Towards a Daoist-inspired philosophy of music education

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to propose a philosophy of music education drawn from Daoist writings. The research questions are: (1) What are the principles which are key to Daoism? (2) What are philosophies of Music located in Daoism? (3) How would a Daoist-inspired philosophy of music education look like? In order to address these questions, I draw on the philosophies of Daoist thinkers such as Laozi, Zhuangzi and Ji Kang. In particular, I study the “wu-forms” (無) of terms in Daoism (Ames & Hall, 2010, p. 36), such as wu (無: non-; nothing/ness; -less), wuwei (無為: non- action), wusheng (無聲: non-sound), and wuaile (無哀樂: neither sorrow nor joy). Using these ideas, I propose a Daoist-inspired philosophy of music education, one that emphasizes the usefulness (yong 用) of nothingness (wu 無). More importantly, the philosophy I argue for offers a practical model for music educators in the form of a “Eight Hexagram (Bagua 八卦) of Music Education.” This model I propose includes four pairs of yin-yang opposites: you (有: presence) and wu (無: nothing/ness), youwei (有為: action) and wuwei (無為: non-action), yousheng (有聲: sound) and wusheng (無聲: soundless), and youaile (有哀樂: presence of sorrow and joy) and wuaile (無哀樂: neither sorrow nor joy). These ideas have the potential to expand our existing views of music and music education and contribute to the philosophy and practice of music education.