15 Years In the Business of Music Education

Today I worked with a 4 year old piano student, a 12 year old beginning guitarist, a 45 year old electrical engineer, a 13 year old saxophonist (via web-cam from Texas to Iowa!), and an advanced 40 year old guitarist... to name just a few. Between sessions I monitored my favorite blogs and posted a few comments. I also did some research on two new 'education' websites (they shall remain nameless) and managed to have a bite of yummy pasta for lunch. This is a typical day for me and many of my colleagues at The Dallas School of Music, Inc. and MusickEd.com.

We are fortunate to have been serving our community for over 15 years. It's a vibrant, growing area full of avid music enthusiasts and parents who value music education for their children. I often wonder how many other communities across the country might be able to sustain a for-profit school such as ours?

The dynamics involved in this venture are more than just choosing a culturally friendly and/or affluent location. There has to be a core team of passionate, dedicated visionaries willing to work for the greater good. And there needs to be the right mix of educators who think like entrepreneurs (this is an amazingly small pool of people by the way). These key members must be dependable, flexible and talented. It helps to be in close proximity to universities and our ties with the amazing school of music at the University of North Texas has provided a wealth of quality faculty leads. Still, it has taken nearly all of the first 15 years to assemble our current team.

The entire process of building a school has not been without sacrifice but we have always felt it to be a struggle worth pursuing. From the beginning we hoped to provide a model for music education outside of academia. We believe strongly that our noble and important profession can stand next to other disciplines such as medicine, law or accounting in communities across the country (and indeed the world!). If successful, we hope more music educators in training will become aware of this option and college curricula will begin to include course options for more business minded music educators.

Wish us luck as we venture on toward our 20th year!

Software Updates

It's an exciting time at DSM and MusickEd.com! Since the launch of our Discovery Series in December of '07, we have been working to overhaul the design interface and navigation of the software. We're confident that the information in our series is world class, but we are constantly striving to improve the functionality for our users. It's why online publishing and real time editing works well for us. As soon as our updates are published, everyone gets instant access to the new material. There's no re-printing, re-shipping or re-ordering... we're keeping it green!

The updated interface will make it easier for users to move from section to section within each lesson. This keeps the learning process simple and creates a smooth flow of information throughout the series. Users get into the groove of repeating a simple 3 step process of Discovering, Learning and Playing. You bloggers out there will be the first to get a sneak peek at the new look so stay tuned.

We are also working on a Jazz Series to compliment our core (Kore) series. We're fortunate to have Dan Haerle on staff to add his amazing jazz education expertise. Dan is a well known author and retired member of the Jazz Studies Division at the University of North Texas. He has recorded many Jamey Aebersold play-alongs and is an active jazz clinician both nationally and internationally.

The new series is a concept driven, sequential approach to learning jazz language, rhythms, melody and improvisation. As you can see, resident composer Mike Finkel is hard at work creating original songs and fully orchestrated play-alongs with blues, bossa nova, funk, swing styles and more. As with all of our material, the jazz series will be available for all instruments including voice. Be sure to subscribe to this blog for updates as they occur. The scheduled launch for the first lesson in this series is later this year!

Why Choir?

I encourage all of you to read the following post from Byron Davis who teaches high school chorus at West High School in Knoxville, TN. He is a thoughtful music educator who has written an impressive post as he wrestles with 'justifying' his program to the school board this fall. We can certainly use a lot more music educators like him!

Byron's Post is called; Why Choir? (Part I)

Response to an AAJ Post

This post is in response to an article on the AAJ (All About Jazz) website. It seems that MENC (Music Educators National Conference) is coming to the rescue of Jazz Educators since the demise of the IAJE (International Association for Jazz Education). OK, enough with the initials already; on with the post.

It strikes me as a somewhat sad state of affairs that jazz educators need to be 'served' and the profession needs to be 'promoted'.

I might even argue that the profession of jazz educating doesn't exist in a traditional sense of the word. After all, what are the options for a jazz educator upon graduation from college? Either work in a traditional school system where one has few if any colleagues or opt to abandon education and/or music altogether.

The goal 'to advance music education by encouraging the study and making of music by all' is a lofty one. Perhaps MENC should contribute to a fund that goes toward teaching jazz educators business and entrepreneurial skills so they can band together and open schools in communities around the country.

Turning our attention to the health of the profession is a great idea. We should be as passionate about music educating as we are about music education. If the benefits of teaching music were as apparent as other professions, we wouldn't need to be promoted or served.

Music Education vs Playing Songs

I read an interesting post this morning by Jonathan Segel (enter Chris Berman to say Jonathan 'Livingston' Segel!). Jon was lamenting the fact that 'certainly in the past 15-20 years the market of guitar based music has changed massively and the quality of playing has declined in proportion to its popularity percentage. '

He wonders what might be the cause... 'U.S. schools?', the 'Market iconification of rock music'?

I think we can look at teaching for both the cause and the cure. Very few US schools even offer guitar as an option. And it seems that many private guitar 'teachers' have been neglecting basic musical concepts in favor of TAB and shredding techniques. Now we have tons of Gen X-ers, Gen Nex-ers and Guitar Hero aficionados who know 6 seconds of 4 songs but absolutely nothing about music.

Why not teach musical concepts on guitar just as we do on woodwind or brass instruments? I think too many 'teachers' assume wrongly that students will lose interest or think it's 'uncool' if they are not playing the intro to Stairway to Heaven in a few weeks (showing may age here).

Teaching traditional note reading, rhythms, intervals, scales and chords etc. will go a long way toward correcting this trend. It will also make for more well rounded musicians, music enthusiasts and music consumers. It's up to teachers to find the correct balance with each student and to provide music education, not song playing, as their core curriculum.

This is what we do at DSM and it's why MusickEd.com software is designed to be a concept based curriculum - regardless of the instrument.

Kudos to Jonathan Segel for recognizing this slippery-slope trend in guitar education. When more musicians and educators become as enlightened, we'll all be better off!