Musical education helps to sow questioning culture – 09/07/2023 – Seminars Folha

In Brazil in the 18th century, the arts were considered a minor thing by the Portuguese, who, therefore, handed them over to black people. Taught, in the beginning, by some priests who, without knowing it, trained some geniuses, our first artists saw in music, in the visual, literary and performing arts the opportunity to buy freedom, to undertake a trade.

The gold and diamonds of Minas Gerais generated musicians and artists of great talent, in an ambition for beauty that fortune does not create on its own. This is how the arts and education met, long before schools.

When gold became scarce, the composer, instrumentalist and teacher Salvador José, the “Pardo”, came from Minas to Rio. We don’t know who his teacher was, but we know that he taught music to José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830), a genius boy, grandson of two enslaved women and their masters, professional musician since the age of nine, singer, instrumentalist, conductor, who would become a priest and the greatest composer outside Europe in his time.

When the royal family arrived in Brazil, it was to him that Dom João turned to satisfy his passion for music. José Maurício created, in his own home, the first music school in Brazil: free of charge, it welcomed countless poor children. There he studied the composer of our national anthem, Francisco Manuel da Silva, founder of the Conservatory of Rio de Janeiro, where he guided Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), who shone throughout the world and died in Belém, where he would direct the Conservatory of Music of Rio de Janeiro. city.

The Rio Conservatory became the UFRJ School of Music, where generations of composers and performers exercised their commitment to the education of new musicians — and education through music.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) is known for his magnificent and immense work and his ambition to teach music, notably in public schools. His strategy was to use the universal instrument, the human voice, but in a collective way: orpheonic singing, the choir.

It is true that he made thousands of teachers and children present themselves in fascist demonstrations during the bloody dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas. But some of the greatest artists of the time also believed that it was possible to modernize the Brazilian State even without democratic commitments. Villa-Lobos was not the dictator’s most ardent supporter, and, moreover, he had the biggest and most inclusive project: educating through music.

And this discussion is still good: so can music contribute to education? I answer that, especially in democracy, it can — and should. Known arguments remain valid, and some should be updated. Let’s look at the starters.

Music is an inseparable rational-emotional-physical experience, a powerful argument in an education that, almost always, teaches subjects in a sealed manner and sections the individual. Music is collective and collaborative achievement in a competitive world. Singing and playing, and even listening to music together, is a powerful bonding activity.

Making music involves the permanent risk of making mistakes, as well as involving different understandings. Schools need experiences with many possible answers besides “right” and “wrong”, in which people learn to live with mistakes in the search for solutions.

Music is a concrete art, in the sense of not abstract. Abstract are the words, the images, the representations that, by a social agreement, attribute the word “elephant” to a certain animal; this word, in other languages, represents nothing. But a Pixinguinha choro and a Beethoven symphony are not in place of anything else; they are what they are.

By touching our emotions, they will awaken in each of us a direct, non-representational perception. The lyrics of our favorite songs are enhanced by the music they inhabit.

Languages ​​for representations are taught in schools. Words, numbers, formulas. And we know how precarious metrics, sentences, and solutions are. So much so that science has created, and continues to create, methods to improve them. For decades, research has shown that many children do not understand what they read, including the formulation of mathematical problems! Life does not fit into what can be represented.

Overloaded by messages that exalt consumption, students should find opportunities to expand their repertoires that sow in them an embodied experience of knowing how to doubt and question. The culture that matters is not erudite or popular: it is the culture of choice.

Educators must have musicians and artists as allies, much more than economists and sociologists, who have dominated the conversations. School is the place for music and the arts, the biggest stage humanity has ever created, and where the biggest audience is. In Brazil, we always knew this.