Post 10.

Last week was, in the Catholic Church at least, the feast of the doctor of the church, Hildegard of Bingen, who passed away on September 17, 1179. Radio New Zealand shared Hildegard's music as one of "five feminist moments in music." In my "Introduction to Western Music" course, I have students listen to "O Frodens Virga," which opens space to converse about melody and basic polyphony in medieval musics, and to introduce ideas of gender and ecology (which we spend more time on later in the semester). On the Hildegard Society website, they discuss Frodens: "O frondens virga recalls the elemental association of the divine feminine with earthly fertility. Mary is addressed as 'O blooming branch,' and she is described as standing in her nobility. The image of dawn and its radiance is also invoked."

What does divine femininity mean within the context of the Western musical and Christian tradition? This question initiates an interesting discussion. But I do need to point out something important many of my students don't suspect, Hildegard was never covered in my undergraduate studies in the 1990s. For as important as Hildegard is to understanding medieval musics today, she was practically invisible just 20 years ago! Perhaps we benefit from the fact that she's a saint: I suspect its hard for the most male-dominated people to toss out the writings of a saint, however patriarchal they are. But more than that, we benefit from the hard work of specific scholars who have worked to re-vivify her music.

Though my book doesn't spent much time on Hildegard, understanding how the natural environment influenced her as a medieval, religious, monastic women composer is important to understanding Western music. In the case of Hildegard, I bow to the wisdom of music and music education scholar June Boyce-Tillman, who in her book, "The Creative Spirit: Harmonious Living with Hildegard of Bingen" describes Hildegard's sense of justice, prayer, connection to the Virgin Mary, visions, healing, music, and creativity. Boyce-Tillman shares an antiphon inspired by Hildegard on p. 7:
Anitphon: To Virgins and Innocents
O most noble, greening, creative force,
Who are rooted in sunlight,
And who in their radiant
Serenity shine like a wheel of lights;
No earthly power can ever fully comprehend
Such excellence.
You are closely held in warm embrace by the Mystery of the Divine One.
You blush like the dawn twilight,
And burn like the flaming sunshine.

This antiphon captures an aspect of Hildegard's philosophy that I find important for music education, Hildegard's idea of "greening power." "Each human soul becomes the dynamic greening power within the person. The greenness is rooted in the radiance at the heart of the universe and is gradually transformed into that light" (p. 175). In this philosophy (is this panentheistic?), creativity, self, divine, and the natural world are brought into alignment in a way I feel--when I go outside with students, eyes closed, breathing slowly, listening and singing back to birds and insects and winds--my classes and I are able to just barely touch at our most interconnected moments. This spiritual link of environment, self, and divine seem to be, in some way, at the heart of creative musicking.

As a final somewhat related note, since we're talking about a Catholic saint who was devoted to Mary, ecofeminist Rosemary Radford Ruether talks about Mary being thought of as "a survival of the goddess figures of ancient Near Eastern religion." The mother goddess was an active figure (rather than passive) in the seasonal renewal of life. What began as a marriage between a sky god and earth mother, eventually became a metaphor for the church, "the tender and intimate image for the relationship of God to his people." Ultimately, by exploring Mary and the feminine in Christian churches, Ruether concludes her study with a type of egalitarianism: "If Christ represents this 'emptying out' of God into service, then he too cannot be seen as 'lord' in a way that reestablishes the lordship of some people over other people." Perhaps Marian devotions are a way to sustain a type of gender egalitarianism in the face of an unfair patriarchal society, while still fitting within that same society on a day-to-day basis.

My mind is drawn back to May Queen services at St. Mary's (now Queen of Peace) and learning the rosary as a child, and I feel that these, as a boy growing into a man in a patriarchal church, forced me to confront the male-domination from which I benefited in many ways. Was Marian devotion a perfect model for cultivating  a young male feminist? Is there a perfect model? I doubt both. But it was something. And systems of domination hurt everybody who grows up in them: these systems hurt those dominated most, but it is not healthy to learn to dominate ... you lose something in the learning. Perhaps Ruether's word, "survival," is relevant in more ways than one for all of us.

Link: https://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/upbeat/audio/2018662535/five-feminist-moments-in-music
Link: https://youtu.be/QGXXrUvNzec
Link: http://www.hildegard-society.org/2014/10/o-frondens-virga-antiphon.html
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Spirit-June-Boyce-Tillman/dp/1853113654
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Feminine-Rosemary-Radford-Ruether/dp/0664247598

Post 9.

In this post, I push past what's in my book and speculate an activity a music teacher might attempt to cultivate ecological literacy of local trees.

This past month, in positive news, there was a story about an artist, Katie Holton, who created an alphabet font for the trees of New York City. Each of the 26 letters of the alphabet is a drawing of a tree found in the city, e.g., B for birch; M for maple; and S for sassafras. Though I don't know that it would be practical as a font, unless it were a secret code, it is an interesting way to do ecological oriented art through a common thing in the 21st Century, fonts. My 4-year old son was very interested in the trees, "this [the willow] looks sad, and this one [the crabapple] looks surprised!" Holton suggested that by planting trees, "people will be able to ‘write’ words, poems and short stories around the city." She suggests her font might increase ecological literacy about "climate change, urban conservation, and engagement with nature."

How might a similar model be taken in music classrooms? Though a font might not inspire artistic creation directly, the first seven trees (American beech, Birch, Crabapple, Dawn Redwood, Elm, Flowering Dogwood, and Ginkgo) might be used in connection to the pitch names in a diatonic scale. Perhaps, more musical, might be identifying local trees around your school with children, and then creating melodies inspired by each tree. What might a willow melody, heard by my son as sad, sound like? What melody might a surprised crabapple inspire? Students might compose on glass jars, filled with water to create different pitches, reusing well-worn jars for musical purposes. Obviously the waste bin is the worst place for glass jars, and reusing is better than recycling (the order of the postmodern R's--reduce, reuse, recycle--matters). With modern technology, students could easily record and share their catalogue of melodies.

Students could take photos, and create a slideshow for a concert, in which as each tree is shown, the students play their composed melody. Multiple parts, and beats might be written or improvised to fill-out the composition. And the class can put on an informance (informing-performance); one which reminds their community just what trees are blessing their neighborhood. It may be that students learn (and teach their community) about damaging species they find like the Emerald Ash Borer, or the Fall Webworm, and that knowledge could even help identify outbreaks in time to act. And as the community re-discovers its trees, who knows what old wisdoms elders might remember: You may find yourself gifted with homemade maple syrup, or sassafras root beer!

Link: https://www.positive.news/lifestyle/artist-creates-alphabet-made-up-of-trees-in-new-york-city/
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578

Post 8.

One area I did not explore in my book, but may be an area for music educators to explore in the future is the potential relationship between Chinese philosophy and teaching music for eco-literacy. A year after publishing my book, Victor Fung published his book, "A Way of Music Education: Classic Chinese Wisdoms." I began reading it, and there are certainly ecological and environmental themes in the book. In my book, I was influenced by some Buddhist thought, especially in my chapter on Spiritual Praxis, but that is admittedly Buddhism as it has made its way to the U.S., and not in a traditional, Eastern way (I was first introduced to Buddhism through karate-do, and the "do" in that term also means "way"). Fung explicates three, historically earliest Chinese philosophies that pre-dated Buddhism in China, using ancient sources, many of which are not available in English: Confuscianism, Daoism, and the Yijing. This fact alone makes A Way of Music Education a valuable addition to any English speaking music educators bookshelf. I have read, but haven't yet had the opportunity to come to fully understand all of the ecological wisdom in the book, but I look forward to re-reading it to come to understand it better.

A few weeks ago, Chinese scholars met to discuss the benefits of Chinese philosophy, and noted that "Eastern wisdom could counter anthropocentric beliefs, which hold that man is the most significant entity, that have somewhat led to tragic consequences." The philosophy on soil I present in my book is anti-anthropocentric. I also argue that centering our philosophies on human beings has had tragic ecological consequences. I drew on Western thinkers in the deep ecology movement to portray an ecocentric philosophy for music education. I learned that many of those philosophers, such as Arne Naess, were influenced by Eastern philosophy, but I do not know the extent. Ecocentric philosophies center of the ecosystem, rather than on "man." In this way, ecocentric philosophies have also been anti-androcentric (centering on gendered maleness), and many of the ecocentrists I utilize (including Vandana Shiva and Karen J. Warren) are also well-known ecofeminists.

When music educators re-center their practice on an ecocentric (rather than anthropocentric and/or androcentric) philosophy, space is opened to consider Nature's musics, whether birdsongs and whale music, or the soundscapes in a cave, or on windy plains. Composer Pauline Oliveros (who famously recorded in caverns) lived by this mantra: "Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening." And her website, https://www.deeplistening.org/, still provides resources music educators benefit from using. Her deep listening program seems ecocentric to me, and by centering our practice on ecosystems, we can cultivate a new generation of ecologically conscious citizens. We only have to re-awaken our senses: and who is better situated to re-open students' ears than music educators?!?

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy-Philosophy-Autoethnography/dp/0415792576/
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Music-Education-Classic-Chinese/dp/0190234474/
Link: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-08/23/c_137413696.htm
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/may/07/guide-contemporary-music-pauline-oliveros
Link: https://www.deeplistening.org/

Post 7.

September 11th, the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attack on New York, DC, and Pennsylvania, has me reflecting on increased ecological disasters and eco-literate music pedagogy. I listened to a radio program online, produced by the American Military University, discussing increased natural disasters, and how this affects the work of emergency managers. A lot of it is very specific to that career, and AMU is not a part of the military (though more than half of their graduates serve in the military). But this is very insightful for someone cultivating their ecological literacy. This is something we need to know about, especially since many of us are experiencing increased ecological disasters (there's currently flooding in Central, PA, though that's not unusual for this time of year: but more of the budget for response has already been spent).

During the 21st Century natural disasters, many of which are scientifically linked to the climate change crisis, are a very real experience for so many people. From my role as a music educator, I open up conversation about ecological disaster by listening to "Kanye West: 9.2.05," perhaps the most politically charged song from Ted Hearne's Katrina Ballads. In it, Hearne uses Kenye West's well-known "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" television comments. As a teacher trying to open discussions, I hope our distance from the Bush presidency allows students to feel comfortable discussing it, so we can talk about the crisis, response, racial and economic aspects, and politics of it freely and openly. Parallels can certainly be drawn to the current administration's response to Hurricane Maria, which I bring up near the end of conversation (after everybody is comfortable with talking).

Just as many people living elsewhere (I was teaching in Pittsburgh during the Katrina disaster) I experienced Katrina mediated by television. Hearne's composition begins with a longer section of West's discussion, followed by the powerful line repeated over and over. This repetition, for me, represents the way television (CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC) share information. They may share an iteration of a contextualized statement, where West's anger grows organically in an uncertain, human way. But then they reduce it to a single soundbite, which is repeated until the audience/news-viewer finds herself more politically certain--If she voted for Bush, she was likely to hear that quote and feel anger toward West, if she didn't she was likely to hear it and sympathize with West. This increased ratings, but also increases political division in a time when quality emergency response should not be a political position.

Though I don't deal with this aspect in the book, an eco-literate citizen needs to be able to make sense of natural disasters, natural disaster response, and how these events are politicized for ratings. Disaster response is going to be increasingly necessary, and funding for agencies that accomplish it are going to have to be an ever larger part of our taxes. At least for the foreseeable future. We have not done a good job of decreasing our waste, including CO2 emissions.

As a side note, you can rent my book on the Routledge website for $12.50, which is good for those of you concerned about price, but who want to read it on their mobile devices. Alternatively, I recommend people access it through their library.

Daniel J. Shevock

Link:
https://federalnewsradio.com/academic-insights/2018/09/training-and-education-are-needed-most-to-make-important-policy-decisions-in-disasters/
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMLIRJXnYjA
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Maria
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578