Music is a subject that is plagued with dated educational practices. In Evan Tobias’ article “From Musical Detectives to DJs” it is made clear that music, as a subject, is fixed within the paradigms of Western classical music. This is an issue because it limits a students learning and understanding of music as a whole and genres outside of western classical. There are many ways of diversifying the musical learning experience that schools seem to leave out because they are infatuated with the standardization of learning.
In our fast-paced world of rapid change music programs lack in keeping up with the present and its constant evolvement. In a classroom environment dominated by Western classical music a student’s learning will be limited. There are numerous other aspects to add to the subject such as; covering songs, analysing different types of music, engaging music critics or forensic musicologists, and so on. There are numerous more aspects of music that school music programs typically leave out.
Moreover, a frustrating aspect of traditional schooling, as pointed out by Tobias, is that it focusses too much on the performance aspect of music. I certainly recall throughout my high school career where all my music class did was practice for our big performances, have singing tests/solos and sometimes a minor inclusion of theory and history. This is a crucial concern because the current structure of music classes does not cater to every students needs, as every student has strengths and weaknesses. Subsequently, certain students will stray away from a music education because they are afraid of the performance aspect. As Tobias stated, “most of the music we listen to is recorded” (Tobias 2014, 1). Which begs the question; why is there such a larger emphasis on performance in traditional schooling?
Furthermore, Tobias proposed an interesting concept that music programs should include DJ and sound mixing into music programs. Not only would this offer a new and unique aspect to music programs, but it would attract numerous amount of eager students, thus increasing the enrollment in music programs. It was also surprising to me the amount of effort and work put into mixing music and being a DJ.
Time will be the only factor to determine if the traditionalized schooling and education of Western classical music will ever become less prominent in music courses.
Questions:
Should schools continue teaching Western classical music?
How can all this be taught in one music class?
How might teachers teach this if they’ve been trained to teach western classical music?
- Would they lose their jobs or be replaced?
In our fast-paced world of rapid change music programs lack in keeping up with the present and its constant evolvement. In a classroom environment dominated by Western classical music a student’s learning will be limited. There are numerous other aspects to add to the subject such as; covering songs, analysing different types of music, engaging music critics or forensic musicologists, and so on. There are numerous more aspects of music that school music programs typically leave out.
Moreover, a frustrating aspect of traditional schooling, as pointed out by Tobias, is that it focusses too much on the performance aspect of music. I certainly recall throughout my high school career where all my music class did was practice for our big performances, have singing tests/solos and sometimes a minor inclusion of theory and history. This is a crucial concern because the current structure of music classes does not cater to every students needs, as every student has strengths and weaknesses. Subsequently, certain students will stray away from a music education because they are afraid of the performance aspect. As Tobias stated, “most of the music we listen to is recorded” (Tobias 2014, 1). Which begs the question; why is there such a larger emphasis on performance in traditional schooling?
Furthermore, Tobias proposed an interesting concept that music programs should include DJ and sound mixing into music programs. Not only would this offer a new and unique aspect to music programs, but it would attract numerous amount of eager students, thus increasing the enrollment in music programs. It was also surprising to me the amount of effort and work put into mixing music and being a DJ.
Time will be the only factor to determine if the traditionalized schooling and education of Western classical music will ever become less prominent in music courses.
Questions:
Should schools continue teaching Western classical music?
How can all this be taught in one music class?
How might teachers teach this if they’ve been trained to teach western classical music?
- Would they lose their jobs or be replaced?