Robert Walker has made a significant contribution to music education and to the furtherance of music in education over the last thirty-odd years. He is a controversial figure and is known for his outspoken views. His latest book, Music Education: Cultural Values, Social Change and Innovation, is a wide-ranging and ambitious work which aims to deal with some of the more thorny issues relating to music education in the 21st century. Under the sub-themes: Cultural Values, Social Change, and Innovation, he attempts to cover philosophical arguments about the role, or otherwise, of ‘popular’ music in education and what he sees as the undermining effect on the curriculum; the origins and background to ‘western classical’ music; traditions and culture; 20th century music innovations; social strata, psychology; music in the classroom and so forth.
At best the book could be described as a curate's egg. It certainly is a book of two halves with the second, where Walker is on home territory, the better piece of work – although his efforts to draw together ‘evidence’ to support his thesis towards the end are not convincing. He is secure in his own areas of research in creative work and notation and to some extent in reviewing 20th century works which have significance for the classroom. In the grandly titled chapter ‘Music in the Tumultuous Innovative Twentieth Century’ he explores new music, new structures, new notations and electronic music, and for the classroom teacher this section could offer a reasonably concise insight into mainstream innovations. Whether he does it any better than, say, Eric Salzman in the late 60s or the more recent addition by New Yorker critic, Alex Ross, is debatable (Salzman, Reference Salzman1967; Ross, Reference Ross2007). In the area of the music curriculum he summarises various national curricula to highlight the positive and negative influences of contemporary phenomena such as ‘popular’ music and digital technology. In these areas he mines the curricular and policy documentation of MENC, the UK, South Korea and Russia, although he refers to something called the United Kingdom National Curriculum, which does not exist. In other sections he offers his own critique on Kodály and Orff and on the development of music education in England and the USA. Much of the writing in these sections is sincere and at times witty, particularly when he draws on the work of Cox and Colles and the development of the Curwen system during the latter half of the 18th century.
If only more of the work had demonstrated this level of wit and sincerity. Unfortunately the majority of the text is dogged by what could be described as a ‘rant’ against ‘popular’ music – and his definition of this term narrowly encompasses the Beatles, Madonna, Britney Spears, Pink Floyd and other mainstream artists. He chooses to ignore the wealth and richness of many thousands of artists that have contributed to a cultural revolution in the last fifty years. One suspects a lack of knowledge or care for the broader and deeper canon of the multiple strands of rock and progressive fusions which flourish across the globe. He attempts to underpin the essential value of classical music in the general plan of the education curriculum which he sees as being undermined when set against the rising tide of ‘popular’ and African–American influenced music since the 1950s, globalisation and digital technological disruption. In a vainglorious, Canutian attempt to turn the curricular tide he actually damages the case for Western European Music by creating an unhelpful and ultimately offensive piece of writing. His views are jaundiced by a mono-cultural lens, setting out to prove that ‘classical’ music, with its roots in the ancient Greek civilisation, is the higher order muse which addresses the real values and spirit of human aspiration and expression. He sets his mind very firmly against embracing much of the sociological, anthropological or indeed psychological phenomena which influences creative expression in music. Early in the work he denies any role of historical context in shaping Western European Musical composition – ‘music is music’ and the social and historical milieu in which say Beethoven or Schubert found themselves plays no part in shaping the musical expression – these should be judged on purely musical terms. And yet when discussing 20th century music he recognises the influence of social and political influences on composers at that time. He rejects the sociological appraisal of popular culture by Frith (Reference Frith1998) as irrelevant to the music curriculum but later praises the Russian curriculum for having its roots in the national culture. Likewise, he discounts the role of music in identity proposed by MacDonald et al. (Reference MacDonald, Hargreaves and Miell2002) – but later contradicts himself.
The most worrying aspect of the work is the limited academic rigour, and the manner in which Walker deals with a very complex arena. He cites a limited set of sources, relying heavily for instance on one of Simon Frith's works, Performing Rites (Reference Frith1998), to build his case, ignoring the dozens of books, articles and reviews which Frith has delivered over the last thirty years. There are too many assertions, without evidenced data or citation, scattered throughout the work to convince the reader that this work is on secure ground. For instance, when dealing with enculturation of young people: ‘Many have noticed that children under the age of around nine years are so open to what adults regard as new ideas, that by the time they reach 11 or 12 they have become socialised and indoctrinated by practices and habits of their surrounding culture, especially those associated with the entertainment media.’ No reference, no justification, no citation of plausible evidence.
A regrettable attempt to compare a Beatles song with a Schubert Lied exposes Walker's deep resentment and disrespect for the artistic and creative utterances of a fellow musician. John Lennon's ‘Imagine’ may not be the greatest song ever written but it has caught the attention and sustained interest of millions of listeners since it was written in 1971 and represents a universal statement for peace and reconciliation, whether Walker likes it or not. Comparisons to Schubert's ‘Der Liedermann’ are surely facile and irrelevant in any discussion about music education, but it is a tactic which Walker adopts to discredit ‘popular music’ as being inferior to classical: ‘Lennon's Imagine merely reinforces the thoughts of the unsophisticated mind, with no reference to the real origins of such thoughts about human unity in religion or philosophy.’ While he acknowledges the context for the song as the nuclear disarmament peace movement of the 60s and 70s, he then goes on to dismiss the work and the social conscience of millions of ordinary citizens with the comment that ‘In the end, the peace movement, like Lennon's song, led nowhere and achieved nothing concrete of a political nature.’ This is not a world that I recognise.
The book is based on Walker's central thesis, ‘the big idea’, and this is one of the first pitfalls of which research students are warned: seeking and selecting evidence to support the claim or proposition. His narrow lens enables him to marshal as much of a case to support his view of the world as he can muster: a world where millions of young people over the latter part of the 20th century have been brainwashed and manipulated by marketing forces to invest vast sums of money in ‘popular’ music while rejecting ‘classical’ music. The very music which represents ‘the rich history of ideas about humanity and our relationships with the world we inhabit, with cosmos and our God, which have motivated western musicians over many centuries, in fact, ever since the original debates about civilized society in ancient Greece’. This reference to ‘our God’ (p. 22) certainly had this reader beginning to feel a distinct unease, a feeling that grew and expanded across a range of emotions into various stages of incredulity, disbelief and growing anger.
Walker's narrow, limited and divisive approach fails to address the richness and diversity of music today. Music educators have to negotiate the expansive landscape of music available now in the 21st century, respecting all genres including classical, jazz, world and popular music, to create a curricular content, meaningful experiences and a powerful learning environment which meets the needs and aspirations of young people. These issues are too great to dismiss through a narrow vision – teachers and musicians face these challenges every day.
