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Rutherford

Rutherford (2014) discusses Murray Schafer's creative music education approach from the 1960s and whether it remains relevant today. Schafer advocated for active, inclusive music classes where students are trained as listeners, not just performers. While once seen as avant-garde, Schafer's ideas like student creativity and heightened listening are becoming standard in Canadian music education. The author believes Schafer's philosophy of sparking lifelong musical passion remains important, as passive learning failed to engage her as a student but exploring music through creation and ear training did.

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58 views2 pages

Rutherford

Rutherford (2014) discusses Murray Schafer's creative music education approach from the 1960s and whether it remains relevant today. Schafer advocated for active, inclusive music classes where students are trained as listeners, not just performers. While once seen as avant-garde, Schafer's ideas like student creativity and heightened listening are becoming standard in Canadian music education. The author believes Schafer's philosophy of sparking lifelong musical passion remains important, as passive learning failed to engage her as a student but exploring music through creation and ear training did.

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Rutherford, S. (2014).

Is Murray Schafer's creative music education relevant in the 21st


century? Canadian Music Educator / Musicien Educateur Au Canada,, 55(3), 16-20.
Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1549546339?accountid=15115
Rutherfords (2014) discusses the style of music education Murray Schafer
created in the 1960s called Creative Music Education and the relevancy of it in modern
day classrooms. When Schafer first implemented his Creative Music Education into
classrooms, it was considered avant-garde and experimental. As time progresses,
society becomes desensitized to what was once considered avant-garde and eventually
it becomes outdated. Rutherford (2014) looks to see if this is the case in her essay. Two
main ideas Schafer hopes to see come from his style of education is student creatively
and heightened listening. Schafer is quoted to say that since we live in a society where
the performance of music is left to the few, it is obvious that most students should be
trained as listeners (p.17) Schafer promotes active learners and inclusion for all
students, not only the students planning on making a career in music.
I believe his style of educating is still relevant today though I do not believe it
should be considered avant-garde anymore. I believe it is becoming standard across
Canada to have an inclusive classroom that encourages all students to take part in
lessons. I really enjoyed the idea of creating life-long passion for music as this is my
philosophy as a teacher. Its more rewarding as a teacher to see your students enjoying
what they are learning rather forcing a methodology or style they are not passionate
about. When I was eleven or twelve years old, I was extremely tired of playing classical
repertoire on the piano. While looking back, I do not believe the music was the problem
as I have since studied classical music at a post-secondary institution for three and a
half years but I do find the style of instruction to be the source of my disinterest towards
piano. After switching teachers to give one last chance at piano, I found my learning
style. My teacher used music that sparked my interest and had me learning a lot of
music by ear to build my aural skills, since my reading abilities were strong. Once I was
using my ears more while creating music, I was creating more expressive music and I
was beginning to enjoy coming up with my interpretations of the music. This article does

a great job explaining Schafers ideologies and approach to music education. I would
love to read his book The Thinking Ear.

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