Music as an Art Form
“The study of music stimulates the creative mind and is a valuable part of every child’s education. By helping build essential skills, imagination, and self-esteem, music and the arts fuel achievement in all academic areas leading to infinite possibilities for our students as future leaders and innovators.”
- Wisconsin State Superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor – 2019 Wisconsin State Music Conference, Madison, WI
Philosophy Statement – Wisconsin Music Educators Association
Music is an integral part of a complete education. Music engages people in objective, subjective, symbolic, and concrete aspects of human experience.
Music education improves learning in other subjects. Quality music education:
- develops aesthetic awareness and sensitivity;
- provides a source of enjoyment which enhances the quality of life from early experiences through adulthood.
- provides a means for creativity and self-expression;
- provides a sense of history and cultural heritage;
- provides opportunity for visible success and achievement in the school and community;
- develops life skills for work and personal success;
- makes the school and community a more pleasant place to learn, work, and live;
- increases the satisfaction derived from music throughout life; and
- increases understanding of other cultures through music.
Guiding Principles from Vision 2020
Reimer, B. 2000. Why do humans value music? In Vision 2020. Reston, VA: MENC.
The five dimensions of musical value:
- Music is ends and means. It is valuable in and of itself.
- Music encompasses mind, body, and feeling.
- Music is universal, cultural and individual.
- Music is product and process.
- Music is pleasurable and profound.
Guiding Principles from A Report on Arts Education in Wisconsin: The State Superintendent’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Arts Education. 2000. Madison, WI: Wisconsin DPI. Selected points.
- The arts are central to the development of a well educated person and the core of all learning – connecting and enhancing whole brain development.
- The arts are intellectually challenging and contribute directly to the cognitive, emotional, physical, and emotional development of all students.
- Higher order thinking skills – analysis, synthesis, evaluation, critical judgment, including imaginative and creative thinking – are developed in the arts.
- Students who are often turned off by traditional academic subjects find success in the arts.
- The arts provide opportunities for success in the creative fields of all of the arts, as well as arts related fields of study.
