James Mursell

James Mursell wrote extensively about music education and musical growth in classroom settings. He was keenly aware of the student's role in learning, and he believed that, unless students are intrinsically motivated to learn, their musical growth will be minimal at best. To Mursell's way of thinking, the best motivator is the active, participatory musical experience--singing, playing, listening to, and being actively involved in other ways with high-quality music. This is the all-important starting point for motivation, and it is from these experiences that musical growth can be drawn.

He applies his "synthesis-analysis-synthesis" or whole-part-whole pattern of learning to music learning and speaks of musical understanding as "unfolding or evolving, rather than adding or accumulating." Instead of teaching the rudiments of music in isolation from the musical contexts that give them meaning, Mursell suggests that factual knowledge about music will gradually be drawn from songs that students have learned and enjoy singing. Each time they sing a particular song, they do something different with it and learn a little bit more about it. In this way their understanding of melody, rhythm, dynamics, and so forth deepens gradually as an outgrowth of meaningful music making rather than of drill and practice. At the end of each such activity, when students sing the song through once more, it means more to them that it did prior to the "analysis" or unfolding of it.

Publications

The Psychology of School Music Teaching (with Kansas City music supervisor Mabelle Glenn) and Human Values and Music Education, both published in the 1930s, became standard texts. "Principles of Music Education" appeared as the opening chapter in the 1936 yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, and Mursell was also a contributing author to the 1958 yearbook, Basic Concepts in Music Education.

References

Labuta, J.A. and Smith, D.A. (1997). Music Education: Historical Contexts and Perspectives. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Mark, M.L. and Gary, C.L. (1999). A History of American Music Education. Reston: the National Association for Music Education.