's your take on that?
SPEAKER_01My my take really is that there's variety in the world, in in religions and in music and in schools, we should be using that variety. And even in a Christian school, um we should be using variety, and I think a lot of Christian schools do. Um I was teaching in a school that was uh a secular school in Luton, um, but Luton at that time it probably still does, had separate boys' and girls' schools, secondary schools, and that meant, and Luton is a place where there are uh a lot of Muslims, that the girls all went to the girls' school and the boys all went to the boys' school. Um, and that made things easier where music is concerned because uh of the various uh um aspects of not performing in front of um boys and things like that. But one of the interesting things was that the the head decided that that we shouldn't use we could have hymns, but we couldn't have the Trinity, which is absolutely fine, I understand that. But we also shouldn't have hymns to do with Jesus. And that was just so wrong because Jesus is a prophet in in Islam. And and she maybe changed the words from this hymn, Shine, Jesus, shine, to shine, shine, shine, so we could sing it because she didn't want the word Jesus. And of all the girls in the school, of which 90% were Muslim, all still sang Shine, Jesus, Shine, because they'd always sung that in their primary school, and that was the one they weren't. And and so you can you can go overboard in trying to change things, which you're changing for the wrong reason, um, which is why I think you just need to have a variety of faiths and a variety of aspects within those faiths, always being aware that there will be some things that will um upset seems to be the wrong word that aren't acceptable for some people. I mean, certainly when I was back in the days when I was teaching, um there were Christian communities, they didn't um watch television at all. So when if any teacher was planning to put something on that was on television, they were excused and could go out of the room. Um, so you have to be aware of sensibilities. But religion is such a such a difficult thing. Religion can be so wonderful and can be so terrible, as we all know from all the various wars that go on in various places.
SPEAKER_03But do you think that for the people of the religion that they're singing, so for a Christian singing a Christian song and the connection that they have through singing those words and the feeling they get, is that the same connection that we're talking about with a non-religious musician who's just deeply connected to what they're playing? Are they are they are they just the same thing? Is that what we're talking about? Is that the spirituality sort of connection?
SPEAKER_01I can't, yes, yeah, I can't see any difference. I can't see any difference. If we're talking about the effect that it has on that person, I can't I can't see that it's different. Uh it's it's only different in that uh one is open to any interpretation, and the other one is leading you in a particular way. But again, it'll be the words leading you in a particular way. You know, if you if you play a Brandenburg concerto, you're not you could instantly be led towards thoughts of God if that's the way uh images in your head is actually right. But you don't it it's not telling you to. Whereas uh I think a hymn uh of its nature is defining what you should be it's it's you you either understand and accept what it's telling you or you don't understand and or you don't wouldn't accept, you know. I mean I I'm you know quite old fashioned um in a lot of ways, and I'm really not into sort of a lot of our happy clappy hymns. They do their words might be good, but they do nothing for me musically or spiritually.
SPEAKER_03Is that just the sound of the music and maybe philosophy or attitudes that sort of match to that or homology to use a word that I think well I don't really know what it means, I'm just throwing it out there to look clever in front of you, to be honest. But you know what I mean. Is that just because of that? You know, you think it's just like, well no, that doesn't really fit with my values because I access religion in police.
SPEAKER_01I think actually I'm just snobbish. I think usually there's just not very good music.
SPEAKER_03Wow, says okay. Oh, this is good, nice and honesty. But you're tired, it doesn't matter, does it? You can just throw the pill there.
SPEAKER_01I can throw anything out there. Um so okay, well, I I um I when I say it's not very good music, it might be uplifting music for the moment. But it doesn't take me to anywhere else.
SPEAKER_03But it's obviously taking some people, yeah, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01And bringing a lot of people into churches where you wouldn't have people anyway. Right. But I would I would I think I would put that against maybe something like gospel singing. Which I think again is something that is the more popular end of the the uh um what do you call it when you have one of those? Yeah, I was thinking of something else. But yeah, that'll do. Um yeah, so it's I'll I'll just start the game. So I would I would suggest it's very similar to something like um uh gospel singing, which is which is at the the other end of the spectrum from sort of classical music of of the the sort of the known um canon and things, but that I feel does take me somewhere else. Of course, you've always got the proviso of how well it's done. Now, how well it's done could be how well it's done musically, or it could be how well it's done in the in the watching and hearing the people who are doing it. They don't have to be brilliant musicians, but the spontaneity or the the excitement of what they're doing can be can be moving. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I get you. Um I think I think we could do an episode on what well is, um anyway, in itself. What what is coming to my mind and my sort of journey of understanding that deeper connection in music or art that we can't quite describe is I read and was given uh the book, uh The Artist's Way, um, which and I think it was like a it was pretty big in the 70s, maybe was it a sort of uh just but it's it's essentially an artist block book. Um and I read it at a time when I was yeah, sort of hitting a bit of a brick wall, and it was it was really helpful, but in it uh she talks about the idea of getting closer to creativity or being more creative as closeness to God. Now at the time I was a bit like, whoa there, someone's giving me this, and it's mentioning um you know, obviously that would work for some people, but but I I came to sort of understand that that was just her way of explaining that thing that I can't explain. And then from conversations then with friends and people of different religious backgrounds and beliefs, come to understand that that that sort of word god is almost that bit that we can't explain. Is that completely ridiculous and an obscene conclusion to come to? Or is that that's no, I think that's a I think that is a very good way of looking at it.
SPEAKER_01I think for all of us, everybody, there's something that we can't explain. What we call it is up to us to a large extent, and a lot to do with um our culture the way we've been brought up. And God has just got this it's it's just a word that uh you know people either throw their as you say, throw their hands up in horror, or they, yep, that's that's for me. Um and I don't think it necessarily I wish we'd got another word for it. Well maybe spirituality is the word for it.
SPEAKER_03Um but that's been triggering for people too, isn't it? Yeah, really important.
SPEAKER_01Well it is, yeah, it is triggering. I don't know. I mean, maybe just the awe and wonder idea, but certainly I I well I haven't usually come across people who have haven't got doubts. I have got a friend that I I bought a fridge magnet for her that that said, when I married Mr. Wright, I didn't know his first name was always. And there are people who know everything, know what they believe, don't apparently don't have uh the doubts we all have, and the experiences that I'm sure everybody has, and the um the questions that we have. And we don't have a word for it, really. Um and we're coming much more into sort of philosophy now, um, into the way the way people the way people think, not the way they the way they do things, um, and not the sort of psychology of the way they think, but they're what is fundamental to their life. What is it that's central? And for a lot of people they probably can't say what is central. Um and so for those people who've been brought up in a tr religious tradition of some sort, I think that they maybe have a um a sounder a sort of uh a layer, um something beneath them to support them that others don't have. I could be completely wrong, but I but then I also feel that a lot of religions, and I'm not being at all um uh correct in what I'm saying, but I feel a lot of religions forget about that part. They they become like classes in the music curriculum have become in some schools, where there's a a path you go down and you do these things, and actually what's fundamental has been lost in the desire to organize and follow the rituals. Um yeah, I feel like that about a lot of lot of religion, really. I think a lot of religions stop people from thinking because they tell them what they think they should be thinking. Um there'll be a lot of people who'll be jumping up and down at that, no doubt.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I mean that's that's a hugely provocative thing.
SPEAKER_01It's a very provocative thing to say. Um and it goes it goes right back, obviously, to sort of medieval times when everything was in Latin and nobody did know what the Bible said, and you just had to believe what what you were told. And I I'm very much against this idea. Um, I was brought up in a Cornish Methodist farming family that was a generation, if not more, behind, very Victorian sort of ideas, and we were not encouraged to think. We didn't have, you know, we'd go to chapel and we'd come home and I'd want to talk about the sermon, I'd want to discuss it. But as soon as I tried to talk about it, I'd be told, you're always trying to be critical, you should just accept what you're told. Um and of course we have to we have to do that to a large extent in schools, I suppose. There are certain things we have to tell people. But when it comes to not being allowed to think, surely that's what schools the fundamental aim of education, I think, is to help people to think for themselves. Thank you so much. Perfect. It's alright, I've actually really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode, and thank you to Faber Music and Soundstorm for making it possible.