Better Late Than Never:

Thoughts on the Music Curriculum

i n t h e Late 20th Century

Roger Johnson
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Recent decades have been shaped by profound and seeminglyunprecedented

changes in technological, political, social, economic and other conditions throughout the
world. We are well into the digital age; the beginnings of the 21st century are now largely in
place. There have been equally significant transformations in culture on a global scale, and in
the roles that the arts and media play in our personal and social lives. Music is central, quite
literally, to what culture sounds like, an essential part of its raw material and one of its most
vital means of continued expression and representation. Not surprisingly then, we have been
experiencing major changes in the ways in which it is produced, performed, reproduced, com-
municated, experienced, used, exchanged and understood.
Music is now one of the electronic arts, having evolved to this point through much of the
century. It is produced and experienced predominantly through recording and other elec-
tronic media. For music to exist a t all in any public or social sense it must be electronically
mediated, in effect, a type of popular music. In this form music is highly accessible and
portable, accompanying us through our daily lives and providing underscoring for our multi-
layered, sonically filled, increasingly virtual environments.
Several fundamentally transforming, though often ignored, things happen as music
becomes electronic. The most obvious, of course, is that recording itself becomes the work, the
“text,” the product of reference, value and exchange. Early recordings were direct documen-
tations of actual realtime acoustic performances. This is still often regarded as more authen-
tic for some styles of music and is the basis of what is called “concert realism” in classical
recording. However, with close-miking, editing, multi-tracking, analog and digital post-pro-
duction, most modern recordings assemble, recreate, and re-present performance in ways
analogous to film and video, so that there is no unique or complete originating event outside
of the medium itself. The mix-down is as much the “performance” as anything else. While
electroacoustic media often incorporate, sample, or simulate the sound and style of live music,
they are really the “instruments” and the creative arena in their own right.
As with all other mass media, the wide distribution of recorded music has had an obviously
profound effect on the social and cultural landscape of the world. From the earliest African
American hybrids - which became the core of so much 20th century music - to the latest
Hip Hop or World Beat, music has been documenting, facilitating and celebrating major
upheaval and transformation in the global culture. With all musics now sharing the same
platform and processes of mediation, their earlier differences and specific social codes, their
boundaries and barriers (of culture, custom, language, class, race, ethnicity, or even age group)
become increasingly blurred and minimized. The globalization of American popular music
has been perhaps the most dramatic example of a process that has been going on through
much of this century.
There are traditionalists who lament the loss of the centrality of live performance in many
styles of music. It was originally the end-point of the musical process. Now it is a point of
entry for a new set of creative, editorial, post-production and marketing decisions, the kind
of collaboration found in all the media arts. Recording has also fed-back onto live perfor-
mance in important ways. Some musicians attempt to match the perfection and control of
recording or tend to regard performance as merely promotion for recording. However, a more
interesting and creative response is to work actively and collaboratively in the recording
process to create new kinds of musical synergy. This has happened in many forms of popular
music, jazz and even sometimes in classical music. The other response is to reaffirm the
importance of live performance and bring audiences back not by trying to outdo recording but
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by offering listeners what they can’t get from it: the immediacy, the spontaneity, the excite-
ment and even risk of direct personal communication. To put into practice the understand-
ing that performance and recording are two different and equally valid media for music
represents one of the most important challenges, and at the same time gifts, that technology
has offered to music.
Popular commercial recording is often regarded as a dominating and homogenizing force
in the musical landscape. It does indeed represent enormous economic and cultural power
and influence. Some older musical practices have been seriously impacted or even virtually
eliminated by recording, yet others have emerged and developed from the new forms of medi-
ation. At the same time there continues to be a wide range of music-making, live performance,
independent music production and recording everywhere in the world. Popular recording
often feeds back into the amateur, independent and less commercial sectors in many impor-
tant and mobile ways. The technologies for production have become simultaneously less
expensive and more sophisticated, readily facilitating high quality independent production.
Mainstream music often whets people’s appetites for more, for the deeper roots of what is
popular, and especially for what it leaves undone and unsung. The music industry has long
taken up new and independent music and spread it in vital, unpredictable, sometimes con-
fusing or subversive ways, even as it is packaged for mass audiences. Of all the media arts,
music has among the most active and diverse independent sectors worldwide.
Reporting on a recent survey of music courses at 58 universities in the United States in
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sammie Ann Wicks found that almost 98%of the current
courses focused on “the elite Western tradition - that body of music originally written by
Europeans for consumption by the upper classes from roughly the medieval era to the early
20th cehtury.” Only 1.4%of the courses at these institutions dealt directly with American
musical traditions. She also found a similar, though not quite so extreme, bias (only about
80%)in The Journal of the American Musicological Society between 1948 and 1997. Even the
journal Ethnomusicology published an overwhelmingly large number of articles on elite non-
western musics, as opposed to vernacular or popular forms, with only four articles on jazz
and five on other American popular music among their 1,576articles during the same 50-year
period (Wicks, 1998). These numbers tell a familiar but still shocking and depressing story
of cultural and professional apartheid that persists even now at the beginning of the new
century. Of course the real losers in this system are the students whose education is dated
and incomplete.
Few people outside the field realize just how narrow and myopic the majority of most
musical faculties and curricula still are. They have been remarkably resistant to change,
despite the fact that it would give their graduates - even the classical musicians - a much
better chance of success. Philosophically and aesthetically, or perhaps just out of ignorance
and fear, these faculties cling to the idea of one music - classical music - against all the
rest, refusing to give up their sense of a privileged position even at the risk of damaging the
very thing they imagine they are defending. If this situation were translated into virtually any
other field it would sound incredible, pathetic and even laughable.
Change has begun, of course; individual, often younger, faculty members have found ways
to introduce progressive ideas, methods and courses. Scholarship in popular music and cul-
tural studies remains strong and exciting, though a significant part of it does not come from
“music” faculty. Some musicologists are engaged in bold and challenging interdisciplinary
analytical and interpretive work with the historical repertory. Ethnomusicology has grown
and contributed a vital social and multicultural perspective to the field. Programs in film,
4 JPMS

mass communication and media studies are including more music and music industry study.
The students themselves are seeing through the old guard, and in increasing numbers they will
demand more contemporary educational programs. Their musical tastes are much less bar-
ricaded; they are not “technophobic,” and they are eager to become actively engaged in the
emerging global culture.
Music in higher education needs a major overhaul. (There is really no more polite way to
put this.) The halls and practice rooms should sound just like the world outside: a rich and
exciting mixture of many musics all bouncing off and mixing with each other. Music depart-
ments need to become crossroads and meeting grounds, not cloisters or museums.
Educational programs must be rooted in present practice and still be flexible enough to con-
tinue to adapt to the inevitability of change. We must learn from, and even savor, the past but
not become locked into it. The traditional disciplines need to be integrated with the newer
ones so that students are fully educated in the present and prepared for the future.
Since very few, if any, music programs have yet made a real transition to the realities and
needs of the late 20th century, much discussion and experimentation will be necessary. Many
different models and proposals will have to be studied and tried. The real work of concrete
change must happen at the local levels and not be dictated from above. The need for bold
new ideas must also be combined with the increasing necessity to be practical, realistic and
fiscally responsible in all of higher education. It is an awesome challenge that many in the
academy prefer to ignore and deny since it seems to rock the academy’s very foundations.
However, the changes are long overdue and cannot be put off any longer.
For the sake of discussion, it may be useful to divide a music curriculum into three com-
ponents: (1)historical, critical, theoretical studies; (2) composition, performance, produc-
tion; and (3)professional studies. However, it is immediately important to emphasize the need
for integrated and cross-disciplinary approaches among these areas and among the many dif-
ferent kinds of co-existing music cultures. Scholarship and music making must inform each
other, as must the many musics, technologies, media and professional realities of our time.
Fortunately the historical and critical disciplines in musicology, ethnomusicology, theory,
popular music, sociology, media and cultural studies are very well developed, even though
they are not yet at the center of most music study. These disciplines have been exploring
important issues and questions, and have brought a wide range of insights to bear on the
study of music. Students need to be given the tools and the background so that they can
understand, critique and participate in these on-going discussions. A good liberal arts edu-
cation is needed as are specific courses in the various kinds of musical, technological, com-
mercial and cultural practices that are active in the world. Fortunately the content of what
now needs to be developed and taught is readily accessible in journals and books, thanks to
the work of many gifted scholars and critics.
I t is obviously important that the history and theory of music connect with the creation,
performance and production of music. Ear training and rudiments, vocal and instrumental
performance, music reading and improvisation, composition, audio, recording, synthesis and
digital media are all integrated and essential musical tools and skills. So is the understanding
and direct, visceral experience with many musical styles, techniques and pratices, as well as
live and electronically mediated performance. That part of this practice relating to acoustic
classical music is currently taught in music programs, though it rarely ventures beyond the
traditional canon or gets very far into the 20th century. Non-western theory and practice has
also been introduced somewhat more widely in recent years. A few schools also do a good job
with jazz theory. The practices of popular and vernacular music are rarely taught, though they
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often mirror, inform and build upon classical and jazz practices. A better-integrated, cross-
cultural, multi-stylistic approach to historic and current musical practices is long overdue
and would be an ideal way to start to bring a broader and more practical foundation to the
music program. It would also have the distinct advantage of engaging and building upon the
students’ own musical language and common practice.
A related important debate centers on the question of musical notation. An increasing
amount of contemporary musical practice no longer needs it to the degree that it did in the
past. “Writing” music is becoming a euphemism in many cases with contemporary tech-
nologies. Of course, an important part of the historic repertory as well as parts of contempo-
rary practice still use notation. The real question is: How important is it for all musicians as
a common language and practice? Could music be taught at a serious and sophisticated level
without notation or with some combination of it and other technologies? How much is i t
actually used in the professional world?
There are many potential and talented music students today who are not formally trained
in notation-based theory and are interested in styles and practices ofpopular music where tra-
ditional notation and music reading are not the norm. In many music departments these stu-
dents are simply not admitted, though occasional parallel programs in such fields as popular
music, music industry, recording and production, or communication have included them.
Some schools will continue to insist on traditional skills, but others will probably want to
admit many of these differently trained students within their programs and will have to think
very carefully about how much, or what parts, of the traditional theory curriculum is neces-
sary for all students.
Music students also need a solid grounding in audio, recording, digital media and other
musical technology regardless of what specialty they may pursue. They need a critical and
analytical literacy and understanding of musical media as well as skill in its use for making
music. Just as traditional students needed to actually compose and perform music, so con-
temporary students have to learn the practices of mediation from both sides of the console
and in front of the computer screen. A significant part of these disciplines could well be taught
most effectively in combination with other musical skills and practices, particularly theory,
ear training, composition, and performance. Fortunately, music technology courses are grow-
ing rapidly.
A complete music education must also carefully examine the economic, legal and profes-
sional realities of the practice. Every emerging professional musician must be able to function
intelligently and strategically within parts of the music industry. This is even more important
in the increasingly diverse and free-lance environment of musical work. On a deeper level, it
is also important to understand the complex commercial functions and meanings of music
and its constant struggle to balance often competing artistic and economic forces. Since not
enough college faculty members themselves are experienced in the contemporary music pro-
fessions, industry professionals should be brought in for classes and seminars. Students should
also have many opportunities for mentoring, fieldwork and internships.
The practice of music has diversified to such an extent that few music schools could hope
to contain everything that should be available to students. It may well be that music can no
longer be regarded as even a single discipline. As we build a broad contemporary curriculum
we must also facilitate depth and specialization. Up to this point there has been, for many
good reasons, a remarkable degree of commonality and uniformity among our music schools.
However, it may now be better to encourage departments to develop various specialties and
unique features instead.
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Some of the present conservatories and conservatory-like departments in universities are

ideally suited to continue to offer a classical preparation and curatorial curriculum, though
even they will have t o face the realities of recording and the industrialization of classical
music. Other colleges and universities may now have significant programs in areas like record-
ing, broadcasting, communication or f l m and would be readily able to integrate music and
media to a much greater extent. Others have a strong commitment to jazz or popular music
and would continue to develop and expand those. Still others would be ideal sites for pro-
grams in pre-college music education or in various combinations of specialties. As diversifi-
cation grows, regional cooperation among different types of schools and other arrangements
may prove valuable in serving wide-ranging student needs.
The other important, yet often ignored, side of music curriculum is that which addresses
the non-major student. Many music departments have virtually abandoned, or never really
developed, their roles in the general studies/liberal arts curriculum. There is still the embar-
rassing legacy of “music appreciation” courses supporting a remarkable number of substan-
dard, irresponsible textbooks. However, many good, accessible readings and internet sites are
available for introductory courses, combined with an enormous interest in all forms of music
among college students. There is a critical need to develop good courses, share syllabi and
resources, publish new materials and quickly retire the old textbooks. A department doing its
job could well have many more engaged liberal arts students than majors, and in many cases
this alone could be a vital part of its mission and important source of strength.
The often cited premise of Jacques Attali’s (1985) influential book Noise: The Political
Economy of Music is that music is a powerful and prophetic cultural language that antici-
pates, and even rehearses, large scale social and cultural change. This has become increas-
ingly apparent as we are able to hear, now more clearly than ever, what the 20th century has
been about. It is part of why the music of the past is important. During this century techno-
logical and social forces have completely transformed music, and only in this way can it con-
tinue to speak to us effectively from the present. A music education that attempts to deny
present realities or to lock up music in some kind of time capsule does a great disservice to
the art and to the students. Instead, it must move quickly to catch up with present musical
practice, provide a complete, realistic education now, and get ready for an even more rapid
pace of change as we move into the 21st century.

Bibliography
Attali, J. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy ofMusic. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
. Wicks, S. 1998. “The Monocultural Perspective of Music Education.” The Chronicle
of Higher Education Vol. XLIV, No. 18: A72.