A Study of the Hawaii Music Curriculum Project

— With Special Reference to the Principle of the Curriculum Structure —

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to re-evaluate the educational significance of the Hawaii Music Curriculum Project (HMCP), which is one of the most inclusive efforts affected by the Contemporary Music Project's Comprehensive Musicianship, with special reference to its underlying principles of the curriculum structure. An analysis the curriculum of HMCP revealed the following three distinguishing facets: (1) its goal to develop "musicianly behavior" in the students, (2) its spiral structure to attain the above goal, and (3) its stress on playing music and having the students trace a performer's mode of inquiry into music. These facets represent the curricular foundation, music should be considered as a discipline. The idea that a subject should have nature of a discipline was a distinctive dimension in the educational reform led by Sputnik Shock in 1957, and HMCP's curriculum was an early effort embracing this trend in music education. In addition, the curriculum had the logical consistency derived from the systematic ideology of Western music. After all, the HMCP's curriculum was founded on these two principles, i.e., nature of music as a discipline, and the intellectual structure of Western music.