At its heart, Schippers’ attractive book develops a framework for thinking about the fit of various world musics in Western music education. His Twelve Continuum Transmission Framework has an imposing name but it is actually quite user friendly. It comprises a set of 12 axes upon which the music teacher can map out issues of context, transmission, interaction and tolerance for cultural diversity. Context is explored along three axes, transmission is studied in relation to three more, interaction gains five continua, and cultural diversity one.
The scope of this framework is illustrated by looking at the first three of these axes. The first places at one extreme the idea of tradition as an entirely stable body of repertory, and, at the other, it is understood as a living, evolving performative means. Obviously, individual musics can take position anywhere between these two poles, and within the same tradition, musicians may take alternate views of their heritage. Delineating the second continuum, Schippers illustrates how certain world musics carry notions of authenticity wherein a performer is expected above all else to faithfully represent pre-existing works while others require the performer to utilise pre-established musical means with the ultimate goal of achieving genuine self-expression. On the third axis, we find musical traditions whose representatives greatly value the recreation around the sonic performance of normative surrounding social contexts and those where performers welcome the opportunity to explore novel settings for their musical utterances. As Schippers regularly reminds us, no single position on any axis is in itself necessarily right or wrong, it is rather that musicians and teachers alike inscribe these various positions with differing and sometimes very considerable amounts of social value. Identifying this – laying it all out explicitly – is the first step toward recognising what else comes along with any such evaluation, whether in terms of the shaping of the musical structures themselves or in terms of handling a visiting world musician's expectations when setting up a classroom workshop. Moreover, and although we may sometimes talk of music being in or out of context, the reality is that educational settings are almost by definition concerned with acts of cultural intervention and the sharing of hitherto unfamiliar experience. Meanwhile, as a performance art, music is necessarily created anew each time it is performed. Schippers’ arguments in relation to recontextualisation in Facing the Music should help us progress beyond overly simplistic criticisms of world music as out of context in the classroom.
As this reading suggests, Facing the Music contributes to an expanding set of writings that assess crossing points between music education and ethnomusicology from various sides. This literature includes article-length studies by several authors and books by Solís (Reference SOLÍS2004) and Krüger (Reference KRÜGER2009). Solís’ collection consists of reflections from (mostly North American) ethnomusicologists on their work in universities with world music ensembles; Krüger meanwhile focuses on tertiary level (European) students as they learn – and sometimes fail to learn – in their classroom encounters with ethnomusicology, academic and practical alike. Schippers ranges more widely than both these books: he draws on his own extensive experience in Dutch education but provides examples from all around the world, and while he regularly describes world music in conservatories and universities, he is careful to open out his conclusions to show their relevance to other age ranges as well. He also strives to address the professional reader from music education at least as much as the world music specialist. The book thus makes a distinctive contribution in this growing field.
For me, the Twelve Continuum Transmission Framework works best as a diagnostic tool. It provides a framework upon which one can ask questions, expose apparent gaps in awareness and pay notice to what is being taken for granted. Schippers clearly does not wish to prescribe particular teaching strategies, and it is only in the Epilogue that he begins to show his own example of how music education might be shaped through use of this approach. As a reader, I wished he had begun this process earlier in the book, or provided a larger series of examples of work at the application stage – the recommendations are very much provided for a general music teacher working at primary or secondary level while much of the book has been illustrated with examples from more specialised tertiary encounters. I can see some teachers wishing for more examples of the kinds of decisions they need to take in rethinking and renewing their own teaching work.
