Table Of ContentTEACHING MUSIC HISTORY
For Teachers and Students
May we leam well from each other the skills necessary
to experience music's magic and mystery
Teaching Music History
Edited by
MARY NATVIG
Bowling Green State University, USA
~ ~ ~~o~~~;n~~:up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2002 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Mary Natvig 2002
Mary Natvig has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Teaching music history
1.Music - History and criticism - Instruction and study
I.Natvig, Mary
780.7'11
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Teaching music history / edited by Mary Natvig.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-0129-6
1.Music in universities and colleges. 2. Music–Instruction and study. I. Natvig,
Mary,1957
MT18 .T38 2002
780'.71'l—dc21
2001053479
ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-0129-6 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-1382-4899-1 (pbk)
Contents
List of Contributors vu
Introduction lX
Approaches to the Music History Survey
1 Providing Context: Teaching Medieval and Renaissance Music 3
Patrick Macey
2 Teaching Baroque Music to the Bright and Interested 13
and Ignorant
Kenneth Nott
3 What Chopin (and Mozart and Others) Heard: Folk, Popular, 25
"Functional," and Non-Western Music in the
Classic/Romantic Survey Course
Ralph P. Locke
4 Teaching Music History (After the End of History): 43
"History Games" for the Twentieth-Century Survey
Robert Fink
Teaching Non-Majors: The Introductory Course
5 Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Introduction to 69
Music Course
Maria Archetto
6 The "Why" of Music: Variations on a Cosmic Theme 77
Marjorie Roth
vi Teaching Music History
7 First Nights: Awakening Students' Critical Skills in a 95
Large Lecture Course
Noel Bisson
Topics Courses
8 Teaching "Women in Music" Ill
Mary Natvig
9 Teaching Film Music in the Liberal Arts Curriculum 121
Michael Pisani
10 Don't Fence Me In: The Pleasures of Teaching 145
American Music
Susan C. Cook
General Issues
11 Teaching at a Liberal Arts College 157
Mary Hunter
12 Teaching in the Centrifugal Classroom 169
Pamela Starr
13 The Myths of Music History 181
Vincent Corrigan
14 Score and Word: Writing about Music 193
Carol A. Hess
15 Peer Learning in Music History Courses 205
J. Peter Burkholder
16 Creating Anthologies for the Middle Ages and Renaissance 225
Russell E. Murray, Jr.
Bibliography 239
Index 259
List of Contributors
Maria Archetto
Oxford College of Emory University
Noel Bisson
Cabot Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Bok Center for Teaching and Learning,
Harvard University
J. Peter Burkholder
Indiana University
Susan C. Cook
University of Wisconsin
Vincent Corrigan
Bowling Green State University
Robert Fink
University of California, Los Angeles
Carol A. Hess
Bowling Green State University
Mary Hunter
Bowdoin College
Ralph P. Locke
The Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester
Patrick Macey
The Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester
Russell E. Murray, Jr.
University of Delaware
Mary Natvig
Bowling Green State University
viii Teaching Music History
Kenneth Nott
The Crane School of Music
Michael Pisani
Vassar College
Marjorie Roth
Nazareth College (Rochester, NY)
Pamela Starr
University of Nebraska
Introduction
Mary Natvig
This collection of essays is intended for those who teach a college-level music
history or music appreciation course: from the graduate student who finds him
or herself in front of a class for the first time to the seasoned professor having
to teach outside of his/her specialty; from musicologists seeking to enrich their
teaching expertise to performers looking for a life raft after learning they must
teach a university music history course.
The idea for the book grew out of my personal needs as a faltering college
teacher, a career that began only one year after receiving my own
undergraduate degree. As the violin/viola teacher in a small liberal arts college,
I was also required to teach a medium-sized (about 45 students) music
appreciation course to music majors and non-majors. I had a master's degree in
musicology but had never taught in a classroom. I spent hours each night on
detailed lectures, poring over a variety of sources, compulsively over-preparing
as I was sure I would get questions I could not answer. My youth, however,
worked in my favor. My "cool" factor brought me marvelous teaching
evaluations. I thought I was a fantastic, natural teacher and I coasted in that
happy oblivion for several years. Then one fall I unknowingly stepped through
a door marked "middle age," which wiped off my youthful patina and left me
an unvarnished teacher of a difficult and unpopular course. For the first time in
my life my teaching evaluations were less than glowing-some were
downright nasty. By this time I had full academic qualifications: a Ph.D. in
musicology, and at least ten years of teaching experience at two different
institutions. I was one year from tenure. I thought I was getting better as a
teacher, but something in those evaluations told me that whatever I had done
right before was no longer working. The problem was, I did not know exactly
what it was that had worked or why. And I really did not know what was so
different about my teaching that particular semester that warranted poor
evaluations. Of course my colleagues told me not to worry about it-some
semesters are better than others. In actuality it was not the evaluations that
bothered me, but the internal voice that said I needed to become more
conscious about my teaching-not necessarily more conscientious (I was that),
but more aware, knowledgeable, and purposeful in how and what I taught.
Musicologists rarely discuss in a public forum our roles as teachers in spite
of the fact that, for many of us, teaching is what occupies us most of the time.
Although there have been a few worthwhile panels on teaching at sessions of
