Abstract
During this time of racial reckoning and professional introspection, set in the context of a global pandemic, regular tasks such as writing an editorial take on new meaning and significance. The summer of 2020 brought to the surface and into the foreground centuries of racial injustice and oppression that must be confronted and acted upon. The events of 2020 remind us once again that the past is present in everyday actions embedded in values and prejudices that develop over generations. How do such events impact how music educators view their past? How they unsettle the stories that have been told time and again to define who they are? From the perspective of music education history, how do researchers help in the work of digging into the past and revealing the untold stories, the empty spaces in our narratives? In her landmark book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020), Isabel Wilkerson adopts the image of a nation as a house or structure. Similar to a house, there is a need for dwellers to examine the foundation and to find the weaknesses and fissures, and to do something to fix the problems if the building is going to remain stable and in good condition. The metaphor can be applied to approaches to music education history and used to frame questions central to the profession’s identity and development. What constitutes the house that we name music education? What were the hallmarks of the foundation? What are the parts of the structure that are in urgent need of mending, restoring, perhaps replacing? The first action to take is to acknowledge and understand the foundation and structure as a product of their time.
Each article published in the journal is testimony to what we value as a profession, as a community of researchers. It reveals the state of research related to a topic, and provides an opportunity to assess aspects of the topic that remain unexamined. The influence of US music and music educators in Japan in the nineteenth century is well documented by Sondra Howe, especially as it relates to the leadership of Luther Whiting Mason. Howe brings her deep knowledge of cross-cultural interactions between the two countries to an earlier decade of the century, and to a broader context of music education focused on the music performed on Commodore Perry’s ships during the Japan Expedition in the 1850s. Music had a central place on board Perry’s ships—both in everyday life on the ships and in cultural interactions with those encountered when the ships landed in ports in Japan and China. Using a variety of primary sources, Howe creates vivid descriptions through detailed reference to repertoire, music programming, musical instruments, and witness accounts of musical performances. The music of Stephen Foster and that of minstrel shows, as well as band music dominated entertainment for Japanese audiences. Howe offers a revisionist view of the repertoire in light of contemporary values. She reveals how Foster’s songs became enshrined in Japanese culture and education, with evidence from a recent conference on Foster she attended that the songs are still popular and valued. Howe highlights issues related to racial history and music education, leaving the reader with important questions to contemplate.
The second article in the issue is located later in the nineteenth century. Paul Sanders continues his study of vocal music education with an examination of the use of school songbooks in the post-Civil War years, 1865–1899. Music education historian James Keene captured the essence of this era in the image of “The Great Publishing Carnival.”1
James A. Keene, A History of Music Education in the United States, 2d ed (Centennial, CO: Glenbridge Publishing, 2009), 200–215.
Moving from school music songbooks in public schools in the late nineteenth century, the third article, authored by Frances Elliott and Jane Southcott, documents the role of graded music examinations in the work of studio music teachers in Australia between 1890 and 1920. The topic of examinations conducted by British music education organizations in Australia appeared in an earlier issue of this journal (October 2017), when Southcott described the activities of four examiners of the Associated Board for the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) in Australia in 1923. In the present article, Elliott and Southcott describe the introduction of graded examinations of both the ABRSM and Trinity College of Music in Australia. Such examinations came to dominate the lives of studio music teachers. The authors summarized the impact, stating that the examinations defined the teachers’ work, “offering credentials, standards, a calendar, recruitment of pupils, advertising, and occasionally advocacy.” The significance of the examinations is discussed, from guaranteeing standards of musical proficiency, the awarding of certificates, and teaching qualification to credentials for women seeking employment as governess or teacher.
The study documents in considerable detail the status and role of examiners, the spread of the examinations in various parts of Australia, and the various stages of examination preparation and dissemination of results. The authors interpret the “colonial enterprise” from a sociopolitical and cultural perspective. The examining institutions sent eminent professors of music to examine the students, assuring the maintenance of music standards across the British Empire. For the students and their teachers, receiving a certificate from a British music college had, as the authors conclude, “a sense of inherent solidity, reliability, and ‘belonging.’” Music education was integral to deepening connections between Britain and its outposts in the antipodes.
Documenting the lives of music teachers is central to historical research in music education. For the final article in the issue, the reader moves from the lives of studio music teachers in Australia at the turn of the twentieth century to the life of one string educator in the Midwest region of the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Author Jared Rawlings documents the life story of music teacher extraordinaire E. Daniel Long (b. 1939), primarily through a series of oral history interviews he conducted with him, corroborated and supplemented by evidence from former students and colleagues, newspaper articles, video recordings, and conference programs. The structure of the biography combines chronology and topical focus. Topics include Long’s philosophy of musical leadership, teaching and mentoring, roles in music teacher education, professional work as conductor and clinician, and awards received. Biographical study in the past documented a small group of national leaders representing a narrow representation of all music educators. In recent years, the lives of extraordinary school music teachers are receiving more attention. The value of such activity can be related to accounting for and honoring the impact of music teachers in small communities and showing how their dedication and passion made a difference in the lives of young people and in the pedagogy of professional colleagues. The story presented here is an outstanding example of the value of such work and the need for conducting it while individuals are able to participate and enjoy recalling and sharing details of their lives.