Hermann J. Kaiser:

Philosophical foundations of music teacher education

This article deals with the question of how much philosophy a music teacher needs to do his job. Taking up Keith Swanwick's statement from 1988, that all music teachers are implicitly working to theories, teachers are said to work on implicit philosophies of music education. Here (in this text) philosophies are supposed to be understood as a more or less organised "ensemble" of implicit and explicit theories, which direct teaching activities. Four functions (initiative, normative, formative and evaluative) of such implicit philosophies are discussed comparing the theoretical status of explicit (objective) with implicit (subjective) theories and philosophies of music education it is shown that implicit as well as explicit theories and philosophies of music education have their roots in music-related experience. Connected with this, the significant difference between music-related expericnce and musical experience is described and the specific qualities of music-related experience are worked out in detail. It becomes obvious that musical and music-related experience is the theoretical core of theories about musical learning and music teaching. Three conclusions concerning music teacher education are drawn from the foregoing discussions and they complete the train of thought.