Musical literacy is the reading, writing, and playing of music, as well an understanding of cultural practice and historical and social contexts.
Music literacy and music education are frequently talked about relationally and causatively, however, they are not interchangeable terms, as complete musical literacy also concerns an understanding of the diverse practices involved in teaching music pedagogy and its impact on literacy. Even then, there are those who argueSwanwick, 1999, as cited in Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.6 against the relational and causal link between music education and literacy, instead advocating for the solely interactional relationship between social characteristics and music styles. "Musical communications, like verbal ones, must be put in the right contexts by receivers, if their meanings are to come through unobscured,"Levinson, 1990, p.24 which is why the pedagogical influence of teaching an individual to become musically literate might be confused with overarching ‘literacy’ itself.
‘Musical literacy’ is likewise not to be confused with ‘music theory’ or ‘musicology.’ These two components are aspects of music education that ultimately act as a means to an end of achieving such literacy. Even then, many scholarsLevinson, 1990; Csapo, 2004; Waller, 2010; Hodges & Nolker, 2011; Burton, 2015; Mills & McPherson, 2015; Csikos & Dohany, 2016 debate the relevancy of these educational elements to musical literacy at all. The term, ‘musicality,’ is, again, a distinct term that is separate from the concept of ‘musical literacy,’ as the way in which a musician expresses emotions through performance is not indicative of their music-reading ability.Wolf, 1976, as cited in Gudmundsdottir, 2010, p.4
Given that musical literacy involves mechanical and descriptive processes (such as reading, writing, and playing), as well as a broader cultural understanding of both historical and contemporary practice (i.e. listening, playing, and musical interpretation while listening and/or playing), education in these visual, reading/writing, auditory, and kinesthetic areas can work, in tandem, to achieve literacy as a whole.
‘Musical literacy’: A history of definitions Understanding of what the term, ‘musical literacy,’ encompasses has developed, over time, as scholars invest time into research and debate. A brief timeline — as collated by Csikos & Dohany (2016) — is as follows:
"According to Volger (1973), the fundamental components of musical achievement are "tonal and rhythmic literacy (the ability to musically hear and feel what one reads and writes in notational forms)".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.5 "In Lee and Downie’s (2004) work, music literacy refers to a basic musical skill, namely reading music scores".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.2 Herbst, de Wet & Rijsdijk (2005) debate the "relative weight or importance of written (as opposed to oral or instrumental) music literacy [among music educators]".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.3 "According to Telfer (as cited in Bartel, 2006), the definition of music literacy has changed from reading the pitches and rhythms to reading the ‘meaning of music’".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.2 "In the field of music education, the [Hungarian National Core Curriculum] (2012) prescribed different components of music literacy, such as history of music and music theory".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.5 "The New National Standards for Music Educators (Shuler, Norgaard & Blakeslee, 2014) used the term literacy in a very broad sense; besides including the traditional learning targets, such as reading and writing musical notation, it also involved the development of so-called artistic literacy".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.2 For Csikos & Dohany (2016), "the term music literacy refers to culturally determined systems of knowledge in music and to musical abilities. The assessment of such a complex phenomenon requires diverse approaches, in regard to what and how to assess (a) factual knowledge and musical abilities as defined by experts in the field, [and] (b) knowledge components determined by societal needs".Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.3
Scholars such as Waller (2010) also delve further into distinguishing the relational benefit of different mechanical processes, stating that "reading and writing are necessary concurrent processes".Burton, 2015, p.9 The experience of learning how to "read to write and write to read"Waller, 2010, as cited in Burton, 2015, p.9 allows students to become both a consumer and producer where "the music was given back to them to form their own musical ideas, as full participants in their musical development".Burton, 2015, p.9
Approaches to learning The mechanical and factual elements of musical literacy can be taught in an educational environment with ‘music theory’ and ‘musicology,’ in order to use these "certain bits of articulate information... [to] trigger or activate the right perceptual sets and interpretive frameworks".Levinson, 1990, p.26 The descriptive nature of both teaching how to read and write standard Western notation (i.e. music theory),Levinson, 1990; Burton, 2015 and reading about the social, political, and historical contexts in which the music was written, as well as the ways in which it was practiced/performed (i.e. musicology),Csapo, 2004; Levinson, 1990; Csikos & Dohany, 2016 constitute the visual and reading/writing approaches to learning. While the "factual knowledge and ability components are developed culturally, within a given social context,Csikos & Dohany, 2016, p.3 signs and symbols on printed sheet music are also used for ‘symbolic interaction,’ "which enable [the musician] to understand [broader musical] discourse".Levinson, 1990, p.18 Asmus Jr. (2004) proposes that "most educators would agree that the ability to perform from musical notation is paramount; that the only way to become a "better music reader is to read music".
Auditory learning is equally — if not more (as claimed by Herbst, de Wet & Rijsdijk, 2005) — important, however, as "neither the ‘extramusical’ nor the ‘purely musical’ content of [any piece of] music can come across for a listener who brings nothing to it from [their] previous experience of related music and of the world".Levinson, 1990, p.23 Listening is "through and through contextual: for the music to be heard or experienced is for it to be related to — brought in some fashion into juxtaposition with — patterns, norms, phenomena, facts, lying outside the specific music itself".Gombrich, 1963; Wollheim, 1968, 1980; Goodman, 1968; Walton, 1970; Sagoff, 1978; Pettit in Schaper, 1983 Auditory-oriented education teaches comprehensive listening and aural perception against the "backdrop of a host of norms associated with the style, genre, and period categories, and the individual compositional corpus".Meyer, 1956; Meyer, 1967 This frames "appropriate reactions and registerings on the order of tension and release, or expectation and fulfillment, or implication and realization during the course of the music[al piece]".Levinson, 1990, p.20 It is in this department that conventional classroom education often fails the individual in their acquisition of complete musical literacy as not only have "researchers pointed out that children coming to school do not have the foundational aural experiences with music to the extent that they have had with language",Burton, 2015, p.4 but the "exclusive concentration on reading [and thus lack of listening] has held back the progress of countless learners, while putting many others off completely".McPherson, 1993, 2005; Mills, 1991b,c, 2005; Priest, 1989; Schenck, 1989; as cited in Mills & McPherson, 2015, p.189 It is in this regard that musical literacy operates independently of music education as — while affecting the outcome of an individual's literacy — it is not defined by the quality of the education.
Furthermore, the kinesthetic aspect of music education plays a role in the achievement of musical literacy, as "human interaction is mediated by the use of symbols, by interpretation, [and] by ascertaining the meaning of one another’s actions".Blumer, 1986, p.79, as cited in Burton, 2015 "The different ways human emotions embody themselves, in gesture and stance, sets of cultural associations carried by particular rhythms, motifs, timbres, and instruments [and] aspects of a composer’s life, work, and setting"Levinson, 1990, p.23 form both the musician's understanding of a work's historical context, as well as any new meaning attached to it by its recontextualization in their contemporary musical settings and practices.
These aspects of musical literacy development coalesce into various educational practices that approach these types of visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic learning in different ways. Unfortunately, "fluent music literacy is a rarely acquired ability in Western culture"Green, 2002, as cited in Gudmundsdottir, 2010, p.1 as "many children are failed by the ways in which they are taught to read music".Mills & McPherson, 2006, as cited in Gudmundsdottir, 2010, p.1 As such, many scholars debate over the best way to approach musical pedagogy.
Pedagogy For many scholars, the acquisition of aural skills prior to learning the conventions of print music — a ‘sound before symbol’McPherson & Gabrielsson, 2002; Mills & McPherson, 2006; Gordon, 2012; Mills & McPherson, 2015 approach — serves as the "basis for making musical meaning".Burton, 2015, pp.1-2 Much like pedagogical approaches in language development, Mills & McPherson (2015) observe that "children should become competent with spoken verbal language [ie. aural skills] before they grapple with written verbal language [ie. visual/written notation skills]".Adams (1994) & Kirby (1988) in For others, they find a ‘language- and speech-based’ approach more effective, but only "after the basic structure and vocabulary of the language has first been established".Cooper, 2003, as cited in Mills & McPherson, 2015, p.177 Gundmundsdottir recommends that the "age of students should be considered when choosing a method for teaching" given the changing receptiveness of a developing brain.
In-field research collated by Gudmundsdottir on this topic notes that:
"Methods using foot tapping to mark the beat and counting or clapping the rhythm can be highly effective with older children and teenagers (Boyle 1970; Salzberg and Wang 1989) while the same method proves ineffective and distractive with 3rd and 4th graders (Palmer 1976; Salzberg and Wang 1989)"; and, "Methods using speech cues to identify and reproduce rhythmic patterns seem to be effective and appropriate for 3rd and 4th graders (Bebeau 1982; Palmer 1976; Shehan 1987) as well as for 6th graders (Shehan, 1987)."
Moreover, Mills & McPherson conclude that:
"The general rule recommended by McPherson and Gabrielsson (2002) is for children to learn to read pieces they already know by ear, before pieces they do not know which require more sophisticated levels of processing."
Burton found "play-based orientation... appeal[ed] to the natural way children learn[ed]", and that the process of learning how to read, write, and play/verbalise music paralleled the process of learning language.Burton, 2011; Gordon, 2012; Gruhn, 2002; Pinzino, 2007; Reynolds, Long & Valerio, 2007 Creating an outlet for the energy of children while using the conceptual framework of other school classes to develop their understanding of print music appears to enrich all areas of brain development. As such, Koopman (1996)As cited in is of the opinion that "[the] rich musical experience alone justifies the teaching of music at schools".