The History of the Development of School Music in Postwar Japan

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  • 戦後音楽科教育の発展史
  • センゴ オンガクカ キョウイク ノ ハッテンシ

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The purpose of this study is clarifying the history of the development of school music in postwar Japan by examining the perception of music and the trends in school music in each age and suggesting the next challenge we must confront. This study reveals two points in the development of school music. The first point concerns the integration of subject and object in music. In post−war school music, music was considered to be the product of objective musical cultures and, hence, music education in schools focused on acquiring musical cultures as its object. Then, from the 1960－70s, schools began to focus on children as the subjects in music. Since the 1980－90s, the perception of music began to evolve slowly until it was considered to be a creative activity for children. Consequently, music focused on children as the subjects that participated in music. Now, in this century, both views have been integrated through the idea that musical experience is generated through perceiving elements of musical works as the object of the music and the children’s feelings as the subject. The second point concerns the expansion of the content of musical culture itself as the educational object. Immediately after the war, school music attached too much importance to traditional European music （classical music）and its techniques. In the 1960－70s, Japanese nursery songs and Japanese traditional music gradually began to be included in curricula. After this development, since approximately the1980－90s, school music also began to focus on popular music and folk music from all parts of the world. Furthermore, musical cultures focused on in school music now include not only music itself but also the human cultures related to this music as a means of providing a background to the musical works. Based on these points, this study suggests our next challenge will be to improve the present means of integrating subjects and objects in music education. Reconsidering what musical experience is, it can be generated not only by perceiving elements of musical works as objects and children’s feelings as subjects ; rather, children’s lives, through which they create themselves, underlie musical experience. Therefore, the next challenge for music education in schools may be to consider and incorporate children’s entire lives as the subjective side of integration in music.

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