Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Teaching music in
indigenous Australian settings
By Robert G Smith
Mine has been a long forty year journey as a music educator and yet still the slopes of the learning
curve rise steeply!
Because a part, if small, of my New Zealand heritage is indigenous I entered the profession with a
particular interest in Maori music. Consequently I taught across the 'sixties in primarily Polynesian
contexts. I spent almost five years as National Music Adviser in the Fiji Islands. Subsequently my
music education career has been a sort of love affair with indigenous musics, in the Pacific, North and
Central America, east Africa, back again to New Zealand and across the past two decades, apart from a
recent sojourn as International Music Consultant in Sri Lanka, here in the Northern Territory of
Australia.
I find my experiences do not aalways match the assertions of some authorities. For example in many of
these settings I found students had limited interest in west-centrically-oriented high art and almost none
in its music. I was challenged to seek the nexus between what I and they understood by 'music'. I found
that observing local music teaching - often an informal affair - gave me illuminating insight into some
very effective practical pedagogies. These, some of which I elaborate elsewhere, emphasised that
music needed to involve 'doing' rather than theorising, analysing and regulating practice. Nowadays I
employ many in my teaching of urban Australian children.
My experience also suggests that across cultures music might best be viewed as an art form that
depends for effective communication on the organisation of sound in time. Therefore to understand
how their music functions and achieves its aesthetic intentions we must comprehend thoroughly a
people's perceptions of time. We need also - and here time continues to play a significant role - to
recognise the impact of cultural beliefs as they affect music creation and performance and the contexts
for music. A very practical definition of culture suggests that music, like most other cultural artefacts,
informs us as to 'how things are done around here'.
Evolving pedagogies
Too many successful music programs in schools equate with quality orchestras, bands and choral
ensembles. Coupled with this there is an expectation that effective classroom music will lead the 'more
capable' students to 'qualify' as musicians by satisfying the requirements of formally moderated or
examined music syllabi. How often are the interests of the remainder neglected?
In my first school there was an expectation that I would enhance the workings of a new school
orchestra, maintain existing instrumental ensembles, run choirs at all levels and introduce other music
activities, such as school concerts and productions, as the occasion demanded. At the same time I
would conduct an effective classroom music program.
As an enthusiastic young teacher I put much energy into establishing the subject and my music
programs flourished. While these appealed to many students whose backgrounds were what might be
described as 'west-centric', I was aware that others viewed aspects of the curriculum as culturally
irrelevant and often felt excluded from music activities offered in the school. I found increasingly that I
needed to look at ways in which I might create a musically more inclusive environment.
I undertook a number of changes as experiments. For example I began by outlawing that 'gatekeeping'
exercise, 'audition' as a means of entry to any music activity. If a student gained enthusiastic
satisfaction by playing an instrument or singing even if somewhat 'unmusically', I believed he or she
was entitled to continue. Surely students can only become 'musical' if they are encouraged to engage
with music. They can't do this if they're 'locked out'!
While I encouraged the notion that a group could only perform when its presentations were of a
professional quality I did not necessarily insist on this.
With freer access for students to music increasingly it became one of the more popular activities in the
school. My personal 'consequence' and reward was in sharing music with students who actually wanted
to be in my classrooms.