Metamorphosis: a pedagogical phenomenology of music, ethics and philosophy.

“Metamorphosis” emphasizes the seriousness and profundity of ‘classical music’ by drawing a parallel between the latter and Western philosophy and attempts to analyze the transformative impact that this kind of music may have on education. The current Thesis also looks at how the music phenomenon has evolved in the past century and how the general public dramatically changed its perspective in its regard; it warns against the danger of losing a part of the identity of the Western civilization; pleads for a more intense and comprehensive use of ‘serious music’ in the general curriculum; and finally, proposes a syllabus, a program for the implementation of ‘serious music’ inside regular classrooms. This Thesis is divided into 4 Parts conceived as an arch connecting two aspects: theory and applicability. The first part - THE THEORY: Philosophic Music – demonstrates the intimate relationship between music and philosophy. It is a plea for changing the contemporary perspective on music as mere entertainment or vehicle for political and social protest. The second part - THE RIFT: Classical and Popular – points out, analyzes and discusses the dramatic split between ‘classical’ and ‘popular’ music which happened in the second half of the twentieth century. This part also signals how the entertainment industry altered our views on art in general and music in particular and how it washed out almost completely the concept of attentive listening. “The Rift” offers a comparative table of two musical extremes: ‘bubble-gum music’ and the twentieth century experimentalists. The third part - THE METHOD: Attentive Listening – focuses, as the title suggests, on the importance of listening as a process per se and suggests a solution that may be applied in music classes. Finally, the fourth part - THE TOOL: The Alternative Listening Program – explains and presents a syllabus organized by grades (1 – 12), weeks and days. It offers more than six hundred musical samples engraved on a set of twelve CDs. All accompanied by a compendium of audio sources and a list of featured composers. This Program constitutes the core of the present Thesis.