🇬🇧 Discussing traditional views on musical ability 🇬🇧 (English)

 Discussing traditional views on musical ability

Is musical ability something that everyone owns? or does just a few persons possess the ability? If that's true would dance and music education not be beneficial for everyone? 

On a lecture during the ISME- conference 1996  (Inter-

national Society for Music Education) in Amsterdam, Rober Walker expressed the dilemma in following words: 

If musical ability appears in only a few, why,then, are we educating all children in music in our schools? Should we not simply identify tho-se with ability, as research indicates, and elimi-nate those without it because they would ob-viously not benefit from musical instruction?Again, we cannot have it both ways. We cannot talk of musical ability which implies an uneven distribution across any populace and of an edu-cation for everyone in music, unless we educate the masses towards different educational goals than those with innate musical ability. But there is a more profound problem which needs adres-sing. Why are we in the West so concerned with musical ability? Few other cultures see musical ability as something specially endowed on a few.

REFLECTION 

The dilemma can often be seen/produced in dance. You either can dance or you don't, you got it or you don't. It's often heard in relation to rhythm. “ He/she dont have rhythm” or “ he/she got the rhythm in their blood”.

Psychologist Daniel Mullensiefen  does research in musical abilities and the question of nature and nurture . Mullensiefen says that the old western way of selecting individual children is not as prevalent as it was before. 

FUTURE 

Mullensiefen speaks about if it exists a general musical ability? or if it could manifest in different ways in every individual?  

 “Could you be a really rhythmic person but don't have a very good memory for melodies? or could you be someone who's very good at harmony but you've got a problem with rhythm? “ 

Mullensiefen expresses that this question has not really been answered yet. Personally I think that answering these questions could open up for a more diverse way of seeing musical ability and including more people into musical education. 

SOURCES:

*  Vem är musikalisk? (S. Brännström) Stockholm : KMH förl. (Musikhögsk. 1997)

* Development of Musical Abilities – Daniel Mullensiefen / Serious Science (2019)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDmaKw227Cw