[MUSIC] >> Welcome, everybody. We're here at Turner Hall, Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music with Dr. Mark Wait. He is the Dean of the School of Music here, and has agreed to speak with us a little bit about music education. Thank you so much for joining me today. >> Glad to do it. >> You have served a term as president of the National Association of Schools of Music from 2012 to 2015, I imagine. This is an association that has, I believe, affiliated institutional members numbering over 650- >> That's right, about 650. >> So, I would imagine this gives you an amazing view of some of the larger, broader trends that are going on in music education today. And so, my first question for you is can you describe for us some of the things that you see happening at music schools and among music educators today? >> Sure. >> What are some of the important things happening? >> Sure. Well, first, just a little bit of history. Most of the music schools have a curriculum that came into being just after World War II. And a lot of them are distressingly like they were in 1950. But with the Web and with social media, the demand, the awareness and the rapidity of change are causing schools to change quickly. Just as the Blair School did starting about ten years ago. So, I would say first of all, a lot of schools of music are changing their curricula to meet more modern needs of students, and to meet the professional needs of those students as those professional needs will be in another 10, 20, 30 years. That, I think, is a very good thing to be happening. It's happening too late, but at least it is finally happening. Within those 650 schools, within NASM, there's a tremendous variety so that you have huge public institutions like the University of Michigan and Indiana University and Illinois, Wisconsin and others. And then you have smaller, private institutions like Vanderbilt University. And then you have a lot of small religious colleges and so forth. It's remarkable that the curricula are somewhat similar among all of those. There's a certain kind of professional training that is common to all of those institutions. But the needs for change are also common to those institutions, and that is beginning to happen. >> Right. Where do you see those needs in particular? >> I think there needs to be more flexibility. Students need to be able to turn on a dime. They need to be able o change quickly according to conditions. And so, rather than teaching quite so much a body of knowledge as we did for decades, now it's really teaching students how to exist within a very dynamic fluid profession. And it's not just how to play an instrument, how to sing, history, theory, that kind of thing, but venues. How to program things creatively. Thinking about venues, thinking about lighting, thinking about staging. Thinking, in other words, about everything in addition to how the music is actually produced. >> Right. What do you think the most successful music schools in the country are doing right now to that end? >> I think the most successful ones are letting the students tell them what they need. >> Interesting. >> Because I think that's a very important point, and it's one that we educators don't realize nearly enough. We just need to listen to our students more. Because our students are going to guide us. Whether we want them to or not but they're going to guide us. So, for example, when computers became so commonplace perhaps 20 years ago or so, a lot of institutions rushed in a kind of a requirement, you have to do this, that, and the other thing with computers. Now, students already had that. >> Right. >> And so, the students were ahead of us before we ever got there. And I think in terms of the variety of kinds of music that students hear and that they do want to practice and play, they'll tell us. >> Yes, that's been my experience, too. >> And they're good guides, by the way. >> Right. >> [LAUGH] >> Right, exactly. [MUSIC] >> So, what do you think some of the challenges are for music schools or universities who want to make these changes that you're talking about in order to best serve the student body in a sort of changing environment? >> Well, that's a good question. It's a huge job, and it's a job that has to be done. And the obstacles are not trivial. To begin with, there's human nature. I had a wonderful mentor some 25 years ago, who once observed, quite correctly, that everyone's vision of Utopia is a mild variant of their own upbringing. We are all creatures of how we were brought up, of our own past. And so, faculty members, for example, and to a large degree, administrators like myself, they think of education in terms of what they were taught. And the human nature tendency, I suppose, is to teach what we were taught. It really requires something of a leap of faith. And it requires a lot of time, and a lot of careful thought and effort to get beyond that, and to think about what students need. >> Right. >> That's what we're really about. In our everyday lives, we may think that we are thinking about what students need. No, we have some kind of preformed image there that usually is just under the surface. So, at our school, for example, about ten years ago we started a planning process. I formed a planning committee to work with the curriculum, and it took us fully four years to do that. And I did that quite intentionally to give it time to work. Because, we all found, there were 12 of us on this committee, to make sure that every area in the school was represented. But we needed, we found ourselves changing our minds about things- >> Right. >> Perhaps several times, about any given issue, myself included. But at the end of that four years, we felt we had a very solid product that we had all come to believe in. >> Right. >> So, you have to give it time for the thought to occur. But then, you also have to give it time, as a very practical matter, for political consensus to form. >> And by that time we had done that. I mean, none of us thought consciously we're forming a political consensus, but it just happened to evolve that way. And that's a very important part of the process. So, I think that any school that's setting about thinking about that needs to give it enough time, give it enough thought, make sure enough people are represented. And it's more important to do it right than to do it Tuesday. >> Right. So, overcoming inertia requires patience more so than brute force- >> A tremendous amount of patience. And it's hard work, too. I heard a leading university president once say that changing the curriculum is like moving a graveyard. [LAUGH] There's something to that. >> Right, [LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> A lot of the students who would be taking this course have already passed their university years. And so I also wanted to ask you a question about, in your role as an arts advocate and music educator, what are some of the things that adults can do or people who have already been through university, to support their local music scenes or arts communities? >> Participate. Participate. Get out there, go to concerts, go to classes. Go to whatever you like, but especially pick things that are a little outside your comfort zone. >> Right. >> Listen to kinds of music you're not quite sure about. And remember, always, that all of music is some form of human expression, and we are always pushing the boundaries of human expression. And, for me, the great joy of it is finding to one's surprise, that there are ways of expressing oneself that just hadn't occurred to you. >> Right. >> And I think that that's what everyone does. It used to be called lifelong learning. I don't know, we can dispense with the jargon. I think it's important just to get out there and do it. Listen to it, hear it, think about it. >> Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you, my pleasure. >> Very, very much. >> You bet. >> Would you like to play a song for us? >> I'll give something a try. >> Fantastic, thank you. >> Okay, you bet. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
