Popular Music & Music Education
February 22nd, 2006 by etobias
The recent International Association for the Study of Popular Music conference gave me a lot to think about. I will discuss some specific issues that were addressed at the conference in the next few days. The overarching feeling I had leaving the conference was that our field really does need to make more connections with scholars in the various fields of music. Right now it seems that the majority of information available to music educators about popular music comes from the music industry and the various magazines, websites and lesson plans it provides our field with. There is some really interesting work being done by popular music specialists and as music educators we can connect with these specialists and figure out what information to include in our classrooms and how to work it into our programs. Topics discussed at the conference ranging from “hybridity” to “liveness” may now seem foreign to us as music educators but once understood in a way that we understand other concepts we have been working with throughout our careers can lead to some very interesting results in our classrooms. We can rely on popular music specialists to help us understand these concepts while we as music educators can focus on the pedagogy and context to provide our students with new ways to think about and experience music.
[…] Popular Music & Music Education […]
Glad to hear you made it to the conference. My finances simply didn’t stretch that far this time around. As an ethnomusicologist, and a music academic in the old fashioned sense of the word, one of my biggest concerns is the lack of communication between music educators at the school and the tertiary level. I tutor an interdisciplinary course for first year school of arts students, that addresses basic/key concepts in the arts that students are likely to need in order to engage in the intellectual community of an interdisciplinary school, throughout their degrees. Every year, the section of the course that causes the greatest stress to students and teachers alike is the music component, as those without formal music training (the vast majority) do not feel equipped to deal with music discourse. Even amonst students with a background in music, the theoretical components of their degrees are daunting, and even outright discouraging for many. I really do feel that the extent to which music academics tend to closet our discipline, by avoiding public research forums, and making our major journals practically inaccessible for students, educators, and other interested parties, limits both the scope, and the after-life of what we do. How can we, as academics, learn to engage with music in a manner and a space that makes it possible for you, as educators, to talk back?
thanks for the info ,can you help ,,..
im doin a research paper and its on music (screamo/hardcore) on why several parents dislike us listening to it because they think it has a wrong influence on us…
In response to sachoirgirl….
Exactly! It sounds so cliche to discuss the problem of people viewing academia as “in the ivory tower” - and “teachers in the trenches” but there is definitely a gap between those teaching in academia and those teaching in k-12 public schools. I think that dialogue definitely needs to take place in various media (even blogs!) but absolutely in person. Maybe if people in the academy worked on collaborative projects with k-12 teachers it would begin to establish relationships which could lead to further dialogue. Journals and conferences are definitely important but I think personal contact definitely has the potential to lead in some interesting and fruitful directions. I’m sure this happens in certain places here and there but if more grassroots efforts were initiated or conferences/forums were designed to foster collaboration between the various levels of education and various sub-domains in music and music education the space between all of us would become smaller and smaller over time.
Here’s a possibly different suggestion: perhaps the gap between music educators and tertiary level academics is a completely understandable and reasonable one.
I imagine there are many issues contributing to the ‘problem’, and those may lie in the inherent incongruency between the abstract, literary-driven academia, and in the immediate, mass-media driven pop sensibility.
The point is that both are valid. Some sort of succesful marriage of the two would more likely stem from the students’ interest. As a guitar and theory teacher (to beginners and more advanced students) I’ve found it very difficult to join straightforwad music-making with an understanding of the more complex ideas garnered in studying composition, analysis, critical theory, etc. The most effective means, in my experience, are gently (a) exposing students to music that they certainly wouldn’t know, even if they may not necessarily like it and (b) presenting music as a universal entity (an abstract, complex, generally philosophical idea which needs to be broached with care and sensitivity). The former is a simple process, the latter more difficult, but if succesful I’ve found that most students experience a shift in the way they understand what they’re doing or, better yet, WHY they’re doing it. Furthermore, I’d point them in the direction of decent non-mainstream popular music websites or record labels or radio stations or new music events. Bear in mind that many websites, labels and stations are written, playlisted and managed by people with academic backgrounds - the learning doesn’t have to be experienced IN the classroom. I think it’s evident here that a broad and active knowledge of the music industry would be necessary.
High-level academia may simply prove too specific to introduce into popular music pedagogy, either because it’s very complicated, or because it’s so specific that students can’t see its value (sachoirgirl’s course is a good example). And on the other hand, watered-down academia is hardly as useful or interesting.
Exposure and broad, general brushings of intellectual butter on a need-to-know basis… then let the students simmer and hopefully their own vital musical juices* will begin to show soon.
Furthermore, I wouldn’t actually expect students to leap at the ideas, or become particularly excited. I’d grant any student of popular music the freedom to be disinterested and reject the sensibility completely. The gap’s there for a reason…
*that is, if they have them. Let’s face it, some people are musical, even if they’re studying it.