I have been the President of McNally Smith College of Music for almost nine months, and it is clear to me that this is the best job I’ve ever had! The students are wonderful, the staff is skilled and enthusiastic, and the faculty are artistic, passionate teachers.
But other schools can make these claims, schools that are better known, have larger endowments and more famous graduates. Why am I still so certain that McNally Smith is destined to help set a new direction for music and education in the twenty first century?
I haven’t answered this question to my complete satisfaction, but I can throw out a few ideas that occur to me, and I can ask those of you who are interested in this subject to comment on this question:
What elements are critical to shaping a relevant contemporary educational experience that truly prepares students to reach their creative, intellectual and personal potential?
Not long ago, students in music schools would choose to major in either performance, composition, technology, business, education, or some variation on these themes. Today, I believe that a student must become adept in all of the above. The new model of a well prepared graduate is a skilled creative musician who is a tech savvy, shrewd entrepreneur – a music professional ready for almost any gig.
Technology has led to dramatic changes in every aspect of music: How we compose it, perform it, record it, produce it, edit it, promote it, sell it, distribute it, listen to it, and how we use it in daily life. There is, however , one important aspect of music that has survived virtually unscathed through all these changes: How we teach it! I suggest that this is a serious mistake that must be immediately addressed.
McNally Smith College of Music is dedicated to creating new approaches to music teaching and learning, and over the course of this blog I hope to generate a vigorous exchange of ideas on how this can be done. I invite your comments, suggestions, criticism, and send you my best wishes.
Harry Chalmiers, President
McNally Smith College of Music
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5 comments:
Hi Harry;
Great idea to start a blog! I look forward to lively conversations with those who share the passion.
I look forward to the exchange of ideas.
Wonderful blogging tool, Prez!
What elements are critical to shaping a relevant contemporary educational experience that truly prepares students to reach their creative, intellectual and personal potential?
Two things immediately come to mind... small private schools should have the friendliest and most helpful student user interface. Frustrating and angering students [unnecessarily] is not good. My younger daughter attends Hamline and we have been overwhelmed at how friendly and helpful every administrator, instructor, desk worker, and counselor has been! Quite a contrast with the "cattle call" mentality at the U. I want this good reputation for MSCM.
When I was in school, I was not aware of the multiplicity of educational learning styles [visual, auditory, and tactile] or the idea of Multiple Intelligences [Visual/Spatial, Verbal/Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Bodily/Kinesthetic, etc.]. Incorporating recent and advanced educational understandings, as well as developing curriculum that makes best use of new technology, and training music teachers to optimize it all, would be in this college's best interest.
Thanks for the idea sharing opportunity, Harry!
Harry,
What you're talking about here is vital. If you start with the premise that the world would be a better place with MORE artists and more people expressing themselves in the arts, then you have a very high respect for artists and the cultural currents they create. This respect imposes the responsibility to enhance the growth in the numbers of artists and those engaged in the creative enterprise.
A lot of work is involved in the learning/teaching process of music education, both for teachers and students. We must show respect for this enterprise and the hope and opportunity it represents.
Therefore, we MUST encourage and nourish the naturally entrepreneurial spirit of musicians by giving them the skills to make a living at what they love and to sustain their career in the arts.
It ain't all that hard. What's hard is convincing music school deans that they have a bigger problem than they think - an ethical problem. Is it really in the student's best interest to almost crush them with the magic rituals of making music and art and give them no business or career skills to "monetize and sustain their passion for their art", as my friend George Howard puts it?
I have a book for you, Harry, and for artists who know very clearly that they want to make a living being creative, to have a career being an artist. In today's climate, in today's music industry, there are no barriers to entry. If you write a song, you are a publisher, and you have just created all of the businesses of the music and entertainment industries: all of the distributors, manufacturers, retailers, publishers, record companies, and movie companies.
This is a very great power and the creative person is at the heart of it, the fuel of it, the sine qua non of it. The are huge implications in this perspective, which is based on the exclusive rights provided in the US Copyright statutes.
And you know what they are, Harry. As specified in sections 107 through 122 of the 1976 copyright act, the owner of the copyright (one who fixes an original creative work in a tangible form) has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize the following:
1. reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords
2. prepare derivative works based on the work
3. distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale, rent, lease, or any other means
4. perform the work publicly
5. display the work publicly
6. perform the sound recordings publicly by digital audio transmission
That last one came 20 years after the first 5, and that's what gave us Sound Exchange, as you know. Sound Exchange collects the royalties for artists and copyright holders (companies) from Internet radio, Satellite radio, and other digital broadcasters.
You can see how these rights create the businesses. The right to reproduce and distribute creates record companies and publishers, and the manufacturers of those reproductions. The right of public performance creates ASCAP, BMI, SEASAC, and Sound Exchange.
It is important that artists realize that they are NOT workers for hire and the copyrights they create create all of the music and media companies. Think of all of the people artists create employment for! At the end of the day, together, they create the largest export of this country: entertainment.
That's pretty big, Harry. But the system needs tweaking. Copyright law is too stringent, and is fixing to get more so if currently proposed legislation concerning "orphan copyrights" passes. The balance of protecting the creative process and stimulating the development of culture is out of balance. The educational system that practically bans arts education is out of balance. And for some reason, making a living, that is, being PAID, for being a musician and artist is unsavory. That's really out of balance.
Students don't go to dentistry school solely because they love teeth. There is every expectation that dentistry will provide a livelihood and a career. Music schools have for too long not had much concern for what their graduates are doing 5 years after graduation, much less ten. What is the statistic, the majority of graduates from Juilliard are not making a living from music ten years after they graduate?
Now, this is not to say that music education doesn't provide a philosophical foundation for one's life and enhance any career pursuit, but many of these unemployed artists don't want to be unemployed. They just couldn't make it in the business part of arts because they have too few skills for doing so and they have never been taught the theory of business, like they were taught the theory of music. I say let's teach them the theory and the practice of business and entrepreneurship. My experience tells me that they will take to it like ducks to water. Musicians and artists are courageous. They do not fear what they do not know, on the contrary, their art demands that they seek it.
Here's the book: The Business of Art, An Artist's Guide to Profitable Self Employment, published by the Center for Cultural Innovation. (http://www.cciarts.org)
It's a workbook that requires the user to think in terms of a business plan - they call it a career plan. It's good and it's comprehensive. It teaches a way to think, to perceive of your sweet love of music and art as a gentle stream of revenue. The beauty of the new worlds of content creation (software) and distribution (the Internet) is that an artist may connect directly with his or her audience and create a mutually beneficial, virtual community of shared values and interests (pyschographics).
If you respect your art, you respect the need to sustain it, and this means someone has to buy tickets, files, or merchandise. We all have our roles in the society and we have chosen an economic structure we call capitalism to organize the needs and products produced by that society. There is nothing distasteful about paying the rent (or earning that rent by selling a painting or writing a song).
Sorry for the long entry, Harry. Good luck with your blog. We'll link to it from our site after we shoot some video of you talking about those things that are near and dear to your heart: your love for music, for music education, and for music entrepreneurship. You are the man, Harry!
John Snyder
Wow...what a great statement, John. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond with such depth and insight.
People who do not know about ArtistsHouse Music should go to this website right away. It is filled with advice, wise counsel, learning tools, interesting videos, and much more, all dedicated to helping artists understand the music industry today and how to make a living through their art.
This site was founded by John Snyder, the Conrad Hilton Eminent Scholar in Music Industry Studies at Loyola University in New Orleans.
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