Music education and applied lessons

[brtnats]

There’s a discussion going on in the trombone pedagogy group in FB about the number of semesters music education students should be required to take lessons on their principle instrument. I disagreed with the basic premise that many of the commenters had, only to realize that a room full of collegiate trombone professors might not be the best group of people to discuss this particular topic. If your career is teaching primary lessons to music ed students, you’ve probably got a blind spot to the possibility that those lessons may be an antiquated concept.

So I wanted to ask a broader audience: If you teach music professionally, were your years studying the trombone at a principle level helpful when faced with a classroom of students? I can understand the correlations between musicianship and teaching, and obviously it would help in a band setting. But do you believe 7 or 8 semesters of trombone lessons was as useful as a few primary semesters on clarinet or recorder or world music performance? I’m a K-8 teacher, and the skills I picked up in graduate school studying musicology have been a lot more helpful in designing and planning my curriculum than my trombone lessons ever were. Knowing how many music education graduates quit teaching before they’ve gone to grad school, I’m wondering if the conservatory model for creating good performers isn’t a bit outdated in creating good, diverse, 21st century teachers.

What are your thoughts?

[harrisonreed]

K-8 music education did not get me interested in music at all. That was the free period that you got to goof off in. The teachers' amount of instrumental instruction was inconsequential, because in my mind the classes were worth less than hanging out with friends and listening to music. That's just my experience. It would have been great to have a music class teacher who just simply had us listen to music and talk about it, even at a young age.

Band class, grades 6-8 did get me interested in music and those directors could play, so we did respect them and learn to love music. Totally different from general music class.

I learned the most about music from private instrumental instructors that had nothing to do with school and had far more instrumental training while at school.

[Redthunder]

This is a very broad question with no real firm answer.

Speaking anecdotally, without the trombone, and my desire to play it, I would not have been grabbed by music the way I was. My motivation to study music in college was the trombone, and pretty much nothing else. That said, did my lessons in college help me figure out how to teach in an elementary or middle school setting? Not really. But that doesn't mean they aren't useful. It was two-fold - I wanted to teach music because I loved playing it - and studying the trombone at a high level fueled that desire. So it may not have directly correlated with my pedagogical methods now, but I can say pretty certainly that without the opportunities studying the trombone opened up for me, I wouldn't be half the educator I now know I am capable of becoming with hard work and time invested, just like I knew I could be a great trombonist and musician with the same kind of hard work. Over time my interests widened and my motivation transformed into a real desire to continue to learn about music of all kinds, as well as the ways to teach concepts to others that reflected both my own path as a musician and concepts that are unfamiliar to me.

As to whether or not music ed students should be required to study a primary instrument, with juries, weekly lessons, etc? I think that is a rather antiquated idea and doesn't necessarily serve modern music educators who end up teaching anything other than a strictly traditional band course. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want, but I think it's limiting and boxes many students in where they don't want to be boxed. I think a much more beneficial course for college programs would be to place an emphasis on developing musicianship, ear training, and the ability to truly think critically and explore other new musical areas outside of the one or two areas they may have come from, most usually traditional band and orchestra. I know most colleges have some kind of ear training, musicianship, etc, but frankly in my own experience I got nothing out of these and I would have learned nothing if not for my interest in studying jazz and other improvised music. Taking an emphasis off of learning a primary traditional instrument in a largely traditional way can attract and improve the quality and variety of musicians who seek to teach music in schools. I'm not even necessarily saying we should do away with the traditional way of doing things - rather we should widen the horizon and provide room for alternative ways of learning, just like many teachers have to do in their classrooms outside of college. It should be available for those who want it, but so should other things as well.

Ultimately, I think the world that many many music educators live in is a very isolated, outdated, and unaccessible bubble that often serves as an echo chamber for it's own self preservation and interests, and not for modern day children that it claims to serve. There are dozens of reasons why, in my opinion, that extend far beyond something like college lessons on an primary instrument, but it's a start to consider new routes and options that can perhaps train a new generation of educators to approach our field with fresh eyes and new, creative ideas to continue to inspire young people.

This is a great topic of discussion. Thanks for posting.

[brtnats]

Speaking anecdotally, without the trombone, and my desire to play it, I would not have been grabbed by music the way I was. My motivation to study music in college was the trombone, and pretty much nothing else. That said, did my lessons in college help me figure out how to teach in an elementary or middle school setting? Not really. But that doesn't mean they aren't useful. It was two-fold - I wanted to teach music because I loved playing it - and studying the trombone at a high level fueled that desire. So it may not have directly correlated with my pedagogical methods now, but I can say pretty certainly that without the opportunities studying the trombone opened up for me, I wouldn't be half the educator I now know I am capable of becoming with hard work and time invested, just like I knew I could be a great trombonist and musician with the same kind of hard work. Over time my interests widened and my motivation transformed into a real desire to continue to learn about music of all kinds, as well as the ways to teach concepts to others that reflected both my own path as a musician and concepts that are unfamiliar to me.

I used to think that exact same thing, until I got into early music and world music in graduate school. Then I began to realize that my love of the trombone was really just a love of something familiar that I had invested a lot of time in. Now that I’m on in my career, I have far more enjoyment playing lot of instruments, or singing in a choir, than I ever did practicing trombone etudes or solos. And that’s where my thinking is really pointed: I believe the whole way we teach music teachers is backwards and wrong, and we’re failing generations of students by doing it that way.

Now that I’m a more than a decade removed from my education degree, I look back at the missed opportunities that were driven by curricular decisions. Then I look at the aforementioned FB post full of trombone professors advocating 8 semesters of lessons and longer than 4 years to obtain a music education degree, and I can’t help but shake my head in disbelief. Everything I was taught about non-European music as an undergraduate came in a 4 week seminar, and everything I learned about jazz was taught anecdotally in an ensemble. But goodness gracious, I could play the Creston Fantasy or Arrows of Time.

It feels like we’re training performers, shoving them into classrooms full of non-musicians, and then telling them to pluck a curriculum out of thin air. And then being surprised that the students aren’t engaged and the teachers are quitting after 2 years. And then music as a curricular building block gets eliminated, because those teachers weren’t trained to show its relevance.

Did anybody here, as an undergraduate, get anything on music cognition? Did you get anything on the socio-behavioral effects of music? Did anyone teach you how seize spontaneous opportunities to create lessons that meet curricular goals? I got all of that stuff AFTER getting a teaching license, and it’s those things that make me an effective teacher. I’m wondering what other experiences are.

[Gary]

I think the main reason for studying at least one instrument at a high level is not, necessarily, to make you a better teacher of beginning students, but so you experience the dedication and all the musical nuances you can, which, then, has a carryover value to everything you teach. I'm not sure you have a broader understanding of music if you remain at an intermediate (I'm being tactful) level.

[Redthunder]

I think the main reason for studying at least one instrument at a high level is not, necessarily, to make you a better teacher of beginning students, but so you experience the dedication and all the musical nuances you can, which, then, has a carryover value to everything you teach. I'm not sure you have a broader understanding of music if you remain at an intermediate (I'm being tactful) level.

Gary,

I think the larger point being made is that there's a huge emphasis being made on studying one instrument in a traditional manner, studying classical music. This is fine, if that's what you want. But why is it mandated that undergrads get 8 semesters of classical trombone, while also being given little to no training on concepts like jazz, latin music, or world music of all kinds, and advanced musical skills like improvisation? Everything else is an afterthought. It's only been about 40 or so years since jazz even became remotely accepted as a field of study at the college level. It's unbalanced and doesn't reflect the musical landscape of the students we go on to teach.

To put it another way - I know loads of incredible trombonists who are lousy musicians when you measure their abilities against anything BUT how they play trombone in a fairly narrow musical setting. And I know loads of these same people who can't and won't teach anything but exactly what they were taught, and if they are asked to do anything but, they often throw their hands up and say "this isn't my area". Unfortunately, that's unacceptable given that if you get a music ed degree, you are certified to teach K-12 General, Band, Orchestra, and Choral. So you should expect and be prepared for anything that may be thrown at you, just like as a professional musician you need to be prepared for any piece of music that might be put in front of you. This is a failure of our institutions.

I agree with your main idea - that we should be inspiring future educators to strive for excellence in whatever they do in music, but my problem is that excellence in college is often laid out as a narrow pathway based solely on one area of trombone playing (or whatever instrument), and one area of music (usually classical, with jazz often coming as a mild afterthought). I believe inspiring excellence through broader musicianship skills that can be applied to any style, genre or instrument, is a more equitable and effective way to reach a greater number of individuals than what is currently being done.

Again, I really would like to stress that I don't believe these lessons should be done away with. I simply wish to see other, equally valid, effective, and important pathways be made available to students so that there is less of a bias towards the way things have always been done.

[Gary]

Depends on where you go. Choose accordingly.

In my string class, I can remember playing walking Cello to lead sheets at least once a week. But on the principal instrument, all lessons were usually traditional music and etudes but there was ample opportunity to learn other playing styles in other courses and other school bands. Like I said, a lot depends on where you go.

[Doug Elliott]

I think the main reason for studying at least one instrument at a high level is not, necessarily, to make you a better teacher of beginning students, but so you experience the dedication and all the musical nuances you can, which, then, has a carryover value to everything you teach. I'm not sure you have a broader understanding of music if you remain at an intermediate (I'm being tactful) level.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to write.
But it's dependent on having great instruction that gets you to that high level, and not just mediocrity. The things that are missing - "jazz, latin music, or world music of all kinds, and advanced musical skills like improvisation" - need to be included, and that's often lacking. I do see a lot of progress since I was in school.

[Redthunder]

To be clear, I absolutely agree and have experienced this course of study myself, and as a young person I absolutely benefitted from being challenged in lessons with highly qualified players (important distinction from highly qualified teachers) studying classical music. But I was also always serious about the trombone. It happens to be the lens through which I relate to pretty much my entire musical world, so it worked out. There are plenty of people who are at best apathetic to studying the instrument this way, and at worst, are completely alienated by many of the attitudes or teaching styles of college professors. I also turned away from classical music and leaned more into jazz because I had some serious chop problems for years that none of my classical teachers ever bothered to address or help me figure out. Thanks to Doug, I was able to iron that out. And luckily, the institution I attended had a seriously respected jazz program and I got a lot of learning done there, but all of it was because I sought it out myself.

I knew plenty of individuals who were crazy about learning music, passionate about teaching, but because they were forced to pick a single instrument to study classically, were merely "meh" about lessons, especially when more often than not, they were being taught by someone who was more like me, and couldn't relate to that other experience.

And yes, your mileage varies VASTLY depending on the institution. But for the most part, instrumental music ed is still being taught the same basic way it was during the 1960s, with a few caveats. And most high schoolers are not well equipped to evaluate whether a program is truly effective or right for them until AFTER they've already finished. So "choose accordingly" is kind of unfair.