Creating Music Curricula of the Future: Preparing Students for Digital and Learner-Centered Engagement

Creating Music Curricula of the Future: Preparing Undergraduate Music Students to Engage

“Be Prepared” — Boy Scout and Girl Guide motto.

The idea of preparation implies readiness for as many scenarios as possible. Robert Baden-Powell, who launched the Boy Scout movement through his book Scouting for Boys, framed preparation as a constant state of mental and physical readiness in order to fulfill one’s duty. That sense of obligation carries significant weight. Those of us working in higher education indeed have a responsibility to help prepare students for whatever their futures hold. Yet preparation depends on a degree of certainty. We can effectively prepare for the future when it closely resembles the present and past. Problems arise, however, when the future starts to look markedly different from what we know.

The contributors to this article raise questions about what it truly means to “prepare musicians” for the world they will inhabit. The motto “be prepared” implies predictability: prepare for what, exactly? A visit to the College Music Society website in 2017 provides an immediate sense of the higher education music climate surrounding preparation. Page views differ slightly depending on whether one is logged on, but it is clear that “the future of music [training]” is a theme CMS takes seriously. How else to interpret language such as “exploring change through bold innovation,” “transforming the education of musicians,” and “accelerating change in the education of musicians”? These headings, at the time of writing, all appear under the banner “Creating Music Curricula of the Future,” where members are urged to join the CMCF mailing list, gather colleagues to form a Task Force, write articles, develop surveys and webinars, and submit proposals for upcoming conferences.

Seemingly building on the 2014 (revised 2016) “Report of the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major” and the 2016 21st Century Music Schools Summit, “Creating Music Curricula of the Future” appears to be a deliberate CMS initiative to mobilize substantive changes in curricula for university music majors — a program of study that has arguably experienced little more than superficial adjustments over the past hundred years. As the TFUMM report assesses, “There have been repeated calls for change to ensure that musical curricular content and skill development remain relevant to music outside the academy. The academy, however, has been resistant, remaining isolated and, too frequently, regressive rather than progressive in its approach to undergraduate education.”

This article originated from a panel presentation at the 2016 College Music Society Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Our goal was — and still is — to contribute to the conversation about undergraduate music preparation. While we generally align with many ideas advanced by others interested in this topic, we believe that several engagement-related issues — digital musicianship, underserved students, entrepreneurship, global music studies, and service learning — warrant further discussion.

Technology Integration: Toward “Digital Musicianship”

By Greg McCandless

With the exception of niche degree programs, the core curriculum of higher education — being primarily performance-focused — consistently fails to address music production, which in turn limits the collective engagement of our schools with the commercial music community. This exclusion originates in the expense and complexity of recording technology, which once required substantial budgets and engineering specialists. However, digital music production software is now widely available due to its decreasing cost, and the growth of helpful tutorial resources through YouTube, Lynda.com, MacProVideo, and other platforms has made it possible for any contemporary musician to pick up a reasonable amount of production knowledge.

We typically equate conservatory “community engagement” efforts with human engagement — either faculty or music majors physically leaving the building (to perform a public concert, visit a high school or hospital) or bringing non-majors into the building (via community ensembles, non-degree study programs and workshops, and so on). Instead, I have concentrated on curricular engagement as a way to build connections with populations by addressing their interests and language within coursework, with a particular emphasis on music production. The most straightforward form of curricular engagement involves adjusting repertoire to speak to various communities — simply incorporating more styles of music into the core. Indeed, several “Manifesto”-prompted suggestions for curricular revision have aimed to do exactly that.

A significant contribution to the discussion comes from John Covach’s 2015 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which led to his more detailed proposal for a core curriculum that embraces a diversity of styles, including popular music. While I agree that we must continue to integrate a wide variety of genres, I believe the core curriculum’s problem is not primarily one of genre limitation. Instead, we need to concentrate on a different kind of integration: weaving theory and composition topics together with audio engineering and sequencing techniques into our core curriculum to promote what Brown (2012), Hugill (2008), and others have called “digital musicianship.” This integration of skills enables our students to engage with — or at least converse with — commercial musicians, among other benefits.

A major advantage of “digital musicianship” is that it addresses a root cause of the divide between our curriculum and the commercial music community: our persistent attachment to a live performance–based concept of music making, which is reflected in the elements we prioritize when describing musical structure. The concert-based musical life cycle typically runs: concept/inspiration leads to notation, then performance, and finally reception. As a result of this performance orientation, our musicianship core treats music as consisting of pitch/melody, harmony, rhythm, and form. Music theory and aural skills courses address only these domains, even those that claim to address commercial music by incorporating diverse genres. In contrast, a contemporary commercial understanding of music making follows this life cycle: concept/inspiration leads (optionally) to notation, performance, recording/sequencing, editing, mixing, mastering, bouncing, marketing, purchase, and reception. A theory and musicianship core that genuinely hopes to prepare students to create music for media — such as film music — or any other kind of commercial music must therefore address all these facets of contemporary music making. Pitch, melody, harmony, rhythm, and form would remain central, but they would be joined by dynamic and timbral topics such as compression, equalization, effects processing, automation, panning, and mastering. This would, in turn, require instruction on the basics of audio and MIDI from the very beginning of the core.

My initial proposal for technology-integrated musicianship training appears earlier, side-by-side with John Covach’s 2015 proposal for stylistically integrated musicianship training.

While Covach’s proposal appears to achieve his goal of increased stylistic diversity, it does not emphasize the music production training that his Chronicle article initially acknowledged as a pillar of commercial music programs. In my own proposal, instruction on audio and MIDI is introduced at the very start of the theory sequence, which allows students to actually “produce” short composition assignments. We are already experimenting with this approach at Appalachian State University. Students in each theory course are required four times per semester to craft brief, topic-relevant compositions that follow specific music-structural guidelines. They are also asked to produce these compositions either through audio recording or sequenced mock-ups. I have used these composition project requirements as springboards for deeper discussions of sequencing, editing, mixing, and mastering, and I have already experienced several benefits — including more students coming to office hours, if only to express interest in particular pieces of production software (which, in turn, generates rapport).

I hope that my proposal in the comparison figure is seen rather conservatively — which I believe it is. An argument can certainly be made — especially by those who increasingly view the university’s societal role as delivering professional job skills — that technology-focused production training is necessary for all twenty-first-century music majors, just as it is for almost anyone currently earning a living creating music outside the orchestral performance world. But that is not my argument. Instead, I contend that if we, as instructors at universities dedicated to fostering musical knowledge, want to encourage deeper conversations, analyses, and insights into how contemporary music is crafted across a variety of genres, we must avoid limiting the domains covered by our musicianship courses to those relating only to the traditional, concert-based music-making paradigm. By incorporating production skills, we may speak to the interests already held by a substantial portion of our current student body, engage a new population of students who have been knocking on our doors for decades, break down the unnecessary divide between “making music for class” and “making music for real,” and prepare our graduates to address a wider spectrum of music-making.

This is no simple undertaking. Numerous impediments relate to any potential adoption of this kind of curriculum. Among them is faculty training: very few faculty have production coursework in their backgrounds — even composers, who largely report having had to learn these skills on their own. Another significant obstacle is the age-old depth-versus-breadth issue: if audio and MIDI training are introduced into Theory I, for example, and the semester remains at standard length, what must be removed to make space? This is, of course, a matter for institutional or departmental consideration. In my own courses at Appalachian, I have simply eliminated second and third lectures on transposing instruments, embellishing tones, and diatonic seventh chords; I also cut one of six lectures on fugue. Essentially, the decision-making process has been remarkably straightforward for me so far.

While some depth has admittedly been sacrificed in my theory classes, the benefits have been substantial, in my view. Beyond learning the language of professional commercial musicians, students engaged in digital musicianship curricula are exposed to more authentic assessments that require them to create music following the same procedures as professionals. Moreover, students asked to accomplish production tasks quickly learn that written theory knowledge and music technology proficiency are distinct and complementary. Often, traditional, formally trained students lack technological aptitude, while non-traditional students with production skills tend to be weaker in notation and theory. When asked to produce projects that synthesize compositional technique, notation, and production skills, these groups of students — who in traditional theory courses tend to be seen as the “haves” and the “have nots” — readily understand that they all possess both strengths and weaknesses. The natural result is an increase in peer valuation and collaboration.

Engaging Underrepresented Student Populations

By David A. Williams

School music teachers in the United States have a long tradition of engaging students in one particular type of music-making activity. This activity is deeply rooted in the Western European orchestral tradition, where a director or conductor leads a large number of musicians as they rehearse and perform music written, almost exclusively, by others. Long ago, this model of music making became the benchmark for school music programs, in the form of both instrumental and choral ensembles. It is now so pervasive that it is taken for granted as the most appropriate — and the only truly worthy — musical practice for the music education profession. Furthermore, this model of music education has, for a very long time, been self-perpetuating. High school students who succeed in and enjoy this type of musical involvement are often encouraged to matriculate as music education majors in colleges. The university degree program is typically designed to prepare these individuals to teach music in K-12 schools, where they will lead the next generation in exactly the same type of music-making activities they themselves enjoyed. Then another group of students will be encouraged to become music education majors in college. And so the cycle has continued for over a hundred years.

All of this would be fine, except that a great deal has changed musically over the last century. Today our musical culture is incredibly diverse, and opportunities for music engagement are many and varied. Our continued devotion to a single model of music making tends to ignore this diversity. As a result, our music classrooms often fail to represent the heterogeneity that makes up many schools. Data indicate that Hispanic and African American students, non-native English speakers, students with lower GPAs, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and those with less educated parents are all underrepresented in traditional school music programs. It is not that these students lack interest in school music-making opportunities; rather, schools typically do not offer musical options these students find meaningful.

There are examples of music teachers providing non-traditional music classes in an attempt to broaden their offerings. Over the past several years, for instance, many schools have added guitar classes. While this is certainly a step forward — albeit fifty years late — for the music education profession, we too often miss a pedagogical opportunity that could make nontraditional music classes even more relevant for students. Music teachers are well versed in leading ensembles within a teacher-centric model where they make most, if not all, of the musical decisions, and the student’s role is mainly to follow directions. Modern learning theories question this pedagogical approach. “Non-traditional” music classes can provide outstanding opportunities to use learner-centered approaches where students do more of the actual music-making work.

I suggest at least six overlapping characteristics that could define a learner-centered music classroom. Such a classroom would help make non-traditional music offerings more attractive to currently underrepresented student populations and would also help those students better develop lifelong musicianship skills.

• Student Autonomy. A learner-centered classroom allows for significant autonomy, with students making decisions about which musical styles and instruments to study and perform. Instead of passively absorbing what they are told, students are given the freedom to find solutions to problems and questions. This forces them to search for information and to learn independently, with guidance from the teacher. It also allows students to make significant use of, and adapt, the prior knowledge they bring to the classroom. Students of any age certainly know a great deal about music from their out-of-school experiences, but traditional teaching methods typically do not honor this fact nor allow students much opportunity to take advantage of it.
• Student Creativity. In learner-centered classrooms, students are asked to create original music through composing, songwriting, improvising, arranging, and covering. Rather than exclusively studying and performing music written by others, students work through the process of creating original music. In doing so, they gain insights into the sonic makeup of music that are seldom achieved through performance alone.
• Collaborative Focus. In a learner-centered class, students work in small groups, making musical decisions collaboratively. Small groups of two to six students working together places the burden of problem solving directly on the students. This contrasts with the traditional music performance class where musical decisions are most often made by the teacher, or ensemble director, and then “taught” to students. Students forced to make musical decisions for themselves are doing the work of musicians — and educational psychology suggests that those doing the work are the ones doing the learning.
• Aural Based. In a learner-centered class, the vast majority of musical work is done aurally by students. Western staff notation is rarely necessary and can be addressed when, and if, students find a need for it. Traditionally, music education has taken the stance that reading and writing musical notation are absolutely essential to music making. This tends to be true only for certain musical styles practiced in specific ways — namely, the styles and ways most common in U.S. schools. We do a disservice to students when we so overemphasize the written aspects of music that they begin to see notation as fundamental to understanding what music is about.
• Messy. Activities within a learner-centered classroom tend to look messy and unorganized. Traditional performance classes in schools, by contrast, embrace a philosophy that prizes efficiency, time management, and “discipline.” A learner-centered classroom provides time for students to consider, experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. Assignment outcomes in a learner-centered classroom usually unfold over time as students find their way through musical questions and challenges. This method of learning requires extra time, but the results are typically very meaningful for students and help lead to lifelong musical skill development.
• Teacher as Resource Guide. The teacher’s role in traditional music programs is well established, but in a learner-centered environment the teacher takes on an ever-changing set of responsibilities. Foremost among these is that of a resource guide, who provides students with the materials and information they need to manage tasks successfully. This role shifts depending on the demands of each student group; teachers must be flexible, accommodating, and open to new possibilities. The most challenging part of the guide’s role, at least for most teachers, is the need to stay out of the way as students make decisions for themselves.

A learner-centered music classroom gives students significant autonomy over musical style and instrument choices. This occurs in an environment where, working in small groups, they actively create original music aurally, solving problems together while the teacher acts as a flexible resource guide. The space remains deliberately “messy” to allow experimentation and deep learning.

This environment tends to be messy, rarely producing fixed outcomes. The teacher’s job is essentially to step back and let students resolve problems themselves, only stepping in to support when needed. Such a classroom creates a music-making space that often appeals strongly to the underrepresented student groups that traditional offerings fail to attract. This pedagogical approach also helps students develop musicianship skills they are more likely to carry throughout their lives. Music education in the United States, particularly, has a long record of ignoring students who do not fit the conventional school music mold. It is past time to reach these students. They, too, deserve meaningful chances to make music at school.

Entrepreneurship in Music Education: A.K.A. “What I learned from the scene about community engagement”
(Sarah Gulish)

Engaging a community means interacting with people beyond the classroom walls. As a high school music teacher, I have observed how music-making within school is often cut off from music-making outside school. This starkly contrasts with the call to involve students in lifelong music-making and to prepare them for engaging with music after they graduate. But how do we actually make that happen? When I first entered music education, I felt unprepared for such large challenges. My undergraduate training concerned mostly music inside the classroom. Fortunately, I had a rich background as a rock musician, which led me to take entrepreneurial action in order to build connections as a musician. Those experiences shaped my philosophy and strategy for connecting with community.

Before starting work in a school community, it is crucial first to know that community and to ask: What are this community’s specific needs? What does it value? How can mutually beneficial relationships develop between the school music program and the wider community? I asked those exact questions when I wanted to engage my own local context. I teach at a suburban high school, in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. Many of my students expressed wanting to make music outside school and to find more performance spaces. To answer that, I learned about our community and worked to address the questions above.

In seeking answers about my specific community, I first built relationships with local businesses and residents in Huntingdon Valley. Those efforts led me to a small business, Be Well Bakery and Cafe, which welcomed live student performances. I used this connection to create a “business strategy.” My goal was to hold a regular student music night at the cafe where any student could sign up to perform, regardless of their involvement in school music. While I could imagine this event on a big scale, I started with tiny goals and piloted the event with a small number of students. After the successful pilot, I collected feedback to improve my strategy and plan for the coming school year.

The Be Well music nights are now in their third year. Students run the shows, develop acts, and rehearse on their own. This program offers authentic popular music-making that can often get lost when such music is brought into a classroom. This example of community engagement has helped my students’ sense of community participation, supported my own professional growth, and also helped the cafe build business and reach new customers. Although it is just one example of how I sought to connect with my school’s community, it may illuminate the call to teach undergraduate music students how to engage.

If we want college music graduates committed to community engagement, we must structure the undergraduate experience to promote that. First, it is essential to get undergraduate music majors involved in the community themselves. They need to learn to listen to community needs, respond, and find ways to make connections. Music students also require entrepreneurial skills. For instance, most music education graduates will fill positions with limited resources and insufficient programming. They must learn to solve problems by building and renewing. That often requires advocating for programs and working with school districts and administrators toward a concrete goal. Finally, to engage with outside musical communities, students need opportunities to interact with performance practices that reflect contemporary popular music. They would benefit from learning basic sound equipment and music technology. These skills all served me well when I engaged my school’s community and set up a performance space. But I learned most of them through my experience as a touring rock musician, not from my university training. If we can model engagement and encourage undergraduates to get involved in tangible ways, the future of undergraduate music preparation will include much more than what happens within the classroom walls.

Creating Global Community in the Music History Classroom
(Ted Solis)

I work intentionally to build community by bringing students together with their peers—regardless of instrument or specialization—and with other music students across the School of Music, as well as linking them to the broader university. My hope is also to help them understand their place relative to their professions, their historical roots as musicians in America, and the global community, as if constructing a “You Are Here” map. I pursue these goals in all my courses, both undergraduate and graduate. But the specific class I discuss here is the 100-level “Music as Culture,” which is the first in Arizona State University School of Music’s “Music History” sequence (notice that I rarely use that term without scare quotes), a series of three courses required of all music majors. The upper-division history courses follow the traditional “before and after 1750.” A concept of “realization” runs through most of what I do in this course. For me, “realization” implies “reintegration,” which in turn implies “community.” My aims are to demystify Western European Art Music (WEAM) and to challenge its autonomous, notation-based, exceptionalist standing. I want my students to think critically about (1) themselves in relation to WEAM, (2) WEAM in relation to American society, and (3) WEAM in world and historical context. I do this through both critical writing and critical performance. Here I discuss the latter.

Critical writing in MHL 140 includes a number of essays on “realization-related” ideas like Christopher Small’s (1998) “musicking” concept, “emic” observations of stratification and essentializing culture within the School of Music, and positioning themselves as participant observers in our semesterly Latin Dance Pachanga—a fun outdoor evening dance party where we teach steps and coros (responsorial choruses) to everyone present.

MHL 140 is not a “world music survey.” Rather, I focus on a handful of cultures for the specific musical challenges and competencies they offer: South Indian, Arab, West African, Cuban, Javanese, and Balinese gamelan. A key aim is to highlight community—including community with the past—by reintegrating practices that were once central either to WEAM or its predecessors. The College Music Society Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Total touches on this “conservative” philosophy, which I largely supports (though

commas or no commas I avoid the fraught terms “authentic”). As stated, “a return to the genuine [...] music we create currently is relevant.” In other words, revisits a real musical heritage is crucial.

The concepts of voice, body, and dance interlace all sections. I do not allow musical instruments—“your body is your instrument”—since technology can obstruct the fundamental music-making I aim for. The bond between dance and music is central to most musical traditions, but it has faded greatly in WEAM; many music majors are very self-conscious about their bodies and about dancing that is not fuelled by alcohol. In our classes we dance (Cuban, Afro-Pop, Bollywood/Bhangra, Indonesian social dances) while we clap rhythms and sing (often layered composite rhythmic patterns), both literally and metaphorically joining two sister arts that today are usually torn apart.

The variety of modal scales and intonations that characterized early WEAM largely vanished by the mid-eighteenth century. In Western, Central, and South Asia, art and religious modal music descends from the same broad roots as WEAM. My students sing raga and microtonal maqam scales, learning—sometimes reluctantly—a lesson in cultural relativity: microtones that sound discordant to young ears and music-major minds used to rigid “right” and “wrong” are no less correct than the few tempered scales they know. I typically combine these musical challenges, requiring multitasking including the creation of composite rhythmic structures through chanting and physical action. A common modus operandi within my approach demands simultaneous singing tala patterns from while beating the microtime components of India on the body, essentially blocking students from fully recalling Western categories but, and pushing a many-on simultaneity alive with patterns and in time-consciousness. The shift in sensibility seen across our curated composites practice helps moves learning ahead amongst

...structured expectations compositionally into of performance culture.