Article

Arts & Humanities in Higher Education

2016, Vol. 15(3–4) 293–307
Creativity, diversity, and ! The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1474022216647378

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of music curriculum
David E Myers
University of Minnesota, USA

Abstract
During 2013–2014, the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major of the USA’s
College Music Society prepared a report entitled Transforming Music Study from its
Foundations: A Manifesto for Progressive Change in the Undergraduate Preparation of Music
Majors. The report is a call for increased relevance in undergraduate music studies that
prepare students for leadership, adaptability, and initiative in advancing the values of
music and musicians in a techno-global society. Specifically, the task force recommends
that curricula derive from the three pillars of creativity, diversity, and integration,
arguing that composition, improvisation, performance, and theoretical-cultural-historic
music studies be taught holistically and in ways authentic to the art and practice of music
itself. In addition, the report calls for greater participation by students in planning
degree programs that provide trajectories in keeping with their goals and interests,
and for greater nimbleness that enhances curricular adaptations on an ongoing basis.

Keywords
Bachelor’s, curriculum, higher music education, music major tertiary, music study,
undergraduate

Need for curricular change

In the United States, as in other countries, curriculum leaders in tertiary education
are interrogating assumptions underlying existing degree programs and considering
assumptions for new programs as well. From May 2013 through November 2014,
the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major (TFUMM), commissioned by

Corresponding author:
David E Myers, School of Music, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55410, USA.
Email: demyers@umn.edu

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294 Arts & Humanities in Higher Education 15(3–4)

the USA’s College Music Society, undertook a critical examination of assumptions

regarding higher music education curricula and the knowledge and skills essential
for twenty-first century musicians (Myers et al., 2014). Looking at the origins of
musician education, the evolution of classical music in America, and issues of
global music and contemporary society, the task force focused on the key question,
What does it mean to be an educated musician in the twenty-first century? Ancillary
questions catalyzed critiques of existing assumptions, articulating new assump-
tions, and recommending changes in undergraduate degree programs.
An important initial consideration for the task force was the broader picture of
curricular reform discourse beyond music. Medical school curricula, for example,
are undergoing revisions in keeping with American Medical Association (AMA)
incentives to address twenty-first century concerns. The AMA is urging integration
of disparate facets of knowledge, educating physicians to be attuned to cultural and
generational differences, building physicians’ communication skills, and emphasiz-
ing personalized diagnoses and treatments.
According to a recent report on eleven AMA-funded reform projects, ‘‘Medicine
has changed a lot in the past 100 years. But medical training hasn’t . . . some top
medical schools around the U.S. are tearing up the textbooks and starting from
scratch.’’ At the University of Michigan, Erin McKean, a surgeon teaching com-
munication, states: ‘‘I was not taught this in medical school myself, [. . .. . .] We
haven’t taught people how to be specific about working in teams, how to commu-
nicate with peers and colleagues and how to communicate to the general public
about what’s going on in health care and medicine.’’ (http://curricu-
lum.med.umich.edu/updates/medical-schools-reboot-21st-century)
In 2006, the Yale School of Management, under Dean Joel Podolny, undertook
a complete overhaul of its Master of Business Administration (MBA) curriculum.
The goals were to provide a more integrated program among distinct bodies of
knowledge and to encourage stronger relationships with society’s interests.
Podolny noted that ‘‘Business schools provide students with many technical
skills, but they appear to do little, or nothing, to foster responsibility and account-
ability. The traditional MBA curriculum has divided the challenges of management
and leadership in a dysfunctional way . . ..’’ (https://hbr.org/2009/03/are-business-
schools-to-blame.html)
TFUMM was commissioned in part because, like medical schools and business
schools, the assumptions, structure, and practices of American music curricula
have changed very little over the past hundred years. They arose in tandem with
the professionalization of music careers in the US, and, with modest variations
from institution to institution, largely represent technical training across disparate
areas of knowledge and skill to become either performing musicians or academic
scholars of music in the classical Western European tradition. Despite increasing
the levels of technical training, little attention has been devoted to the realities of
how the vast majority of musicians earn their livings—notably by teaching, which
receives little to no attention other than in teacher education programs.
Furthermore, the model of musicians who historically crossed the boundaries of

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Myers 295

performing, composing, teaching, researching, and leading/administering has been

subjugated to a specialist model that includes almost nothing about the ways
music, especially classical music, functions in real-world contexts.
In contrast to this educational practice, the field of higher music education has
witnessed over the past two decades a growing stream of graduates whose careers
are marked by initiative, flexibility, and artistry beyond the usual parameters of
studio teaching, opera and orchestral performance, and university teaching. Artists
are engaging audiences as co-creators, managing their own careers, collaborating
with other artists, and crossing roles among creators, performers, and producers of
music. Musicians’ work is becoming increasingly rich in stylistic crossovers, incorp-
oration of diverse cultures, and acoustic-technological expressions.
This new breed of musicians frequently reports that their collegiate programs
failed to prepare them for the careers they have devised independently. Though
prepared with technical skills and knowledge, their educations failed to offer insight
into the values of music in society, or into how to share those values and embed
them within the core issues and questions of a twenty-first century global-technical
society. As Robert Freeman, longtime Dean of the Eastman School of Music, has
observed (2014), successful career musicians in the twenty-first century need to be
versatile musically, entrepreneurial in spirit, cognizant of music’s historic and
ongoing role in human existence and society, adaptable to change, and willing to
risk new audience approaches and initiatives.
TFUMM included national experts in music theory, conducted ensembles,
ethnomusicology, musicology, performance, and music education. The task force
determined that its work would not be limited to potential modifications of the
present system. Rather, TFUMM charged itself with rigorous analysis of assump-
tions underlying the current system and how those assumptions might be recast, or
perhaps eliminated, and alternative assumptions articulated. TFUMM chose not to
provide formulas for changes in content, pedagogy, or curriculum development,
but rather to raise questions, challenge and pose assumptions, and encourage rich
discourse around the preparation of career musicians in the twenty-first century.
The resulting report, Transforming Music Study from its Foundations: A Manifesto
for Progressive Change in the Undergraduate Preparation of Music Majors, offers
observations, recommendations, and change strategies for those who plan and
deliver undergraduate programs.

TFUMM’s interrogative process

TFUMM’s interrogative process invoked the double-loop learning theory of
Argyris and Schön (1978), which supports analyzing the assumptions on which
goals, objectives, and strategies are based. The process is intended to help attenuate
tendencies to polarize between innovation and convention in change discourse. In
single-loop learning, change consists primarily of altering objectives and strategies
within existing assumptions. By contrast, a double-loop approach tests assump-
tions through a process that is dialogical, shared, and rooted in consideration of a

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greater good. Double-loop learning is creative and reflexive, works against taking
existing goals, values, and practice for granted, is open and transparent, and
encourages an organization to think about what it is moving toward rather than
what it may be moving away from. Thus, higher education analyses may confront
the extent to which legacy assumptions are adequate for a changing world and,
concurrently, consider new assumptions that both embody transcendent values and
reflect era-specific needs of society.
A double-loop curricular process begins by identifying current and likely future
needs of graduates as professionals. What are the universal-transcendent values to
society that graduates might be expected to fulfill, how might those values be fulfilled
in ways relevant to changing society, and how might graduates be equipped to con-
tribute musically toward the public good and to adapt their roles amidst constant
change? What musical knowledge is essential? How is music itself evolving and
developing as an art form, and how might graduates be best equipped to participate
in, lead, and respond to this evolution? What might pondering such questions mean
for the assumptions on which we base curricula? How relevant are our curricula to
the vibrancy and dynamism of twenty-first century musical worlds beyond the acad-
emy, to global musics, to providing opportunities for our graduates and people of all
ages and backgrounds to engage meaningfully with those worlds and to travel easily
among them? And, in this larger societal and musical context, in what ways does our
curricular work equip students for satisfying careers?

What does it mean to be an educated musician in the

twenty-first century?
Turning again to parallels beyond music, a 2010 survey of corporate executives by
IBM revealed major challenges that leaders will confront throughout the twenty-first
century. The most frequently reported challenge was the rapid escalation of complex-
ity arising from increasing global interdependency. (https://www-931.ibm.com/bin/
prefctr/ue.cgi?campaignId¼253722&currPage¼InterceptSmartFormUE&source_
cosmetic_id¼1784) Asserting that such complexity should be viewed as a catalyst for
innovation, the executives agreed that creativity will be the most important leadership
trait. (p. 4) Successful organizations will embody creative leadership, reinvent their
relationships with constituents, and operate with nimbleness and dexterity.
At present, musician education is often an information-based, didactic process
including imitative technical training that incorporates little creativity and does
even less to nurture students’ individual and collaborative creativity. Growing
emphases on entrepreneurship, for example, have revealed that music students
need to develop their creative capacities. Gerald Klickstein, Director of the
Music Entrepreneurship and Career Center at the Peabody Institute of Johns
Hopkins University, notes that:

. . . entrepreneurship grows from creativity, [thus]one of our primary educational mis-

sions should be to encourage creativity . . . music students are so overburdened—say,

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Myers 297

by being obliged to perform in several ensembles each semester—that they’re unable

to pursue goals of individual interest. In effect, some students wind up serving the insti-
tutions where they study instead of the educational institutions serving the students’
needs. As a result, many students learn more about conformity than independent
thinking. (http://musiciansway.com/blog/2009/10/music-education-and-entrepreneur
ship/)

Increasingly, in a complex world, musicians must be leaders and problem-solvers.

They must advance opportunities for music engagement across social and societal
sectors influenced by age, race, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, education,
socioeconomic level, professional priorities, and technology. Such ambitions
entail intersecting issues of producing a livable income, assuring value and respect
for diverse musics through participatory engagement, acquiring knowledge and
skills to create and perform an array of musics authentically and artistically, and
initiating creative ventures for the public good.
These opportunities comprise exciting challenges to design curricular models
that assure alignment between desired learning outcomes and the curriculum. In
addition, as musicians educated in more relevant ways transition into the profes-
sional world, the ecosystem that incorporates professional and community music
organizations, freelance musicians, and higher education will become more relevant
to societal concerns and thus more widely valued as a societal necessity.
IBM’s three priorities offer an auspicious starting point for those seeking to
enhance the relevance of musician education: creativity; consistency with constitu-
ents’ (students’) interests and needs; and the ability to be flexible and nimble. As we
consider applications of these ideas in music, faculty must discern between desired
music understanding that is fundamental, and crucial, to more advanced under-
standing and practice versus that which may be fluid in relation to change in
musical worlds beyond academe. Foundational knowledge, skills, and concepts
represent those dimensions of music understanding that transcend time and
place, that are inherent in the nature and structure of music, and that may be
referenced descriptively across eras, styles, and cultures. In other words, what
concepts and skills are universal and transcendent, despite different manifestations?
Such knowledge may encompass sonic systems, the ability to analyze pitch and
rhythmic elements, the understanding of how design is manifest in music, and
anthropological and aesthetic awareness of music’s function in the human
experience.
Change in the realm of music may include new expressive mediums,
psychosocial aspects of music making and music learning, growing cross-cultural
influences in a global society, technological advances in music, music in relation to
other art forms and disciplines, and the ways communities and societies interact
with both culturally specific and culturally diffuse music. The TFUMM report
argues, for example, that composing and improvising are essential for creativity,
and that they must be incorporated into the curriculum. Presumably, all students
would learn to compose and improvise in rather basic ways that would build

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confidence and freedom in experimenting, collaborating, and creating music within

specified parameters. In professional practice beyond the academy, this creative
knowledge and skill might be applied in a variety of musical and social contexts
where it would be adapted to the needs and interests of participants or used in
creative ways as part of new artistic expressions.
To be relevant, higher music education must assume an activist role on behalf of
music and musicians in society, collaborating with arts, social, business, and phil-
anthropic entities to embed universal access to music in the missions of music
organizations as well as in the career development of students. The challenges
confronting classical music organizations—funding, attendance, diversity and
inclusion, competition from many markets—cannot be solved in isolation. Just
as business schools work collaboratively with business and industry to research
and develop incubator programs, music schools and musicians, alongside those
from other sectors, must work to articulate and demonstrate the place of music
and musicians in society, in particular with regard to the issues of growing demo-
graphic diversity.
Collaborative approaches to change require synchronicity among organizations,
higher education, freelance artists, and funders. Those charged with leadership
need to become advocates and facilitators with colleagues in other domains in
order to test assumptions and propose inventive strategies that may be imple-
mented and assessed. Such strategies will require intentional intersections among
higher education, communities, and professional organizations as well as incenti-
vizing initiatives from government and philanthropic entities.

Implications for curricular change

What, then, do these assumptions regarding educated musicians and their profes-
sional development portend for curricular change? How can graduates be imbued
with the ability to be both musically and entrepreneurially creative, to assure vital
artistic experiences for others, to relate their work in performing, creating, research-
ing, and teaching to the greater good of society? How can they be educated to be
collaborative with audiences, to co-construct meaning among composers, per-
formers, and listeners, to work in affiliation with artists from other art forms and
with colleagues from other disciplines? How can they develop historical-cultural, the-
oretical, philosophical, and practice-based knowledge and understanding that nur-
ture their abilities to articulate the value of music in human life and learning, to
respect diverse musical expressions, to relate musically with diverse constituents, and
to forge value for music and musicians as an inherently worthy part of everyday life?

Two parallel and interactive themes

First, TFUMM refreshed its own knowledge of authentic music engagement as
both integrated and differentiated processes of performing, composing, and

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Myers 299

improvising. Drawing on the work of Ed Sarath (2013), one of its members

TFUMM noted that, historically, Western classical musicians were often proficient
in all three realms, as many musicians continue to be, whether in classical, popular,
or vernacular musics. However, in the typical tertiary music institution, these
processes have become highly differentiated.
The student who today seeks proficiency across these three areas, combined with
historical-cultural, theoretical, and aesthetic-philosophical understanding, must
assure that he or she elects study that permits the inclusion of all three within
one educational enterprise. Much like the models in medicine and business men-
tioned earlier, programs rarely, if ever, offer intentional integration in relation to
contemporary problems and issues in music and society. They tend to be taught as
isolated components, and are distinct from nurturing students’ applicative capa-
cities for problems such as declining audiences for classical music, implications of
access to global musics via technology, or changing demographics in society. And
studies are devoid of how music may relate to social-political concerns such as the
environment, strife among different ethnic groups, or the potential for shared aes-
thetic experience to bridge cultural misunderstandings.
For over a hundred years, the education of musicians has focused on interpret-
ive performance, even in the case of academic music studies, i.e., theory and his-
tory, which presumably explain the information bases of interpretive performance.
This emphasis has educated students to study and emulate the performances of
teachers and others rather than to develop individual expressive capacities
informed by historical-cultural understanding and the ability to analyze and criti-
cize performances. Moreover, it has stultified improvisation and composition as
integral curricular components for all students. The essential role of movement and
physically embodied musical expression and responsiveness is nearly nonexistent in
tertiary music programs, even though most musics of the world incorporate some
dimensions of the concept of ngoma (Gearhart, 2005), or the uniting of movement,
music, and drama as an expressive whole.
Theory studies have focused on the common practice period in classical
music, rarely or only coincidentally incorporating non-Western musics and
often not including music after the early to mid-twentieth century. Theory of
non-Western music occurs, if at all, in separate elective courses rather than as
part of a cohesive theoretical approach, and common practice techniques are
considered prerequisite to, rather than integrated with, broader understanding of
music in real-world contexts. Bachelor’s-level students are thus separated from
the reality of contemporary musical worlds, finding holistic music experiences
that combine performing, listening, moving, and understanding outside their
university or conservatory educations. Music history studies are too rarely cir-
cumspect with regard to the totality of music worldwide, instead confining stu-
dents to sequential study of the Western canon, with the now ubiquitous
semester or two of ‘‘world music’’ added on, implying that Western European
and the world’s music are different things.

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Contemporary improvisers–composers–performers
Limitations such as those above motivated TFUMM to adopt the goal of degreed
musicians as contemporary improvisers–composers–performers (CICP model).
This assumption that musicians must be able to navigate not only interpreting
and reinterpreting music, but also creating and improvising in concert with inter-
pretive skills invokes the historic Western European classical musician model and
the integration of performing and creating that exists across societies and cultures.
In North Indian and Iranian music, for example, composition, improvisation, and
performance have traditionally been integrated in ways that render isolated study
of these musical constructs completely inauthentic. In other words, TFUMM
endorses the centrality of these complementary functions within a holistic perspec-
tive that equips musicians not only for confidence, independence, and aesthetic and
technical competence, but also for extending their artistry and creativity toward
engaging others in socially and aesthetically fulfilling experiences. As the TFUMM
report indicates, ‘‘Systematic improvisation study may unite multiple improvisa-
tory languages . . . including style-specific and stylistically open approaches.’’ (p. 18)

Music and society

In the case of the second theme, i.e., uniting music knowledge and skill with the
public good, the task force considered essential synchronicity between broader
societal issues and the teaching and practice of music. Curricular change must
achieve balance between disciplinary dimensions that transcend temporal and gen-
erational evolution and those that require innovation with relevance to the needs,
interests, and values of a musically engaged society. Musician education must be
tightly tied to this balance if conservatories and schools and departments of music
are to remain viable within a diverse, expansive, and expensive higher education
system.
In calling for transformative curricular change, TFUMM avoided the pitfall of
superficial modifications that fail to address substantive issues and thus comprom-
ise the rigorous content considerations we advocate. In a recent New York Times
op-ed piece, columnist Timothy Egan (2014: A21) reported observing tourists in
Barcelona who were enamored of taking selfies with architectural treasures in the
background, thus appearing to be impervious to the artistry and significance of
Gaudi’s work. The same thing can happen in curricular considerations: we can
become so enamored of the latest development in delivery or learning strategies
that we lose sight of the essentials of content. Without attention to the value of the
content itself, and the ways delivery systems must derive inherently from that
content, innovative delivery systems alone will have little long-term influence on
a graduate’s education.
In the same New York Times edition, Ben Brantley (2014: C1) wrote about
Blank! The Musical, which adapts improv sketch comedy to instant song and
dance shows. The artists collectively engage creators, performers, and audience

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members, who transcend their usual role divisions and expectations, through
improvisatory art-making. This experience cannot be replicated in front of one’s
computer; it cannot occur without collaborative decision-making; and it cannot
happen if an audience plays only an observational role or artists play only a pres-
entational one. Artists must be leaders, reflectors, and problem-solvers who invite
shared participation. Such experiences are consistent with the impro-
viser–composer–performer model and with the anthropologically defined human
desire to participate in creating, performing, and understanding music. They are
also embodied in the philosophical work of Christopher Small (1998), who asserts
that co-construction of meaning is essential in the realization of value in the musi-
cal experience, and with the work of Harvard professor emeritus Robert Levin,
who engages audiences in improvisation.
Though higher music learning emulates traditional concert-hall performances,
research shows that real-world musicians are moving toward alternative experi-
ences and venues that are interactive and socially comfortable. The National
Endowment for the Arts in the USA has released a report (2015) that urges artists
and arts organizations to re-think audience development in terms of venues, acces-
sibility, learning opportunities, socialization, and engagement. Other recent reports
indicate that feeling connected with the creation of art in intimate settings may
motivate attendance, particularly among younger people and families. The evolu-
tion of performing groups and management models that put these ideas into effect,
such as Eighth Blackbird, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and others,
are capturing audience interest. Still, tertiary music education lags well behind
these innovations. Such issues, combined with exploration and research of contem-
porary professional efforts to address them, should become curricular essentials for
aspiring career musicians.

Change in the wider music industry

Orchestras and opera companies struggle to reconcile their artistic ambitions and
expenditures with the realities of their fiscal resources. Subscription ticket sales are
declining; and younger donors are more socially than artistically minded, expecting
verifiable results for their money. Thanks largely to the Internet, the recording
industry is changing in ways that reduce earnings. And through technology,
people can access every kind of music on their digital devices, resulting in expanded
palettes for diverse musics in and beyond the classical tradition. Venues for live
performance include black box theatres, clubs, and physical settings where a glass
of wine, conversation, informal attire, and interchange among performers, com-
posers, and audiences are relaxed, comfortable, and preferable to the rarefied and
sometimes daunting atmosphere of concert halls. A recent report from the James
Irvine Foundation (Reidy, 2014) notes the importance of taking art to the people
rather than expecting people to come to the art, particularly given the reluctance of
disadvantaged populations or individuals from some cultural traditions to enter the
sacred and often intimidating space of concert halls.

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In a 2007 New Yorker piece entitled ‘‘The Anti-Maestro,’’ (http://www.newyor-

ker.com/magazine/2007/04/30/the-anti-maestro) Alex Ross profiled changes in the
Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, executive director
Deborah Borda, and the Phil’s most recent music director, Gustavo Dudamel.
Ross references the 1960s, when Ernest Fleischmann, managing director, urged
that the orchestra become far more adaptable, a community of musicians perform-
ing new music and chamber music, working in schools, and playing diverse reper-
toire. With Salonen, the orchestra developed an identity around risk-taking,
derived in part from Salonen’s regard for pop artists who represent an amalgam
of what Ross calls the brainy and the visceral. Deborah Borda works side-by-side
with Dudamel to advance the orchestra’s artistic breadth and cutting-edge
programs. Collaboration, creativity, and technology are hallmarks of the orches-
tra’s programming, and the youthful and dynamic Dudamel helps attract diverse
audiences. Yet too many degreed musicians graduate without having learned of,
studied, or considered the implications of such important changes for their own
careers.

Implementing curricular change

When curricular conversations embrace assumption testing, evidence becomes
overwhelming that the programs that served our profession reasonably well in
the past will not continue to serve our art, our students, and our society in the
future. And they will not serve music schools well in the broader frame of higher
education, where students now see the possibility of direct experience and appren-
ticeships outweighing the time and expense of university education. Moreover, the
bureaucratic agendas that too often impede curricular change defy innovation and
keep departments mired in political strangleholds rather than aspiring toward
relevancy.
Educating brilliant performers and scholars has not included analyses of the
economic and relevancy challenges facing professional musicians and organiza-
tions. While there are some positive signs in the USA’s Strategic National Arts
Alumni Project (SNAAP) data, a close reading of these data offers clear signals
that higher education arts programs are not resonant with the realities that pas-
sionate career artists face—whether practicing art, teaching art, or researching art.
It is urgent that if we believe in the values we ascribe to our art, we must undertake
transformative change that aligns higher education with the needs and interests of
our students and the place of music and musicians in society.

Creativity, diversity, and integration

TFUMM based its recommendations for change on three pillars: creativity, diver-
sity, and integration. Repeatedly, these three concepts emerged from dialogues
converging around the education and work of musicians alongside interrogations
of what is universally fundamental about becoming a musician in any era.

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To create new music and creative performances of extant repertoire, to embrace

diverse musics and peoples, and to integrate content around the larger themes of
music in culture and society are inherently musical propositions.

Research-based learning and teaching

TFUMM recognizes that teaching and learning are informed by unprecedented
research that renders much traditional music instruction at odds with what we
know about perception, cognition, and motivation to learn. TFUMM thus urges
far more student engagement with curricular planning, as well as preparation that
logically fits with the likelihood of professional opportunities for gainful employ-
ment. Such curricular content may include the ability to talk about as well as
perform music, to share research in understandable ways, to value and engage
with diverse constituencies in terms of age and cultural background, to lead in
developing new models of concert performance that bridge performer–audience
barriers, and to offer policy and programmatic leadership for arts organizations
seeking to diversify audiences.
In light of these considerations and motivations, the report offers recommenda-
tions for change that encompass every facet of the curriculum—from private les-
sons to large ensembles, from foundational theory and history to the transfer of
creative, diverse, and integrative understanding in the academy to applications in
career contexts. TFUMM believes that these changes will serve the greater goals of
widespread valuing of, and commitment to, the role of music in the process of
being both human and humane.

Engaging students in curricular planning

Suggesting a curricular structure that dramatically enriches students’ understand-
ing of music in the first two years of study, TFUMM urges learning that acknow-
ledges and begins from both the knowledge that students bring to music studies and
the forces that impel them toward music careers. Theory, improvisation, and com-
position should form a composite of creativity that concurrently informs interpret-
ive performance. Ensembles should encompass both large and small groups,
Western and beyond-Western musics, and creative performances that incorporate
audience engagement with strong artistic achievement. Performance venues should
be diverse, and students should learn how to invite interest and involvement with-
out compromising artistic standards. Movement should be central in musical devel-
opment. And historical-cultural-aesthetic studies should involve diverse musics,
more opportunities to relate these studies to varied practices of music, and signifi-
cant cross-arts learning.
Out of this rigorous introductory period should develop greater depth of study
in areas of particular interest to students. Curricular planning should be shared
among students and faculty, realizing that choices may portend certain profes-
sional directions but that they are not so tightly bound as to preclude the breadth

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necessary to assure continued learning and career development. Across institutions,

strengths associated with faculty expertise and available financial and cultural
resources should be exploited to develop distinctive programs.
Referring again to changes in medical education, one important curricular ingre-
dient is understanding the ‘‘system’’ of medical care in the US. Recognizing that no
one can predict exactly what that system will be like in the future, Dr Raj
Mangrulkar, associate dean for medical education at The University of
Michigan, states, ‘‘. . . we need to give students the tools to be adaptable, to be
resilient, to problem-solve—push through some things, accept some things, but
change other things.’’ (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/09/390440465/
medical-schools-reboot-for-21st-century) Such is TFUMM’s belief about the edu-
cation of musicians within music’s broader ecosystem.

Change strategies
TFUMM believes that musicians must initiate, adapt, problem-solve, and differ-
entiate between fundamental understanding of the nature and structure of music as
sonic expression, as well as the technical ability to perform music, and the appli-
cation of such knowledge in teaching, practice, and research of music in society. Its
report therefore urges that faculty undertake a strategy of ‘‘new conversations’’ for
curricular change, raising a series of guiding questions intended to elevate critical
discourse. Such discourse will provide opportunities to consider convention versus
change: those dimensions of music study that transcend time and place and are
therefore essential for every musician, and those that are more fluid, more respon-
sive to societal and musical change, more likely to differ over time, more likely to be
applied differently in differing career contexts.
The questions posed by TFUMM ask curriculum planners to reflect on how
issues such as creativity and diversity in global context may argue for changes in
music degree programs. They also suggest thinking about the European tradition
of the holistic improviser–composer–performer musician and why interpretive per-
formance may have come to dominate music studies. And they urge consideration
of how a transformed program might look and how change would occur, e.g.,
across a school or department, within a given area or department, or in specific
courses.
A second strategy calls for option-rich curricula that involve student choice in
tandem with carefully planned curricular options. Rather than choosing a program
as a complete entity, students would have options for meeting objectives and
requirements via a variety of avenues, all rigorous, that are consistent with interests
and capacities. Such options may spur integration of content knowledge and skill
across disciplinary domains in a way that also challenges faculty to be more cre-
ative. To gain space for increased options, curricula may need to move away from
strict credit-hour approaches and focus more on content and skill development
through a variety of approaches. And a wider array of coursework might be
allowed in order to meet goals such as broad cultural-historical understanding.

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Given that two or three semesters of sequential music history cannot cover an ever
expanding canon, it may be more useful to have students explore cultural-historical
foundations through repertoire they are performing, or to use comparisons of
music from different eras and cultures to develop understanding in global context.
Potentially, an option-rich approach might allow students, within appropriate par-
ameters, to plan programs that blend course work with real-world experiences,
incorporating projects and analyses that assure students’ readiness for adaptability
and continuing growth.
Finally, concurrent with ‘‘bottom up,’’ or option-rich strategies generated by
student interests and capacities, TFUMM calls for ‘‘top-down’’ approaches,
leveraging institutional structure to generate change rather than monitoring and
sustaining the status quo. Michigan’s Dr Mangrulkar notes that ‘‘Being in an
environment where change is happening is really important for your future train-
ing.’’ Similarly, as the worlds of music beyond the academy are constantly evol-
ving, it is important to have sufficient flexibility to permit faculty and student
decision-making, not only about how best to confront change, but how to lead
change as a positive dimension of career development.
Career preparation must consider the place of educated musicians in a complex
society that may not recognize music’s value without expert and engaging leader-
ship. TFUMM proposes that African-derived musics, including jazz, offer
unparalleled opportunities to fashion the identity of the globally oriented impro-
viser–composer–performer; however, it also argues that the inherent capacities to
understand music more completely must be illuminated across all styles and genres
of music.

Leadership for change

Achieving aims such as those described above requires its own form of curricular
and academic leadership. Administrators need to empower faculty to enter into
conversations that recognize changing music practices and content knowledge for
students’ career success, and to consider how students may best learn in an envir-
onment characterized by creativity, diversity, and integration. Institutions may
need to develop broader criteria for the employment of faculty, emphasizing com-
mitments to the values embodied in the TFUMM report, even as new generations
of musicians are educated to become faculty in future years.
Building on the cultural-historical ideas suggested above, structured learning
and teaching might emanate from students’ own creative practice, exploring ques-
tions and problems that arise in the creation of music, the social and cultural
influences that may obtain, and the technical knowledge needed to share one’s
work with others. Such questions and problems may generate understanding of
how these issues were addressed in different historical eras and in different practices
by different musicians, building a knowledge base derived from creative and ana-
lytical thinking and a ‘‘need to know’’ that motivates independent, self-directed
learning.

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306 Arts & Humanities in Higher Education 15(3–4)

Similar approaches might be taken with theoretical understanding, so that as

students are increasingly self-motivated to develop their own inquiries they may
acquire more comprehensive understanding in shorter periods of time than in
lecture-style formats. History, ethnomusicology, and theory might well be replaced
by integrated, inquiry-based courses and pedagogies around themes such as com-
parative design and texture across styles, or antecedents of culturally infused styles
in contemporary music. Differentiated individual and group projects could bring
knowledge from an enormous array of sources and experiences, all emanating from
student choices within rigorous thematic frames. And projects could be publicly
presented via engaging programs for diverse audiences.
TFUMM offers recommendations for rethinking assumptions, classes, courses,
and degree programs, as well as for implementing a change process, but it is not
prescriptive, nor does it claim to have the right or best answers for every situation.
The task force encourages individuality to suit the resources, expertise, and inter-
ests of faculty and students across a diverse array of institutions. What it does insist
on, however, is that undergraduate music studies must be far more process-
oriented than at present, and that students must engage in the fundamental acts
of creating music to better inform interpretive performance as well as theoretical
and historical-cultural understanding. In addition, it urges a richer, more rigorous,
and deeper understanding of the process and practice of music as explored through
its products, rather than emphasizing extant knowledge of music products as the
starting point in the curriculum. In this, it sees the acquisition of knowledge and
skill as constantly dynamic and evolutional, flexible in terms of the range of content
and experiences students may pursue, and founded on those processes and prac-
tices that are inherent as music in all times and places.
The International Contemporary Ensemble is an example of a twenty-first century
music organization that embodies the integration of artistry, engagement, and entre-
preneurship. Speaking at the University of Minnesota in 2013, Claire Chase, founder
of the group, suggested the following as important principles of music study:

a. To perform is to teach, to teach is to perform;

b. To learn is to be creatively engaged;
c. Nurturing new audiences is a shared responsibility of all those claiming the
profession of music;
d. Artistry, engagement, and entrepreneurship are inseparable;
e. The Twentieth Century was the century of specialization; the twenty-first
Century is the century of integration and collaboration;

Ultimately, curricular decisions must be local—made in light of the resources,

institutional contexts, and opportunities identified by those responsible. What can
and must be universal, however, is a commitment to the highest ideals of music
education carried out in a milieu of higher education’s relevance to the musical
worlds in which we want our graduates to thrive. We must prepare our students not
simply to survive in, but to shape, the worlds they will inhabit.

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Myers 307

Author’s note
This work was presented as part of the Reflective Conservatoire Conference, Guildhall.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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Author biography
David E Myers is Professor of Music Education and Creative Studies and Media at
the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA. He writes, speaks, and consults
widely on curricular issues in higher music education and chaired the College
Music Society’s 18-month Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major.
Professor Myers’s research interests focus on lifespan music learning and policy
considerations across higher music education, community music, and professional
arts organizations. For ten years, he was a national evaluator for the League of
American Orchestras and previously taught at the University of Sydney (AUS) and
Georgia State University in Atlanta.

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