The Musical “Why”: Philosophical Understandings in Children’s Musical Cultures

Abstract

What is music? Is music beautiful? How does one best represent sounds visually? What’s music’s “vibe”? These are just some of the philosophical questions about music that children at Dorothy Hollingsworth Elementary School in Seattle, WA asked and explored during my collaborative, ethno/musicological research project. Focusing on the previously unexamined philosophical components of children’s musical cultures, this research took place over the course of four months of fieldwork within the Philosopher-in-Residence program at the school. Within this project, children engaged in a community-based, child-centered model of Philosophy for Children (P4C) called a “community of philosophical inquiry” (CPI) (Mohr Lone and Burroughs 2016) to work together to consider two primary research questions: (1) What are children’s philosophical interests in, or dispositions surrounding, music? and (2) What collaborative strategies can ethno/musicologists and philosophers use alongside children to better understand and describe the philosophical elements of music and musical culture in their lives? In doing so, the children and I thought, felt, talked, and made music to determine what they themselves think about music and how they know what they believe they know about music in their own lives. Described across four ethnographic vignettes and subsequent theoretical analyses, I offer an examination of the four prominent themes of philosophical interest and disposition that children and I collaboratively determined were of importance during fieldwork: musical ontology, beauty as an aesthetic experiences of music, affect as a musical and philosophical modality and practice, and acoustemology as a musical and philosophical modality and practice. Combined with considerations or relevant past research from the fields of ethno/musicology, music education, and Philosophy for Children, these vignettes and analyses consider children’s discussions, questions, material culture, and music making practices as they relate to philosophizing about music and musical engagements with philosophy. Finally, this work reflects on the value of collaborative, child-centered, philosophical research for the enrichment of music studies and music scholars as a whole.