recurring motifs Peer Review Corner Edited by Lee Willingham Musical Experiences in a Visually Biased World By John L. Vitale Peer Review Corner features articles that have been submitted for review by a panel of music educators. The jury completes a "blind" review of manuscripts, offers suggestions for revision, and the revised article is either accepted or rejected based upon consultation with the journal editor and the others on the editorial board. If you wish to submit an article for review, please send it to Dr. Lee Willingham (lwillingham@wlu.ca). Abstract: This article investigates the visual bias in our world, including examples of visual bias, where it came from, and how it impacts auditory learning and musical experiences. Moreover, an examination of how musical experiences ironically and paradoxically perpetuate the visual bias in our world is abo provided. This article also articulates that music education suffers as a result of the visiuil bias in our world since music is by its very nature, privaarily auditory. Lastly, this article argues that music educators should provide mo^e opportunities for experiential forms of learning that foster auditory perception through play, exploration, and discovery, and less focus on established music notation, which is inherently visual. Introduction The presidential state of the union address on September 20, 2001, by George W. Bush was a significantly important speech at the time given the recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers nine days before. Immediately following Bush's speech, I found myself tuned in to LaTT;y King Live on CNN tele- vision (Walker, 2001). One of his guests that particular evening was Michael Hingson, a blind man who e.scaped from one of the World Trade Centers by walking down seventy-eight flights of stairs with his guide dog. Even though it has been over nine years since this broadcast, I clearly remember Larry King asking his blind guest; "Did you see President Bush's speech earlier tonight?" Larry King's oversight was not only extremely embar- rassing, it was also a watershed moment for me—one that vali- dated how language reinforces visual bias. In fact, this visual bias has been the basis for many personal and professional discussions over the years with colleagues, students, family, and friends, which ultimately served as the impetus to write this article. Since music is by its very nature, primarily audi- tory, it has been my experience as both a parent and music edu- cator that visual bias has affected the way we learn music, and has also inhibited our ability to discover and explore our auditory world. Although formal Westem music education has a long and institutionalized past, music education (particularly in elemen- tary and secondary schools across Canada) should provide more opportunities for experiential forms of learning that foster audito- ry perception through play, exploration, and discovery, and less focus on established music notation, which is inherently visual. Contextual and Philosophical Framework There are many scholars that corroborate the notion that the world around us is dominated by visual stimuli. Musical scholar Wayne Bowman (1998), for example, has stated: "Westem thought has constructed the world and reality in visual terms. . . Sound constitutes a backdrop, an occasional punctuation for a world that is first and foremost given to the eye" (pp. 334-335). Larry King's remarks, therefore, would not have been as much of a blunder if his guest was not blind. That is, society has accept- ed the notion that sight has become our primary sensory instru- ment, as Bowman has adeptly noted. After all, a phrase like "I see what you are saying" is relatively commonplace during face- to-face communication and even in a telephone conversation where there is no visual element. In the example of the Larry King blunder, one need look no further than the television set, as the vast majority of people who heard President Bush's speech on the evening of September 20, 2001, heard it on television— a highly visual medium that perpetuates visual bias (Noam, 2009). This is supported by the research of Liff and Posey (2004), for example, who argue that the reliance on "visual cues" is para- mount to the "proper and rapid transmission and receipt of mes- sages" (p. 19). Related to this are the ideas of Schultz (2005), Watson (1998), and Eadie (2009) who argue that news reports on television are visually biased, often emphasizing stories that have a great deal of visual appeal. In sum, the television and, more recently, the Intemet have become significant sources of knowledge and understanding of the world. O'Loughlin (2006) states: "the world is now presented to us most convincingly VOLUME 52 - NUMBER 4 SUMMER 2011 MUSICIEN ÉDUCATEUR AU CANADA 19