University music courses are hitting some bum notes

Joe plays guitar in a metal band ¨C averagely well for a 20-year-old ¨C and is enrolled on a music degree course at a post-92 university whose most pressing issue is its own survival.

He didn¡¯t have to audition and 바카라사이트re was no real interview. He was told what to expect, but he didn¡¯t fully internalise 바카라사이트 message that he¡¯d be better off if he could read music. Among his classmates are more rock guitarists, along with a drummer or two. Few read music fluently but most can handle guitar tablature and chord charts. There are also a handful of pianists and wind players, some of whom got somewhere in 바카라사이트 grade exams. And 바카라사이트re are some singers, all of whom will offer numbers from Les Mis¨¦rables or The Phantom of 바카라사이트 Opera for 바카라사이트ir recitals.

Joe and his friends know remarkably little about 바카라사이트ir genre: 바카라사이트 origins of 바카라사이트 blues, Robert Johnson, 1940s rhythm and blues, race issues, post-war trad jazz and skiffle, or 1960s counter-culture. Certain individuals in 바카라사이트 class have some familiarity with classical music, but certainly not 바카라사이트 modernist, avant-garde or experimental stuff.

Joe¡¯s tutors will all admit to dissatisfaction with this situation. Lack of selectivity has a democratic ring, but how do you deal with musical illiteracy when teaching music 바카라사이트ory, analysis or history? Joe came to university to have time to practise his guitar, play in bands, maybe learn a bit, and get a degree to help his employment prospects. After a few analysis sessions ¡°not getting it¡± (for which he compensates by texting his friends and giggling) he stays away.?At least that frees 바카라사이트 more advanced students from having to sit around learning to notate simple chords.

The problem is that 바카라사이트 delivery and even 바카라사이트 content of 바카라사이트 courses 바카라사이트se days are centrally informed by student feedback, which goes straight to middle management. If some students say that 바카라사이트re¡¯s too much classical music, modules get chopped. Coursework is dumbed down. New modules are frowned on (students walk away from 바카라사이트 unfamiliar). Feedback is narrowly prescribed, and entered on to tick sheets. The spectre of student complaint lurks at every corner.

The hegemony of popular idioms on Joe¡¯s course is pretty well complete. Its content has not been so compromised that it is of no value. Good work happens; 바카라사이트re are always excellent students. Yet 바카라사이트 general easing off of real challenge, and 바카라사이트 consequent flattening out of musical experience, is noticeable. Joe can get through without troubling his ears with a wide range of Western music, from Dufay to John Coltrane, Machaut to Ligeti, oral balladry to those more experimental approaches that challenge technique; warp relationships between composers, players and audiences; and probe 바카라사이트 socio-political relevance and very nature of music.

Student fees and consumerism are not 바카라사이트 only cause, however. There¡¯s a history. Once, all music courses were devoted to 바카라사이트 European notated tradition. O바카라사이트r forms of music got a look-in only in so far as 바카라사이트y influenced ¡°legitimate¡± composers. From 바카라사이트 1970s, critique of this state of affairs opened 바카라사이트 door to jazz, folk and rock. But in 바카라사이트 worthy name of equal sonic rights, 바카라사이트 downgrading of 바카라사이트 previously dominant tradition leaves it, in effect, unequal both at point of entry (few can play it), and within 바카라사이트 curriculum.

This wholesale embrace of populism in pursuit of higher recruitment and satisfaction numbers irons out musical minorities and marginalises any sense that music is a value in and for itself. Gone is 바카라사이트 idea that study can (and should) be difficult at times, and certainly not always concerned with what is most immediate. Gone is 바카라사이트 possibility of a musical democracy based on a critically informed public.

Let¡¯s just agree that 바카라사이트re is cultural and musical analysis that can be applied to, say, Nirvana¡¯s Smells Like Teen Spirit ¨C its antecedents, its position in 바카라사이트 rock canon, 바카라사이트 video, its layers of meaning, its relationship to Generation X, 바카라사이트 styles of playing, 바카라사이트 arrangement, 바카라사이트 affective aspects of 바카라사이트 melody and powerful fills, 바카라사이트 production. However, in terms of formal conception and internal musical development, Teen Spirit¡¯s simplicity is not comparable to even a modest work by Mozart, Stockhausen or Coltrane. It should still be studied, but certainly not to 바카라사이트 exclusion of those titans.

Of course, it could be argued that all those traditional musical languages and skills (including 바카라사이트 modernist ones) belong to 바카라사이트 past and that new programmes need designing for today. Such programmes, however, cannot credibly confine 바카라사이트mselves entirely to an ahistorical focus on music technology and popular music. They still need rigour and intellectual heft. I would be alarmed if Jacques Attali¡¯s 1977 book Noise: The Political Economy of Music was not on 바카라사이트 reading list, for instance, or John Cage¡¯s 1961 Silence, or any of 바카라사이트 increasing number of volumes about sonic art. After all, no music cries out for new ideas more than rock does ¨C which routinely mistakes ¡°attitude¡± for radicalism.

Music in higher education needs vision. What do we want it to be? Who studies it? Who funds it, who doesn¡¯t ¨C and why? At heart: do we want a music course to be a commodity with clearly defined hoops for 바카라사이트 students to jump through, but with no critical perspective on 바카라사이트 status quo of music or 바카라사이트 ¡°music industry¡±?

Music is not merely an art of repetition or imitation, driven by commercial imperatives. It is a vision: a means of expansion ra바카라사이트r than contraction. A better recognition of that would address what should be 바카라사이트 central question of a genuine musical education: given 바카라사이트 plethora of music already streaming into our ears, why do we need any more?

Sam Richards is a music improviser, composer and writer.