The Institute of Literary and Artistic Communication,
Faculty of Arts Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia

International multidisciplinary scientific conference on social sciences & arts
SGEM Vienna, March, 28-31, 2017
Hofburg Congress Centre

INTERNAL ECOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY OF MUSIC.
MUSICAL FETISHISM AND “PREFABRICATION” OF YOUNG MUSICIANS

ABSTRACT

The ecological functions of music play a very important role in the reception-aesthetics of music. From the perspective of the listener, reception aesthetics differentiates the so-called external and internal ecology of music. External ecology is understood as environmental and somatic aspects of listening to music. The categories of auditive environment and auditive culture, which have a mirror relationship to music culture, derive from external ecology of music. Internal ecology of music is a specific category within reception-aesthetics of music, whose functions are defined from elementary to high as follows: self-reflection, identification, self-cultivation, self-therapy and individualization.

Music education has many goals, most of which are derived from the socialization function of music. However, the educational objectives should always apply also to those functions of music that are part of its internal ecology. The ideas of internal ecology of music are not entirely novel. They were already used by T. W. Adorno, however, in a modified way. According to him, it is the neglect of self-cultivation as a fundamental function of music in culture that leads to musical fetishism. In music education, the “prefabrication” of young musicians is a complementary concept to the “goods” as a fetish, which is unfortunately still present in music education. With its support, the “goods” or “consumption” invades the representative and performative frameworks of music culture, which further petrifies the fetishist sociocultural mechanisms.

Keywords:

Music education, Reception-Aesthetics of Music, external ecology of music, internal ecology of music, auditive environment, auditive culture, musical