To read or not to read: is that the question?

Abstract

This essay discusses the teaching and learning of conventional music notation. Taking as a starting point some positions of scholars in the area about the importance or not of considering musical writing as a necessary knowledge, it deepens the arguments presented. In order to reach some conclusions, even if provisional, the text is conducted through two central questions: 1- What is the effective role of music notation for music and music education? 2- How can we think about learning of music notation from the development point of view? Taking the Bakhtin Circle's philosophy of culture and Vygotsky's historical cultural psychology as theoretical bases, it raises and analyzes some isses that may serve as guidelines for organizing the pedagogical work. Among the highlighted conclusions, we have: the notion that conventional notation plays a role beyond recording sounds and allows an analytical approach to music; the limits of writing not only for music from oral tradition, but for European concert music itself; the importance of practical musical experiences in the child's acquisition of notations; the different musical records in the course of psychic development. The final considerations point to the fact that the defense or not of music notation teaching only makes sense when analyzing the contextual teaching situations as a whole.