My college field of music definitely incorporates critical thinking into the curriculum. In regards to music, critical thinking is a vital and major component to the quality of one's performance. Music, just like any form of art that involves quality and creativity requires critical thinking. By thinking critically, one can take his or her performance abilities to higher levels. Music making should never be mechanical, and critical thinking is what makes music come to life. Usually anyone if taught how, can learn a piece of music, but one's critical thinking makes a performance unique, which is a crucial component to any musical performance. Critical thinking is what makes music thought of as an art, and a gift much more unique than just any skill.
Here is an interesting video of a violin master class, where the instructor is teaching the student how to think critically about the piece of music he is learning. It is neat to see him give the student his ideas, and watch him take them, deconstruct them, analyze them, and make them his own.
I completely agree. I'm tempted to believe that music (especially classical, although I may be just a litttle bit biased) requires critical thinking much more compared to other fields of study. It's all about individual thinking and how you relate to the rest of the ensemble (if its an ensemble setting). It's also so obvious who thinks critically about their music and who doesn't. I firmly believe that the best musicians we have seen are also the best critical thinkers. Helloooo Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc..
ReplyDeleteI really like your points about critical thinking leading to art; often we confuse the anaytical components of music with the emotional and I think they can definitely work together. I fully agree that critical thinking moves your performance to a higher level, and that mechanical playing does not always include the type of critical thinking that better performances might.
ReplyDeleteGood use of multi-media.
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