This book explores historical and philosophical connections between music, leisure, and education. Specifically, it considers how music learning, teaching, and participation can be reconceptualized in terms of leisure. Taking as its starting point "the art of living" and the ethical question of how one should live, the book engages a wide range of scholarship to problematize the place of non-professional music-making in historical and contemporary (Western) conceptions of the good life and the common good.

Part I provides a general background on music education, school music, the work ethic, leisure studies, recreation, play, and conduct. Part II focuses on two significant currents of thought and activity during the Progressive Era in the United States, the settlement movement and the recreation movement. The examination demonstrates how societal concerns over conduct (the "threat of leisure") and differing views on the purpose of music learning and teaching led to a fracturing between those espousing generalist and specialist positions. The four chapters of Part III take readers through considerations of happiness (eudaimonia) and the good life, issues of work-life balance and the play spirit, leisure satisfaction in relation to consumerism, individualism, and the common good, and finally, parenting logics in relation to extracurriculars, music learning, and serious leisure.

Roger Mantie's profile page

Roger Mantie is Associate Professor, Department of Arts, Culture and Media at University of Toronto Scarborough, with a graduate appointment at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He enjoyed previous appointments at Arizona State University and Boston University. Mantie is co-author of Education, Music, and the Social Lives of Undergraduates: Collegiate A Cappella and the Pursuit of Happiness, and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education (2017) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure (2016).