When facing the immediacy of our individual circum-stances, it is often difficult to maintain an accurate outlook beyond the next emergency or deadline. We are often so caught up in the detail of every leaf that

we lose sight of the forest. Nevertheless, we can better ascertain where we are, where we are going, and how best to arrive at our goals when we establish a sense of the big picture. To better view and evaluate one’s situation, it is often necessary to change one’s perspective. This requires some psychological distance from our imminent situation and often an alteration in our point of view.

In our case, this could mean examining the totality of music education, rather than discrete levels of instruction or areas of expertise. When we do so, certain fundamental issues reveal themselves and should afford us the opportunity to reflect on and influence our daily practice as educators of musicians.

Better Communicators of the TruthIf we were absolutely honest with ourselves, most of us would

recognize that some areas in the curriculum and some activi-ties within a school setting have greater priority than the study of music. This is not to imply that music is less critical for the development of well-educated citi-zenry than other educational elements. It is, however, meant to remind us that while music is central to how we make a living and, hopefully, how we live our lives, there is more to life than music. Consequently, we must understand our place within the total spectrum of what constitutes an education.

The primary issue is that it is not music, but an education in, with, for, and by music for which we must be better advocates. The general public, the education community, and most decision-makers believe that music is a something of value, even if others do not view music education as important as do we who teach it.

We need to be much more effective at advancing arguments for the music instruction of all students and not merely those who may be pursuing one of the many occupations in the music field. As such, we must be more effective communicators about the virtues of music study for all. While the music education profes-sion and its various professional associations have long articulated that every child should receive an education in music, we often do so more as a dogmatic assertion rather than as a substantive and acceptably verifiable argument or apologia.

We must clearly articulate the distinction between passive involvement and active engagement with music while maintain-ing that these differing musical roles should be related through sequential and stratified instruction provided by qualified spe-cialists. In other words, we must be clear about what it means

to be educated musically, how that relates to living a life enriched through music, and what is necessary to ensure that schools provide this instruction in a meaningful and effective way. We should always remain as contributing members of an active ensemble where we perform our role with excellence, while remain-ing sensitive to both balance and blend among the various voices represented—we should never dominate the color of the dialogue.

T H E B I G P I C T U R Eby Richard Fiese

Our young musicians need not feel insecure about the music that they make and enjoy, nor should they become isolated from or intimidated by traditional musical expression of perpetual value.

74 Southwestern Musician | January 2014

It Is Not Just an EC–5 PriorityThe identification and preparation

of highly gifted musicians should never avert teachers’ attention from developing general musical competence and artistic discernment in all students. While many perceive this role as limited to elementary music experiences, we should not assume this is achieved in its totality within the elementary school general music class-room. If we are to successfully connect students to music in ways that achieve general musical competence, it must be a thread that connects instruction through every level.

Music is elemental to being human, but we often fail to ensure the instruction we provide endows all students with more than simply an intellectual understand-ing of this reality. They should all ben-efit from a genuine experience with real music that connects them with that music experientially, intellectually, emotionally, viscerally, and spiritually.

Don’t Dilute Substance with Popular Culture for Sake of Appeal

We should never uncritically embrace elements of popular culture, facile expres-

sion, or political currency that dilute stu-dents’ development of profound acumen. It is through encounters with the beauty of great music that students’ emotional experience is enhanced and artistic under-standing increased.

We must remain current but should avoid being trendy in the process. Regardless of their age, our students are capable of sub-stantive artistic expression and legitimate artistic creativity. Given this, they should be provided an education that not only does that but also enables them to carry these attributes forward into adulthood to lead musical lives irrespective of their profession.

This does not, however, mean that we are not to remain contemporary and rel-evant in our instruction. We must, rather, be discerning and discriminating given the limited resource of time we have with the students in our care so that we pro-vide them with the very best of music and music learning. Retaining a strong affin-ity for and affiliation with great and rel-evant music that transcends time, while at the same time recognizing that students’ interests are often dominated by other influences, is one of the more difficult

challenges for any music educator. Our young musicians need not feel insecure about the music that they make and enjoy, nor should they become isolated from or intimidated by traditional musical expres-sion of perpetual value. The artificial boundaries among genres and styles of music are increasingly porous and our curriculum needs to be sensitive and responsive to this.

Leave the Dance with the One Who Brought You

Educational reformation at the national level has often proved to disrupt the mean-ingful experiences that occur within the context provided by a teacher, a learner, and the content. Therefore, we must do all that we can to preserve the music educa-tion system that has brought us this far.

That does not mean our system is inca-pable of improvement or reform, but our decentralized education system, which depends on local control and local exper-tise, reflects local diversity, and reacts to local dynamics, echoes the very best of American ideals and a truly American spirit. It has also proved to be highly effec-tive in terms of providing an education

- Lawrence Feldman (Lead Alto Barbra Streisand Orchestra, Bob Mintzer Big Band, Tony Bennett)

- Jesse Davis (Saxophonist/Composer)

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Superior intonation!

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Superior intonation!

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76 Southwestern Musician | January 2014

in music. While state and national professional associations have provided broad statements of purpose, overarching standards and general objectives for vir-tually every level of our profession, it is through the initiative and creativity of individual teachers that real innovation and excellence actually occurs.

A national curriculum with national regulation enforced by a centralized bureaucracy would be a most stif ling and disastrous influence to our educa-tional system. Local control that allows independent teachers to meet the needs of their students is the basis of the educa-tional landscape that has provided us with the quality music education programs that our students experience and through which they grow.

Changing the Length of the Dipstick Doesn’t Alter the Amount of Oil in the Car

If something is important enough to be taught, it is important enough to make certain it is actually learned. Assessment is central to confirming what is happening in the classroom and to providing reli-able data for enhancing the instructional process. However, we need to ensure that assessment does not impede or diminish the actual experiential content of music, interfere with creativity, or diminish innovation among students or teachers. A new test, or new distribution calculation, cannot on its own reform education, raise performance, or enhance learning. That simply is not within the valid application of any assessment, and we need to guard against any such reductional perspective.

Likewise, we can be distracted by how music instruction is delivered (class time, facilities, equipment, materials, etc.) because these things are rather facile to measure and are so integrally related to funding and budget. These very reason-able and justifiable concerns can easily become the focus of our attention instead of the achievement of individual musical

independence and artistic creativity. Too often we attribute poor performance to circumstances and equipment, yet there are far too many examples of excellent music teaching and learning occurring in less-than-optimal situations to be mere exceptions to the rule.

Education is far too complex and com-plicated an interaction to be remedied merely by throwing more money at the institution. Improving the quality of teacher education, altering budget struc-tures to enhance instruction rather than upper-level administration, freeing teach-ers to teach real content and students to learn substantive knowledge and skills, raising achievement expectations, reward-ing excellence and innovation that has genuine value—these are what contribute to truly moving education forward.

We Should Remain Political Without Becoming Politicians

Teachers and parents often share a sense of political impotence wrought from a feeling of isolation and remote-ness. We understand the education system is affected by the acts of various elected and appointed bodies, but we can feel as if these legislative and regulative bodies are distant, detached, and deterministic. However, the reality is that the issues of funding, policy legislation, governmen-tal agency proceedings, and professional and legal compliance have important and often long-lasting effects on what we do and how we do it.

We must not allow ourselves to be constantly frustrated by reacting to changes that shape our reality. We must be informed of and actively involved with

how these decisions are made. We must be players, not spectators, in the political arena.

Nevertheless, we must also remain vigilant in our concentration on the con-tent and context of music instruction and avoid being distracted by those entities with whom we seek to form partner-ships or receive financial support for the achievement of our instructional mission and goals. Music and music learning must remain at the core of all we do, and every-thing else should serve only an accom-panying role. Power, especially political power, can be very seductive and almost any funding source is attractive at first blush. Both of these elements are impor-tant for the future of music in education, but they should never avert us from our primary mission to offer a complete edu-cation that includes music as a central structural pillar.

We need to focus more on what stu-dents learn that leads them to demon-strate genuine knowledge and skills in music rather than how these results are achieved. We must never allow ourselves to become servants of the educational sys-tem, never restricted by focusing on the process rather than individual music com-petence, and never substituting political engagement for artistic substance.

The Road Map PerspectiveLike a road map, the big picture that

provides us with a fairly global perspec-tive does not and cannot account for every obstacle, hazard, or individual cir-cumstance one may encounter along the path. It does, however, provide us with the point of departure, the potential path, and clear vision of the destination. By rec-ognizing, considering, and responding to the big picture we are, as a profession, more likely to arrive at our intended destination than if we focus all of our attention on each individual step along the way. 0

Richard Fiese is Professor in Music Education at Houston Baptist University

We must never allow ourselves to become servants of the educational system, never restricted by focusing on the process rather than individual music competence, and never substituting political engagement for artistic substance.

77Southwestern Musician | January 2014