There’s a lot of activity going on in my neck of the woods these days.
This is because in a little less than two weeks, from June 27 to 30 more precisely, the 20th will be held in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu.e edition of the Chants de vielles festival.
As its name suggests, it is devoted to music, singing, but also traditional dance and storytelling, those of Quebec and elsewhere.
Its rich programming makes (but I point out that I have nothing to do with it) an important part of education through workshops devoted, for example, to musical awareness and traditional dance. Several artists will be there, including musician Élise Guay, who has participated in the Artist at School program for 30 years.
This is a great opportunity to reflect on the place of music in education.
The subject is not as easy as one might spontaneously think and old Aristotle warned us. Asking the questions: “Should music be included in education, or should it be excluded?” And what is it really in the triple attribution that we give it: a science, a game, or a simple pastime? “, he responded at length, starting with these words: “We can hesitate between these three characteristics of music, because it presents all three equally. »
Difficult to do better, even if it dates back some 2500 years. A science: music is in fact knowledge, and with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, it was traditionally among the four sciences of quadrivium ; a game, because we play it; and a leisure activity, because we listen to it for entertainment.
I have often stated my position which maintains that we should, at school, strive to combine the pleasures of learning an instrument with the acquisition of a rich cultural knowledge relating to the music itself. even. And thus prepare for a life where music occupies a large place.
Leaving school, we will have tasted the pleasure of playing a bit of an instrument or singing, but we will know perfectly what a concerto, a third, a minor chord are, who are Mozart, Coltrane or Leclerc and so on. following.
I won’t dwell on all that here, but I want to highlight two advantages that music thus conceived and transmitted provides. They concern openness to others and dialogue and have to do with the festival I spoke about above.
Judge
Nothing is more insignificant and poor in terms of aesthetic judgment than this conclusion immediately put forward: “I like” or “I don’t like”. What matters are the reasons we give for liking or not and as soon as we enter this territory, we understand that we must monopolize knowledge and exchange with others.
Aesthetic judgment correctly understood and practiced is thus a wonderful way of practicing what citizens will have to do throughout their lives: inform themselves, think, discuss and nuance.
School can prepare people to do this, particularly by teaching music. But activities like those that the festival offers also contribute. Especially since, in this specific case, we are making known musical traditions and trends, instruments and artists who are less well known but who nevertheless deserve to be known and contribute to refining the judgment. Currents, instruments and artists from here, certainly, but also from elsewhere.
Which brings me to the second idea I want to put forward.
I am also everyone else
I say it very quickly, for lack of space, but I am convinced that there is, through art and therefore also through music, a way of reaching a universal, as is also the case in mathematics or in science. At this height to which we are transported, it is to all of humanity that we belong and through which we discover ourselves, remaining ourselves, but while being other at the same time.
Our time, between cautious withdrawals into identity, censorship, and accusations of cultural appropriation, has, it seems to me, a great need for all of this, which contributes in an incomparable way to the democratic conversation of all humanity. The school contributes to this. The festival I mentioned above too.
I have often cited them, but it is the profoundly accurate and moving words of the great Tagore (1861-1941) which, in my opinion, best expressed all of this. “As soon as we understand and appreciate a human production, it becomes ours, regardless of its origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can recognize and appreciate poets and artists from countries other than my own. Let me taste this unadulterated joy of knowing that all the great glories of humanity are mine.” And again: “We can become powerful through knowledge, but we achieve wholeness through sympathy. The highest education is that which not only gives us information, but makes our life in harmony with everyone else. »
We don’t always know it, but Tagore was also a formidable composer. And in a unique case, he even composed the national anthems of two countries.