Music Education Needs a Bailout
Much like the auto industry, our profession has been in jeopardy for a while now. I can’t remember a time when advocacy wasn’t a critical issue due to school budget constraints. This is how we are learning to become proactive. We are discovering that we can affect our own destiny by highlighting the positive impact of an education that includes music, and we are slowly seeing an improvement in support from our administrators – I believe. But, much like the automakers, the support we receive must be met with substance and a willingness to critique our own ‘product’.
Make no mistake, there are strings attached to the support you earn. An administrator may come to your concert and compliment you on how wonderful everything was, but when the time comes to make difficult budget decisions, our activity of preparing students for a concert starts to look more like an extravagance than a necessity. Even those of us who teach performance really well are not completely safe.
You may teach according to the Comprehensive Musicianship model and have students who can play anything you put in front of them. You have cultivated their general musicianship and performance skills to a point where they enjoy making music at a very high level every day. This is a great accomplishment. I would argue, however, that it is not the only goal we should be striving toward. The music education bailout I speak of has little to do with financial support, and everything to do with the content of our curricula. Here are a few steps that music teachers might take to improve their own standing and the future of our profession.
#1 – Emphasize Musical Literacy
Teach your students how to read, write, interpret, critique, and listen. Not just the music you choose, and not just the music they choose, but a sample of all music. This also includes composing and improvising for all students.
#2 – Reduce Performances and Cut Competition
This is a hard sell. I believe that in order for students to have a meaningful creative experience in music that includes composing, improvising, etc., they have to be given time to explore these new areas. It is nearly impossible when everyone is scrambling to get from one performance to the next, all the while trying to uphold this inflated level of performance that seems to be expected. High school students can accomplish great things in performance, but teachers need to expand students’ conceptions of what is possible in music. Simply put, there is more to music than performance.
As for competitions, I think they are meaningless and antithetical to the goal of school music education. They may provide some minute level of extrinsic motivation, but the glory of winning first place at the University of X Marching Band Festival is no substitute for the intrinsic reward that learning to be creative within the realm of music provides.
#3 – Extra-Curriculars Should Remain Extra-Curricular
Allow me to state, up front, that I am not a huge marching band fan. I think a good marching program can work well in the context of an educational setting, though too many programs make it the top priority. Marching band is great for rallying student enthusiasm and community spirit. It is not great as a focused environment for musical learning.
That said, it is not possible for some schools to have marching band (or any other extra-curricular) unless they use the time allotted for ensemble rehearsal. However, if your administration is willing to support steps 1 and 2, you will probably have no trouble convincing them that this step is absolutely necessary. When extra-curriculars become exactly that (EXTRA-curriculars), then teachers will be free to teach music as a subject and an art…and not as an activity or sport.
#4 – Teach Music as a Subject…Not an Activity!
This goes along with all the other steps, but it is probably the fundamental reason why music loses its support in schools. We have a unique opportunity in that we teach a subject that does not simply exist as a piece of paper covered in ink. Our subject is omnipresent in the lives of…well, everyone. If 99% of all students are interested in music, and we are, on average, only serving between 10 and 20 percent at present, how can we expect to secure ourselves as an integral part of the school curriculum? Music has slowly become for only those who choose it at a very young age. We are not helping ourselves by being so exclusive (or even elitist).
There are music classes that can serve an entire population of students. These classes can also be interesting and relevant to your students’ interests. Using a constructivist approach, we can find the aspects of music that students have an interest in, and base learning around their individual needs and goals. Meanwhile, they are creating music using any and all tools that are at hand. Even if they are using preexisting material to remix, there are still a plethora of concepts to be taught. Technology makes music more accessible. Instead of complaining that this is lessening the quality of contemporary music, we should be teaching the artists of tomorrow what makes music “good” – (Someone taught Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood).
#5 – Be Fearless, Even in Failure
No one ever intends for an idea to fail. Teachers (and especially music teachers) feel such immense pressure to produce something that is of high quality that we often unintentionally neglect our primary purpose. We rehearse and rehearse, and refine and refine to the detriment of our students. Ignoring competition all together, a flawless performance of overly-difficult music is not a worthwhile goal in student-centered universe. And I suppose that’s what it all comes down to – we need to accept that our reputations as teachers are on the line. If you want to be a conductor of a great ensemble, go wave your arms at a college where the goal is to prepare professional, flawless musicians. If you want to teach – really teach – consider the long-term implications of the material you present, and the process that students follow. Performance is important, but not singularly important. There are other worthy skills that music teaches. If we can’t teach students to be creative and expressive, where are they going to get it? And what purpose are we left to serve in the school?
A music education bailout needs to begin with teachers realizing the breadth of what we do, and how narrow a focus we currently have.
December 15, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Adam – you make some good points! I contend however that music education needs an overhaul not a bailout. If we removed music education from academia altogether, we as a profession, might be better off. Let’s make music education available to EVERYONE who wants the best for their children and themselves. and who are willing to pay for it.
Let’s market it, package it and sell it so professional degreed music educators can make wages commensurate with other disciplines. Let’s make the profession fiscally robust so that future music educators have solid options outside of teaching band choir or orchestra upon graduation. Until then, the profession will languish in the bowels of academia and always be considered an ‘activity’ at best.
December 16, 2008 at 11:43 am
Adam,
I do agree with much of what you have said in this article. One thing I have had trouble with is reducing performance. I want to reduce the number of performances we have (because then I can actually teach), but I have found that when I perform less, I my program doesn’t get as much exposure. In some ways performing is part of our advocacy. I am able to get more students involved in my program and in music if they see my kids perform and know that we are present in the school.
December 16, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Jeremy,
I agree that performance plays a big role in exposure. I’m not sure I would term it as advocacy, though. Also, who says that performance must take the form of a sit-down concert? Couldn’t posting student work on a school website for parents to enjoy at their leisure also be termed as ‘performance’? I think this a largely unused realm for music teachers because it is cumbersome and requires a bit of knowledge about copyright law and, of course, a good deal of technological savvy.
As you said, we have to strive to make our programs more visible in the school community. But a new way to do that is to make student work (and I’m talking about original, creative work) available on a much wider scope via the internet. Schools are extremely insular and expanding our audience would serve as advocacy for individual schools and our discipline in general.
February 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm
How do I teach high school students to write a meaningful critique. They need to critique a vocal concert and an orchestra critique. How should they be guided to do this?
February 15, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Hi Jane,
I would say it depends on the goal of the assignment. If it is to have students attend concerts that are similar to what they do (school performances), and critique their peers, I think a more ‘empathetic’ approach should be utilized. I would not encourage students to critique the performance (ala American Idol), rather I would have them try to understand the process that the group went through in preparing their repertoire. The best way to do this might be to take a specific set of musical concepts that you’ve been working on in class, and have students comment on those. For instance, ‘how did the ensemble’s use of dynamics contribute to their overall musicality?’ Until you have students who can fluently converse about the elements of music in performance, I think it is OK to ask leading questions.
Also, how does the performance they are critiquing relate to their lives? Could they identify with the performers? Were there major musical benefits to attending this concert?
However, if your goal is to improve the ability to reflect on musical concepts and write a really great critique, I think you should consider taking it out of the context of a concert. Let students write about the music that they listen to. You can ask about the same musical concepts, and they will assign greater meaning due to the fact that it is music of their own interest. I could write a more meaningful critique of a Radiohead album than I could about vocal works of Kirby Shaw, for example. In my own musical world, I value one over the other. Your students make these priority judgments as well. Start with what they value and slowly work your way to what you’d like for them to experience.
Finally, perhaps have them read some examples of great critiques, and identify the common themes that authors write about. I know the New Yorker has really great music critics like Sasha Frere Jones and Alex Ross. Their articles are freely available online, and are very student-friendly in terms of content. The main thesis of these ramblings is to be relevant to what the student is learning. How does the music they are consuming outside of class relate to what you are teaching? This can be pretty powerful when students start talking about rhythmic cadences, differences in articulation, and dynamic contrast in the music they listen to. It will make its way into the music that you are doing with them.