Hey Bloggers,
In this next post, we are supposed to answer whether or not our respective field incorporates aspects of critical thinking. I imagine that music certainly does!
While working on this paper, I have to come to agree with many of Bloom's ideas within his taxonomy about the levels of developmental cognitive thinking. Three stand out in my mind: synthesis, analysis, evaluation. In our own classes that we've taken so far, I think most would agree that synthesis and analysis are very much present in everything we do in music. In order to properly analyze a piece, it is important to decipher chord structure, identify non-harmonic tones and detect logical changes in harmony; all of these are abilities that involve not only thinking frequently, but also thinking critically. Essentially, they involve taking many factors into account and forming a well-thought, reasoned decision based on what is present.
This idea also involves the process of evaluation, our ability to look at music and understand everything about it to the point where we can make logical changes or even add on to it. We even evaluate while we perform, if you think about it. Some would say that thinking about air support, fingerings and sound quality is simply thinking a lot. As musicians, however, we take all of these factors and comprehend them to a degree so that we know exactly what to do next to reach the best end result. That's what thinking critically is essentially based on, right? Finding the best possible answer to a question with sound evidence and a valid argument? I think so.
Feel free to post any other suggestions on how you think music enhances our critical thinking skills!
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Don't forget that musicians also have to think about how everything sounds while playing. It would be terrible if the sweet melodic sound of a symphony was destroyed because the percussionist didn't take into account the triangle had way too many over tones because of the way he hit it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure about how else music will enhance critical thinking, but there is another fact that supports musicians. It is a well known fact that most people dealing with some sort of instrument are smarter than the average person who doesn't play anything. The fact that musicians are smarter shows that they probably think more, which resolves all the way back to critical thinking. They bring what they learn in orchestra or band and try to apply it to basic subjects like math and what not.