NACTMUS - National Council of Tertiary Music Schools - Conference 2001

Shaddup you face

by Peter Freeman

Recently I read an article in the Australian newspaper about this year's Menzies scholarship winner and young composer, Nicholas Vines, who shortly will be undertaking fully-funded Masters and PhD studies at Harvard University. Harvard University have seen fit to fund Mr Vines to the tune of some $350 000, but, were he to stay in Australia, his education and employment outlook would be very bleak. The article said that Mr Vines is critical of the funding situation in universities, which has created an environment in which staff are "fighting for their professional lives" and do not have a lot of time to spend for students. He believes standards at Sydney University are falling and that the University can be soft on plagiarism and poor academic performance because departments are desperate to maintain student numbers. Is this a true reflection of what's happening in our music education institutions? Recent events would seem to indicate so.

As columnist and alarmist Norman Lebrecht has pointed out, the decline in government support for music education institutions is also reflected in its funding cuts to orchestras. The public's decaying support for classical or art music (particularly in Australia) is evidenced by aging concert audiences and by ever-diminishing sales of classical CDs. The temptation, of course, for music education, is to lower standards and promote a "dumbed down" music education strategy which would appeal to a much wider population and would attract more students to pay the bills. The inclusion of popular music studies would also be central to this strategy. By definition then, popular songs&emdash;"hits"&emdash; would become part of the studied repertoire. So therefore the musicological study of Joe Dolce's massive 1980 hit "Shaddup you face" is not so far-fetched a proposition if this trend were to be taken to its logical conclusion.

One of the anomalies of the existing system of music education is that one often hears the comment that most people find 20th century art music difficult because audiences on the whole are not educated enough to appreciate it. Indeed it was only this week that violinist-conductor Nicholas Milton was quoted as saying:

The Adelaide Symphony is the only orchestra in the country programming any Australian music in this year of the centenary of Federation. That's an extraordinary situation you wouldn't see in any other country. It's very sad but little can be done about it. Audiences just need to be educated.

The implication is that if audiences knew more about music they would enjoy it more and attend more concerts. But a fundamental problem with our present music education system is that there are very few ways you can learn about music without actually performing it&emdash;and being examined on your performance&emdash;or, at the very least, having a good working knowledge of musical nomenclature and proficient score reading abilities. The requirement to perform music is particularly prevalent in secondary music education. One consequence of this requirement is that by the time tertiary level is reached, if there was any tendency towards musical enlightenment, it would have been well and truly tested by having to perform music at secondary school. So it would seem that the education system requires that every member of a concert audience should be some sort of musician or at least be able to read a score.

In England, from the start of the 20th century and into the 1920s, prominent musical figures like Percy Scholes and Arthur Somervell advocated "music appreciation" as an essential part of music education in England. They both valued the masterpieces of the classical repertoire. But the second world war prompted a shift in music teaching towards a more active performance-oriented approach. Then, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, with the influence of the avant-garde, the emphasis changed again to creative expression and composition. So that now, just past the turn of the century, all these changes have been absorbed into the curriculum so that the trinity of Listening, Performing and Composing is the cornerstone of English (and by default, Australian) secondary school music education and also to a large extent tertiary music education.

Two observations about this situation bear airing:

First, the "music appreciation" of the first half of the century was based on what was then the popular music of the day, i.e. the classical repertoire. As popular music tastes changed during the century from the classics through jazz, swing and big band music the reaction of the music education authorities was to change the emphasis from "music appreciation" to performance. With the advent of rock'n'roll in the 1950s and into the 60s, 70s and 80s the philosophy in music education reacted again to focus on composition. This situation still exists, although there are now some well-established but largely uncoordinated attempts at incorporating a broader definition of music into the curriculum.

The second observation is that music education has now reached a critical stage which is compounded by a restricted definition of "music" and an historical lack of acceptance and non-incorporation of other styles of music apart from western (score-based) art music into the curriculum. The introduction of other styles of music, particularly popular music, into the tertiary curriculum is problematic because there are few precedents, there is little appropriate musicological support and there are few informed and accredited teachers.

There are also many problems with adopting traditional musicology to the study of popular music. In his book Studying Popular Music, Richard Middleton has identified three major problem areas.

(1) Traditional musicology's prime object of study is the score. Popular music's prime object of study is the recording or the live performance.

(2) Musicology, while it has developed some powerful tools for the analysis of such elements as harmony and form in classical music, falls short in applying these tools to the more significant aspects in popular music such as rhythmic complexity and inflection, timbre, pitch inflection, recorded sound production (mix), texture and modality.

(3) There exists a canon of classical "masterworks" which have come to be considered the greatest examples of musical value. The musical characteristics identified in these "masterworks" have certain elements in common&emdash;they are all notated, they are thought to be innovative in relation to the era in which they were composed, and they have all been composed by an individual Western male.

I would like to address each of these problem areas and suggest some possible outcomes.

(1) I have already mentioned the score-based approach of most introductory music courses at tertiary level. There is, I believe, a way of approaching music education which does not present the obstacle of having to learn to read music before one can appreciate its finer points. That is, if a start is made with what students know and relate to musically, key musical characteristics (which apply to all music) can be identified without recourse to musical notation. Characteristics such as beat division, form, instrumentation, orchestration, syncopation, common (formulaic) chord progressions and more specific musical "tricks of the trade" such as parallel instrumental melodic lines and rhythmic devices such as playing on the offbeat, flat four and eight-to the bar rhythms, are all identifiable without recourse to a score. Recognising these characteristics in popular music will develop an interest and sense of enquiry for students, which will lead into progressively more challenging musical studies such as harmony, counterpoint and extended structure.

It's a known fact that many (probably most) of today's popular music artists cannot, and indeed, need not read music. Even Pavarotti confessed to not being able to read music. If there is no perceived need to learn to read music in order to perform it, then why bother? Of course we all know that music notation is the universal language and has the huge benefit of being able to convey musical ideas in the most effective, meaningful and practical way. But for audience education, the imposition of having to learn to read music in order to understand and appreciate music is too much. Life is short.

However, if musical bridges are built through identification of universal musical characteristics in popular music, prospective audiences will have at least a relevant and attainable means of crossing the chasm that exists today between popular and art music.

(2) The second point that Richard Middleton makes about the failure of traditional musicology to address the more significant aspects in popular music (rhythmic complexity and inflection, timbre, pitch inflection, recorded sound production (mix), texture and modality) is being addressed, albeit slowly. Fortunately, recent computer software now offers valuable tools for the analysis and documentation of many of these aspects and I look forward to some significant research outcomes if the money holds out. I also suspect that collective research outcomes will reverse the perception of popular music studies as "dumbing down", as hitherto unseen, complex and idiosyncratic musical characteristics come to light. For instance, my own research on rhythmic consistency, accuracy and nuance in jazz performance has revealed some surprising results about "feel" and "groove" that actually identify the performer by analysis.

(3) The key to any study of music, be it popular or classical, is repertoire. We already have a classical repertoire or canon of "masterworks", but as far as I know there is no popular music canon which outlines the greatest examples of the genre (apart from the facile listings generated seemingly every week by the press who want to sustain vacuous debates about which song is "best" or the "greatest" in order to sell their papers). A popular music canon could be built by, for instance, including songs that display some particular stylistic characteristic that is either found in other songs, and therefore representative of an identifiable popular music style, or including songs that have introduced some innovative musical technique.

So what to include if this popular music canon is to eventuate? How do we value a popular song in order for it to become part of the canon? Must we take record sales into consideration? Must we take a song's longevity into consideration? Does a song's social function have any bearing on its inclusion? Many questions must be answered before a musically valued canon can be established, but then this is a significant part of the challenge of today's popular music educators.

Other problems associated with the study of popular music such as the problem of "extra and intra-musical" associations have been outlined by Lucy Green in her essay entitled "Ideology" in the book Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture.

An analysis of the treatment of classical and popular music by teachers, curricula, syllabi, and books revealed differences in which aspects of the music were emphasised. Generally, the treatment of classical music focused on what, in ideological terms, would be called the "music itself," "intra-musical" processes, or in other words the notes and how they fit together. Contrastingly, the treatment of popular music concentrated largely on "extra-musical" associations related to the social circumstances of the music's production and reception, such as the dress of the performers or the subculture with which they were associated.

Traditionally, the study of popular music has focused mainly on its social function and sense of occasion, to the exclusion of the internal mechanisms of the music itself. Consequently popular music has been, and still is, more likely to be a topic of study in the social sciences, media studies or history departments of universities than in schools of music. Unfortunately, there is little institutional encouragement to include popular music in the curriculum at tertiary level. This situation is slowly changing, but there is a resistance, not only from the established music education institutions but from the music students themselves. For instance, at The University of Queensland I teach an elective popular music subject to well over 500 students per year. I happened to glance at the enrolments the other day. To my amazement I discovered that there were only two Bachelor of Music students enrolled in my subject. I'm afraid that that most obvious inference I can make from this is that for some reason students are not encouraged or informed about what is on offer and that the prevailing attitude seems to be that the study of popular music is not sufficiently academically sound. This is a shame because I believe that it is. If a sufficiently receptive approach is adopted and new musicological tools are found and adopted to address some of the seeming banalities and pedestrian idiosyncrasies of popular music, then popular music could be every bit as academically sound to study as Beethoven, Bartok or Boulez.

Many problems are associated with the study of popular music. But I believe they are far from insurmountable and that their solution will provide an exciting addition to, rather than a replacement of, current educational methods of studying music. Personally I would like to see a change to the "crowded stage syndrome" affecting most music education institutions, and a revision of the curriculum in both tertiary and especially secondary schools to include a non-performance stream where students can discover music in all its different styles, with all its attractions, musical characteristics and cultural implications without the necessity of initially having to learn to perform or understand musical notation.

In order to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of music in tertiary education, we should be placing more emphasis on improving access to music education for non-musicians. The reliance on the fundamental trinity of performing, composing and listening really only caters for the education of musicians, not future members of the (much larger) audience.

References

Cohen, Madelyn. "Maxwell Davies Attacks Education System for Inhibiting Creativity." Music Teacher - News Oct. 2000: 10.

Drummond, Brendan. "The Classroom Music Teacher - Inspirations, Aspirations and Realities. The Evidence form Northern Ireland" British Journal of Music Education 18:1 Mar. (2001): 5&endash;24.

Ford, Andrew. Illegal Harmonies. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1997.

Green, Lucy. "Ideology", Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. eds. Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss, London: Blackwell, 1998.

Illing, Dorothy. "Budding Composer Set To Flee 'Malaise'," The Australian 9 May 2001: 39.

Kelly, Patricia. "Conducting a patriotic appeal." The Courier Mail 27 June 2001: 43.

Lebrecht, Norman. The Companion to 20th Century Music. London: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

Lebrecht, Norman. When the Music Stops:Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music. London: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Letts, Richard. "Musical Preferences and Aesthetic Discrimination (or Should We Teach Rock?)" Australian Journal of Music Education 9 (1971): 354-357.

Middleton, Richard. Studying Popular Music. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990.

Moorhead, Gary. "Education, Training and the Popular Music Industry: An Uneasy Interface." Australian Journal of Music Education 1 (1999): 63 &endash; 71.

Pitts, Stephanie. "What's past is Prologue: Music in the Curriculum" Music Teacher August 2000: 19&endash;21.

Ritchie, Tim. "The Future of Music" Background Briefing - Special Feature Australian Broadcasting Corporation (transcript) 26 May 2001 <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/specials/music/>.

Biographical Note

Peter Freeman is a BA (Hons) graduate of The University of Queensland and an associate lecturer at the School of Music. He lectures in music technology and popular music and is currently undertaking a PhD in the music of Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. His research interests include the study of rhythmic nuance in jazz performance and the musical application of neural networks.

2001 NACTMUS Conference