warbling elephant music — chris miller

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Teaching Philosophy Statement

My mission as an educator is to inspire and guide discovery.

When I think of the people who have made the greatest impression on my own intellectual and creative development, I think first of those with strong convictions, a passionate commitment to their field, and an engagement as a whole person in their careers. What made them good teachers was the balancing of these characteristics by a drive to critically question assumptions and an eagerness to engage with others in dialogue. It is these qualities that I aspire to, not only as a teacher but also as a scholar, an artist, and in all my interactions with others. In shifting from the role of student and novice to that of teacher and mentor, I remind myself that I too am continually learning, and to draw from my own ongoing discovery to maintain or renew my enthusiasm.

In practical terms, sharing my enthusiasm and demonstrating my commitment is indispensible to inspiring learning. Equally important is to ensure that students recognize and value what they already know, and for me as a teacher to affirm and value their interests. The familiar then provides a base from which I can push students to go further, to expand their knowledge and to question, challenge, and refine their beliefs. This two part strategy of identifying and then going beyond the familiar takes different forms in the different aspects of studying music. When teaching music theory I augment the focus on the “common-practice” period of European art music with examples more familiar to most if not all the students. In doing so I draw attention not only to commonalities but also to differences in order to clarify core concepts. For example, I highlight the difference between the use of the dominant-seventh type sonority in blues-based and classical idioms as a way of clarifying the principles of progression and voice-leading essential to the latter.

Hands-on learning of the practice of music making inherently draws upon existing skills while demanding the acquisition of new ones. This is especially true when first encountering an unfamiliar music, which is nearly invariably the case when North American students first study Javanese gamelan. In my teaching of gamelan I favor greater explanation than is typical or necessary in Java, where the emphasis is more on imitation. But at the same time I give the students room to learn from their own experience of the unfamiliar. For example, I present the inverted rhythmic sense of Javanese music through first asking students to play structure marking parts while I count. Only after this initial experience do I explain the concept of end-weighted phrasing, where phrases lead up to the strongest beat rather than starting out from it, to clarify why kenong is notated and felt as falling at the end rather than the beginning of each line.

In courses examining music in and as culture I ask students to identify their conceptions of the place and function of music in their own lives (which tend to emphasize music as entertainment) as a point of comparision in exploring its various functions in this and other societies (for example, as part of ceremony or ritual, or as an expression of community or individual identity). In lectures as well as seminar situations I ask questions, not merely as a way of prodding students to complete assigned reading, but more fundamentally to engage the whole class in the collaborative process of learning.