Music Education in America
I've been wondering about our system of music education here in the US. It's very competitive. We're always auditioning to get into the highest group (if not the highest chair) and competing against other schools. There is no question this encourages us to strive for the highest quality music-making, but to what extent does it discourage music-making altogether?
I've been reading about how music education has grown and declined repeatedly across history. Whenever music was a largely amateur activity that blended into every day life, it flourished as a core subject in schools. But whenever a culture began to emphasize professionalism in music, music education became less valued in the community - sort of a, "if they can't be expected to perform at a professional level, and thus cannot be expected to contribute to society with these skills, why waste time teaching it?" mentality. The purpose of education is to pass along skills and knowledge that people need in order to function effectively and contribute to society. In earlier times, knowing how to leisure well was a valuable skill. There are still those who say, "teach a kid to blow a horn and he won't blow a safe."
Historically, the role of music in the community affects music education, but can it go the opposite way? If we removed or lessened the competitive culture from music education, would it be more pervasive?
Consider a high school with four choirs. In today's schools, those would be a non-auditioned freshman choir and three auditioned choirs at increasing levels. What would it look like if there were no auditions, only freshman choir, sophomore choir, junior choir, and senior choir? Those students who intend to pursue music professionally can always find community choirs and private teachers. Would the others learn to appreciate music-making as an enriching leisure activity that brings people together? Or would we just lose those we already have? Would short-term losses ultimately yield long-term gains for the field?
I also strongly suspect that grade level participation in high school music fits a pyramid. More freshman than sophomores, more sophomores than juniors, and so on. If that is true, what factors are causing some students to decide that music classes are not the best use of their time?
There's a good chance that these ideas that are rolling around in my head will work themselves into a term paper by the end of the semester, so I greatly appreciate random thoughts and arguments to help me shake things down.
I've been reading about how music education has grown and declined repeatedly across history. Whenever music was a largely amateur activity that blended into every day life, it flourished as a core subject in schools. But whenever a culture began to emphasize professionalism in music, music education became less valued in the community - sort of a, "if they can't be expected to perform at a professional level, and thus cannot be expected to contribute to society with these skills, why waste time teaching it?" mentality. The purpose of education is to pass along skills and knowledge that people need in order to function effectively and contribute to society. In earlier times, knowing how to leisure well was a valuable skill. There are still those who say, "teach a kid to blow a horn and he won't blow a safe."
Historically, the role of music in the community affects music education, but can it go the opposite way? If we removed or lessened the competitive culture from music education, would it be more pervasive?
Consider a high school with four choirs. In today's schools, those would be a non-auditioned freshman choir and three auditioned choirs at increasing levels. What would it look like if there were no auditions, only freshman choir, sophomore choir, junior choir, and senior choir? Those students who intend to pursue music professionally can always find community choirs and private teachers. Would the others learn to appreciate music-making as an enriching leisure activity that brings people together? Or would we just lose those we already have? Would short-term losses ultimately yield long-term gains for the field?
I also strongly suspect that grade level participation in high school music fits a pyramid. More freshman than sophomores, more sophomores than juniors, and so on. If that is true, what factors are causing some students to decide that music classes are not the best use of their time?
There's a good chance that these ideas that are rolling around in my head will work themselves into a term paper by the end of the semester, so I greatly appreciate random thoughts and arguments to help me shake things down.
Labels: philosophy
posted by DenverSop @ 4:47 PM
3 Comments:
At 2/08/2007 8:04 AM,
Sandy P said…
I think you're definitely on the right track here. Studies have shown time and again that there is a direct correlation between music participation and math scores. And I'm not just talking about the kid who got first chair violin -- even the kid in the back who's banging on the triangle because that's all (s)he can play benefits.
The problem, IMHO, is when music becomes competitive, just like you said. In my case, I loved playing the recorder and flute, and being in choir in elementary school. But I was never serious about it and didn't practice much. So the instant choir changed from an after-school club (elementary school) to a graded class (middle school), I dropped it like a hot potato. I had every intention of sticking with band...until I found out about competition for chairs, which just seemed silly to me. Circumstances then allowed me to drop that one too. Funny thing, though. Freshman year of college, a friend talked me into learning tenor saxophone with her, so I found myself in campus band, a "just for fun" class that graded on attendance, and had no competition for chairs.
The point is, I love music, but not to the level of ever caring enough to compete. Enough things in the world are competitive. It's nice to have some things be just for fun.
This is a great topic, good luck on the paper!
At 2/09/2007 9:49 AM,
Anonymous said…
An interesting argument indeed! I'm not sure that taking the competitive element out of music education would help in the long run, though. It might make participation more accessible to some more people, as Sandy has just eloquently noted. I think that the end result of going wholesale with that approach in the schools, though, would be that the best students would drop out of the school music programs because they simply would not feel any benefit toward their ambitions with their participation. Having the best students drop out would be detrimental to all... the rest don't have their examples of what can be done.
I do have one argument to make against the hypothesis presented regarding professionalism's presence and associated decline in the value of music education. If the likelihood of success professionally has anything to do with it, why on earth do school sports programs do so well? Young musicians have a similar chance of reaching a major symphony orchestra position as young football players have of reaching a contract with the NFL. We seem to have no shortage of desire in high school sports programs, though. There's got to be another variable influencing this topic.
Perhaps, with sports, the knowledge that the activity can be fun (usually) and can even lead to a euphoric excitement is enough to drive the student to want to achieve greater and greater successes and, as a result, more and more fun. After all, winning IS fun, right? The corollary draws even more attention to this point... losing stinks, the last time I checked. Down by 1 with .4 seconds left and on the free throw line to shoot two, I don't care how much for the fun of it my participation in basketball would ultimately be based... if I have not been taught well and have not practiced diligently the art of the free throw, my chances of getting enjoyment from the result aren't good. At SOME point, I think everyone will find himself in a position of taking an activity quite seriously, even if he bases his participation only on the leisurely fun of it. We have to acknowledge the existence of this basic human drive.
I think taking this lesson from sports and applying it to music education is the recipe for the most success in our chosen field. Somehow, playing well in a concert has to give this kind of euphoric realization of success, and I think that music education has to be structured around giving such opportunities for success.
To illustrate the problem inherent in music education... High school football players get at least 10 nearly consecutive weekends of such chances, and other sports naturally have even more opportunities with fuller schedules. Most school music programs offer only two or four performances yearly. I argue that, with such infrequent events, the importance of steady preparation is lost on most students most of the time. Eventually, one reaches a point then where he feels he's gotten good enough, and he no longer takes music classes. I think this plateau effect is why we see participation numbers inversely proportional to age. I agree with you that we currently have a participation pyramid agewise. I think we'll turn that pyramid into a cube if we increase performance opportunities and thereby increase the chance of perceiving success.
You know me, dear friend... I could go on and on about this one! I've practically written an essay for you myself, I guess! What do you (and anyone else) think about these points in response to yours?
At 2/09/2007 12:14 PM,
DenverSop said…
Sports....
I suspect this varies widely among districts, but at my high school, I don't think there were significantly more students involved in sports versus music - in fact, it may have been the opposite. The difference was that the sports teams were in the limelight more often so we heard about it more - but by sheer numbers, I don't think they were very different. Of course, we may be comparing apples and oranges considering that we're discussing music education as something that happens during the school day as opposed to extra-curricular sports which requires students to commit "their own time." Nonetheless, it is a thought-provoking comparison.
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