Resumo

Aesthetic experience is of fundamental significance in how we learn. In musical learning, aesthetic experience plays an important role not only in ‘passive appreciation’ of music, but also in creative composition and performance. It is therefore important to have an appreciation and understanding of aesthetic experience and how we might conceive of it. My talk aims at two things: exploring some of the key qualities of aesthetic experience and presenting a brief overview of my research in this area. In my recent doctoral degree (March 2015) with my supervisor Dr. Susan O’Neill, I designed and implemented an educational program called Exploring Aesthetic Experience. This program was developed using a dialogical approach with the aim of helping students a) probe the significance of different philosophical quotations on aesthetic experience to deepen their understanding, and b) make meaningful connections with their own aesthetic experiences and artistic learning. It was implemented with 10 senior secondary students attending a fine arts school, and separately with 16 educators completing a master’s degree in arts education, many of whom were musicians. One finding was that these arts learners and educators, immersed in aesthetic and artistic experience, had little initial understanding of what aesthetic experience is or how to conceive of it. The research thus proved to be valuable to students and educators in clarifying their own meaning of aesthetic experience and in realizing its significance in their artistic lives. I believe a similar value could be had in implementing this study with music learners and educators.