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Abstract

This dissertation presents a philosophical examination of an important question in music education: What does it mean to understand the music of our own culture or the music of another culture? It begins with a conceptual analysis of understanding, an analysis that reveals understanding has many different senses and that it involves a multidimensional range of considerations. The work presents an overview, summary, and analysis of various arguments, from both the Western and cross-cultural perspective, concerning what understanding music means. The literature and the arguments from the cross-cultural perspective are situated in the important debate of whether there are generic musical characteristics that can help us understand the music of non- Western cultures, characteristics shared by Western music, or if we can only understand the music of each culture based in the study of that culture. I argue that there has been an artificial "gap" created between understanding Western art music and understanding the music of other cultures. Based on my analysis of understanding, and the issues raised by the literature, I present a multidimensional and interrelated set of factors involved in understanding music cross-culturally. These factors are: elements (including expressive elements), concepts, terminology, internal/external musical context/structure, culture, listening, hearing, performing, and personal experiences, among others. This range of considerations is supported by philosophical literature on the general nature of understanding and attempts to resolve the tension between understanding music through generic concepts and understanding music through culture. The important point of the multidimensional nature of understanding for music education is that levels of sophistication of understanding are suggested and that moving from a less sophisticated to a more sophisticated level of understanding music should be a major aim of music education. Finally, I consider the educational implications of my range of considerations. Teaching for understanding music crossculturally involves both "top down" (teaching music through concepts) and "bottom up" (teaching music through culture) approaches. It also includes all the ways in which we engage ourselves with music: listening, performing, composing, improvising, and reading.