Posted by Matt G on November 26, 2001 at 08:12:21:
In Reply to: Gross injustices posted by College Professor on November 25, 2001 at 19:48:02:
Well I guess I should explain....
At the average run of the mill music dept./school of music there are a good numebr of reasons why the music student is not being served they way he/she should for their educational dollar.
1) As people have mentioned before, the structure for ensemble and lesson hour requirements leads many students to going through school for a time greater than their scholarship allows. This happens especially with wind players where, if they are good enough, are expected to serve in as many ensemble as time allows. However, "time allows" is a very vague point of reference and to not offend certain ensemble directors who can be very influential, they end up oerloading their schedule.
2) Being a professional musician is almost being your own company. Even if employed with and orchestra, most musicians still have to do some self promoting and marketing to round out their profession. But, almost no music students go into college and exit college with any real business skills. Usually the most required of a student for gen. ed. curriculum is micro/macroeconomics. This does not prepare the student for essentially a life of entrepreneurship. Students should take some marketing/advertising 101 type courses and some basic accounting and time management courses. In all reality this would take about 9-12 hours of the entire degree program. This could be easily traded for required "forum" or "student recital" type requirements in which the student must attend 15-20 performances per semester of substandard and sometimes painful student performances.
3) Teaching viable doubles needed for professional careers. As tuba players, our curriculum is very limited to study of orchestral excerpts and solo literature. The school should require some exposure to the electric and/or string bass, euphonium, and (bass)trombone. All of these are viable doubles for the instrument. I know I could own another $5K tuba for all of the times I have had to pass up gigs because I didn't have the bass chops to keep up. I can on bass trombone, trombone, and euphonium, because I wanted to get some study for my own benefit and versatilty. However, I am still working on the bass to hopefully meet some basic doubling goals. The time required for these is only a semester of study for each and really doesn't take up that much time when compared the the wealth of knowledge students would gain. This leads me to my next point.
4) Leave "specialization" for graduate study. Give the student the most well rounded education possible. Then if they choose to get specific within music, then they can do so at the master's or doctorate levels. That is what those degrees are for and that is why the bachelor's degree is called an undergrad degree. If we look at the chain, high school still gives us a very broad based scope when we graduate, then an undergrad program should limit that to one general field (i.e. music) and then the grad programs can take us into jazz studies and orchestral fields exclusively. Then...
5) Even the average music student, who might not even like jazz and/or pop culture music, should enroll in at least one semester of jazz studies. To take that one step further, the average tuba student should take one semester of jazz improv to at least give them the ability to walk a bass line in F blues. We could swap out a "20th Century" theory course which makes students study music that is un-popular with the masses and leads to an academic dead end. Like I've mentioned before, I don't think you'll hear a twelve tone row or series in the next Britney Spears album. Remember we are training students to make money in music. Which leads to the next point...
6) The student should always be at the center of the curriculum's needs. Like Dale had mentioned before, if a student asks for a teacher that is not available on staff, arrangements should be made to make one available for at least one lesson a week. If the student wants a different perspective than the one the teacher they currently have has and the teacher, chair, and student agree that the student could benefit in a positve manner from a semester of study from a teacher other than the faculty teacher, arrangements should be made. While, this should not be the norm, it should be made possible in exceptional cases. We wouldn't learn math from the same teacher for 8-10 semesters.
7) Active counseling. Students should have a mentor/counselor that they are required to conference with once a semester. Someone other than their lesson teacher and or a ensemble director, so that any greivances can be aired or and accolades can be given in a non-biased manner.
8) Willingness of the faculty to "weed out" inappropriate students. I have seen first hand, students, who us other students knew was unable, get a degree and go out into the world and fail. Who really failed in this situation? The school or the student? I think it was a little of both. The student should have thought about things more thoroughly and the faculty should have known that this student would have been better off in a different field. My lesson's professor was excellent at this. He steered a lot of students from making a potential mistake. While a lot of students were upset by this at first, many of them came 'round and actually were appreciative of this advice later on.
Please note that not every school is guilty and certainly almost no school is guilty of all of these shortcomings. However, almost every school is somewhat guilty of one or another, but many schools are progressing. As mentioned above, the students should be at the center of attention for the curriculum and should be taught to make a successfull living in music. Maybe then, music schools could get better endowments because the students wouldn't hold a grudge towards their alma mater.
Don't think that I hated my college experience and that I think the entire system is a failure. I enjoyed my tme at college, but now that I have seen the other side, I think that our schools can do more, like some of the other courses of study do. At my particular school, there were tons of co-op programs for engineering, nursing, business, etc. majors to help them get a head jump into their career and benefit frm real worl training. Our schools of music should pay more attention to this and try to get into a more progressive program that gets music majors into the real world successfully. And if there isn't enough jobs and opportunities out there, maybe we shouldn't be training so many...
Flame away.
Matt G