Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education
August 2017, Vol 16 (1): 168–74. doi:10.22176/act16.1.168
© Randall Everett Allsup 2017. The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the author.
The ACT Journal and the Mayday Group are not liable for any legal actions that may arise
involving the article's content, including, but not limited to, copyright infringement.
Re: Re/mixing the Remix
Randall Everett Allsup
Teachers College Columbia University, New York, USA
The aim of this brief essay is to thank contributing writers for their varied and critical
reviews of my book Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music
Education. I consider the collection as a kind of assemblage—fractured, colliding, and
reattaching texts that shift shape as readers enter and exit as they please. I brush
lightly on themes that are important to me: the invitation to read within and outside
frames; the notion of openness as something felt and longed for; a continued critique of
Authorship, Mastery, and the Law; and a vision of arts education in which searching is
prolonged and the impulse to clarify is (for the sake of truth) purposefully attenuated.
Keywords: music, education, philosophy, openings
here is no greater honor for a writer than to be closely read. The contribu-
tors to this special issue, to whom I offer my heartfelt thanks, provide a
powerful illustration of how to engage with a text. Some wonder; others
argue, defend, or extend. Some explain. But all read from their particular vantage
point. Their achievement is profound and everyday: they changed a thing they
came in contact with, in this case the book that I wrote over a span of three years,
Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education.
1
I
certainly didn’t “Author” this manuscript, and I don’t think I “created” it either.
Better said: it was assembled … from memory, experience, reading, and interac-
tion. In turn, the contributors to this issue are remixing the remix. Like rabbits in
a burrow, their thinking extends the book in multiple directions, expanding from
a temporary starting point until you (the next reader) are left to find your way
through a warren of new openings, secret passages, new delights and dead ends—
but mostly, new paths in and new paths out. There’s a saying in China, the clever
rabbit knows two ways out. I hope you (the next reader, the now reader, a clever
rabbit) join us in multiplying.
T