MUSIC EDUCATION & COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY A RATIONAL

To introduce the use of computer technology into the music education curriculum.

There is no doubt in any parent or educator's mind that music is firmly established as one of the fine arts upon which western civilization is grounded, so recognized since the ancient Greeks (Aristotle, Poetics). Music, based upon mathematics, has transcended language as a mode of communication between cultures and between eras (Toynbee, 1972, 464-473). Computer technology, meanwhile, has emerged as today's link to the future. Computer literacy is an increasing requirement for successful integration into the economic and social mainstream.

A hard economic fact - financial resources for the educational system are limited. It is the position of this proposal that introducing computer technology into the music education program can be a cost-efficient, motivating, and instructionally-effective tool to add to the secondary school curriculum.

It is important to understand why music is so important to the educational process. Its credentials as a fine art established by unanimous consensus, music education proliferated during the boom years of the post-World War II American economy, roughly 1945 through 1975. There is still no debate over the value of music as an "enrichment" tool and as deserving of attention on the university level.