9. The Musical Object in Deep Learning

Abstract

From August 2020 the Norwegian National Curriculum for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education and training was replaced. A main concern was to equip students with 21st century competencies aimed at enabling students to transfer and apply knowledge and skills in different contexts. One key aspect in achieving such competencies is that of providing for in-depth or deep learning. While deep learning is defined in slightly different ways in documents leading up to the new curriculum they all emphasise developing an understanding of concepts and relationships in and between subject areas (NOU 2014: 7, s. 7). This involves a break with so-called surface learning based on facts and isolated skills. This chapter will investigate what it means to provide for deep learning in music by turning to two oppositional frameworks of understanding: on the one side sociocultural learning theories and pragmatic aesthetics and on the other side the more contentious perspectives of musical objectivism and musical autonomy. Within this field of tension, we find to some extent contradictory views on the role of musical knowledge and what this knowledge consists of. Research on perception and musical emotion strongly indicates that bottom-up perspectives are central to musical experience. Thus, taking a sociocultural stance that leans heavily towards a pragmatic and relativistic view on musical knowledge production may inhibit knowledge about, and even acknowledgement of, music as an aesthetic, perceptible object.