Musical Philosophers: The Power of Integrating Philosophy of Music into an Elementary School Music Curriculum
Ellen T. Sirower, a doctoral student in piano performance at the University of Texas at Austin and a PLATO Philosopher in Residence, maintains a busy performing and teaching schedule while writing her dissertation on teaching musical interpretation of post-tonal piano repertoire.
It is no secret to the PLATO community that children are natural philosophers. They often hold particularly strong opinions about activities they enjoy and engage with on a daily basis: clothes, food, sports, and music come immediately to mind. Music is a particularly contentious subject among children because music is everywhere—from the grocery store to TikTok videos. Music is also not merely presentational entertainment. Music expresses and reflects a plethora of philosophical, psychological, and sociological phenomena such as aesthetic values, fandoms, and political commentary.
Despite music’s ubiquitousness, the ways we appreciate, perceive, implement, and understand it are far from universal. The music classroom is a prime location for engaging in compelling philosophical inquiry.
Consider the following questions that would make many elementary school students’ ears perk up:
- Do you like Taylor Swift?
- Do you know of any rappers? Who is your favorite?
- What’s your favorite song to listen to when you’re sad? How about when you’re really happy?
We can easily take these questions and turn them into philosophical questions that immediately engage young children.
- Why do you like the singers you like? Can you define what makes their music good? Are the reasons you like these singers entirely musical or are there other reasons as well?
- Rap is usually thought of as hip-hop. Does hip-hop have to include rap to be hip-hop? What defines hip-hop as a genre, or any genre for that matter?
- Can music express emotions? We know that music can make us feel emotions, but can the music itself be happy or sad—even though music isn’t a person? If so, why?
Those are some of the questions that fifth grade students at the University of Texas (UT) Elementary School have engaged with during the 2024-2025 school year. UT Elementary, a public, title I charter school, is an academic unit of the University of Texas at Austin. The school has a very special music curriculum: students can choose to take a traditional band / orchestra class or music technology, a class that explores electronic instruments and composition software, and ultimately offers them the opportunity to compose original music. This presented an ideal setting for philosophical inquiry.
I founded Musical Philosophers with AJ Marks—UT Elementary’s general music and orchestra teacher. The program has included class projects and related field trips that focus on the philosophical topics we have explored throughout the year. UT faculty members specializing in musicology, philosophy, and composition were also invited to facilitate classes throughout the semester.
Each month, AJ and I focused on one philosophical topic and each unit culminated in a class project. During the fall 2024 semester, we covered emotional expression through music, the concept of genre, and musical ontology. We entertained big philosophical questions such as “What is an instrument?” and What does it mean for music to be good or bad?”
The first class project was a song project in BandLab. Students had to choose an emotion they would base their song on, create the song, and justify their musical decisions based on their chosen emotion throughout the process. The second topic on genre enabled students to engage with guest lecturer Januibe Tejera from the Butler School of Music who demonstrated the presence of electronics and virtual instruments in classical music. This gave students the opportunity to rethink their own assumptions about what classical music can be, and how they can contribute to the genre as students who work with electronic sounds. Kathleen Higgins (UT philosophy department) and Alison Maggart (Butler School of Music) led a series of “genre games.” A highlight was “genre charades” during which teams of students silently acted out musical genres. This game led to interesting discussions about how music categorization often extends beyond the literal sound to include such features as age groups and fandom mannerisms.
For the final project, “found sounds,” students created songs using sounds in nature. This project asked students to differentiate between elements that are “musical”—which could really be anything—and what we consider to be “music,” which typically involves intentionality.
We also attended a field trip to Texas Performing Arts for “Kid Koala: The Storyville Mosquito,” a live-action puppet show. It follows the adventures of a mosquito who moves to the big city to pursue his dream of becoming a famous jazz musician. The production combined live puppetry, cinematic camera techniques, and genre-bending music performed by a live ensemble of strings, piano and turntables.
I am incredibly grateful to PLATO for its support throughout this journey of musical and philosophical discovery. I look forward to continuing this innovative program with UT Elementary during the 2025-2026 school year.
