popular music learning and teaching in teacher …
TRANSCRIPT
The Pennsylvania State University
The Graduate School
POPULAR MUSIC LEARNING AND TEACHING IN TEACHER EDUCATION IN THE
UNITED STATES: AN ORAL HISTORY
A Dissertation inMusic Education
byYunshu Tan
© 2021 Yunshu Tan
Submitted in Partial Fulfillmentof the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
May 2021
The dissertation of Yunshu Tan was reviewed and approved by the following:
Ann C. ClementsProfessor of Music EducationDissertation AdviserChair of Committee
Kimberly A. PowellProfessor of Education, Art Education, Music Education, and Asian Studies
Charles D. YoumansProfessor of Music
Sarah H. WattsAssistant Professor of Music Education
R. J. David FregoProfessor of Music EducationDirector of the School of Music
iii
Abstract
The purpose of this oral history research is to explore the experiences, thoughts, and
values of higher education experts who have written and presented on popular music techniques
over time (from 1980-forward) and who incorporate popular music strategies into their own
teaching. Four higher music education faculty were invited to participate in individual
interviews. Findings suggest they considered the importance and benefits of including popular
music education in public K12 schools and that they believed popular music should be learned
through an authentic approach. However, lack of teacher preparation could be a challenge, thus
they suggested popular music making experiences in teacher education programs for preservice
teachers. They each have contributed to popular music education in different ways, including
starting a new popular music program in college, organizing a local community popular music
making group, and instructing popular music courses for music education majors in colleges.
The resistance from traditional music programs was another challenge, to which they suggested
avoiding potential conflicts with others and calling for successful models. They all contributed to
popular music in academic and practical ways. They received different feedback from their
colleagues when applying popular music in their teaching in music teacher education programs.
This dissertation discusses characteristics of including popular music practice in music
education, including the overloaded curriculum of music education programs, the conflict of
students’ music values, challenges in finding or creating r music education faculty with the
appropriate skills sets, the uniqueness of popular music pedagogy compared to more traditional
forms of music learning, faculty members' attitudes, and other potential challenges.
iv
Table of Contents
List of Tables vi
List of Figures vii
Introduction 1What is Popular Music 3
Literature Review 6Why Include Popular Music? 6
Bridging the gap 6Preferences & Enrollment 7
Popular Music Education in K12 8The history of popular music education in the United States 8
Before 1980 81980 to 2000 10In the 21st century 12Authenticity 15
Perspectives of Music Teachers 15Popular Music in Music Programs 19
In music education 19In music performance programs 21
Method 23Methodological framework 23Participants 23Data Collection 25Data Analysis Procedure 26Trustworthiness 26Limitations 27
Findings 28Dr. Cutietta 28Dr. Robert Woody 40Dr. Bryan Powell 55Dr. Jill Reese 72
Analysis and Conclusion 85RQ 1: What are Their Personal Histories of Developing Interest in, Researching, andPresenting and Publishing on the Topic of Popular Music in Music Education? 85
Why came to popular music education? 85Why include popular music in K12? 87How to teach popular music in K12? 89Major challenges 90
v
Conclusion 92RQ 2: How have they implemented their ideas about popular music education and the ideasof others within pre-service music education settings? 93
Courses 93Differences and similarities 95Challenges and solutions 96Conclusion 97
RQ 3: What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during theirexplorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal), fromschool, community, curricular standards in higher education? 98
Publications and contributions 98Engagement with Teachers 100Roadblocks and Response 101Conclusion 102
RQ 4: How has the implementation of their ideas fit within preexisting curricular structures?104
What were the thoughts and feedback of their colleagues in their programs? 105What are their current practices and how that compare to where their thinking began,including the impact on culture? 106
Dr. Woody 106Dr. Powell 107Dr. Reese 107
Conclusion 108
Discussion 110Brief Summary of the Findings 110Discussion 112Future Research 124
References 126
Appendix A: Email to Potential Participants 136
Appendix B: Interview Protocol 137
Appendix C: Resume of Dr. Robert Cutietta 140
Appendix D: Resume of Dr. Robert Woody 143
Appendix E: Resume of Dr. Bryan Powell 147
Appendix F: Resume of Dr. Jill Reese 152
Appendix G: Syllabus of Popular Music Techniques 154
Appendix H: Syllabus of Popular Musicianship 163
vi
List of Tables
Table 1: Interview Timeline 25
vii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Four Important Characteristics of Authentic Popular Music Making 114
1
Introduction
The history of popular music education in the United States can be traced throughout the
20th century. In 1967, music educators in the MENC (currently the National Association of
Music Education, NAfME) formed the Tanglewood Symposium to address social movements
and education issues in the 1960s. The Tanglewood Declaration, as the result of the symposium,
suggested expanding the repertoires in music classrooms. It was the first time music educators'
professional music organizations suggested including popular music in the music classrooms.
The music of all periods, styles, forms, and cultures belongs in the curriculum. The
musical repertory should be expanded to involve music of our time in its rich variety,
including currently popular teenage music and avant-garde music, American folk music,
and the music of other cultures. (Choate, 1968, p. 139)
While popular music culture has changed in the past six decades (Mauch, MacCallum,
Levy & Leroi, 2015), collegiate music schools have changed relatively little since the
Tanglewood Declaration. Although there is a history of professional publications that encourage
the inclusion of popular music in schools (Cutietta, 1985; Cuttita & Brennan, 1991; Sarig, 1969;
Thompson, 1979; Wagner & Brick, 1993), popular music education programs remain rare at
primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of institutionalized music education (Powell, Krikun &
Pignato, 2015).
America is the birthplace of many styles of popular music, yet popular music is still
fighting for a place within American schools and music teacher education programs. Many
teachers continue to feel uncomfortable including popular music in the classroom because they
have rarely practiced it in their music education preparation programs (Allsup, 2011; Leung and
Hung, 2008; Springer, 2015; Wang & Humphreys, 2009). Besides the lack of popular music
2
training in colleges, there are many reasons that teachers had not yet included popular music in
their teaching. One reason may be music teachers not feeling a balanced tradition and
developing popular music practice in the music classroom. A second reason may be due to the
unique characteristic of popular music pedagogy, such as how to teach popular music in the
classrooms and the keys to success in popular music learning and teaching. A third reason may
be due to a lack of time, financial support, space, and community support (Vasil, 2015).
While many educators have strongly suggested including popular music in music teacher
preparation programs, there are challenges to doing so. The first issue is the often overloaded
curriculum within music education programs. Many research articles indicated that current music
teacher training programs in the United States are overloaded (Bartolome, 2013; Conway, Eros,
Pellegrino, & West, 2010; Hickey & Rees, 2002). First, many faculties may wonder: where can
the popular music courses fit in? How can we engage popular music making experiences with
the music education program without exhausting the students who have complicated schedules
already? Second, most of the students in music teacher education programs value traditional
western music making experiences. Music education faculties may concern how to pursue the
students to spend time and make efforts on the popular music making experience. Third, because
all music education faculties in higher education are trained in a traditional route, few are
experienced in popular music making and teaching. It raised the problem of who can teach
popular music courses in colleges. Fourth is the popular music course in a music education
program: what the successful popular music education courses look like. We may find clues in
the practices that pioneers in this area have used to create new opportunities. Fifth is music
faculties' perspectives: how will other faculties in the schools of music respond to changes?
3
Sixth, according to the pioneers’ practice, what are potential challenges of popular music
teaching and learning? How can they deal with the challenges? Where can they start?
Popular music has its own cultures and characteristics compared to traditional western art
music which may lead to some hesitation in including popular music in K12 public schools. In
order to combat these fears, we need a full understanding of how popular music differs from the
music we teach in the classrooms. Many research articles, presentations, and practitioner papers
indicate that including popular music practice in schools requires far more than simply including
popular music repertoires. Green (2002) explored many professional popular musicians’ learning
practices and found that informal learning is the learning strategy they used. Then she proposed
five characteristics of informal music learning: (a) student authority for repertoire choice; (b)
students play music by copying recordings by ear; (c) peer-directed or self-directed learning; (d)
students acquire music skills and knowledge at the same time; and (e) focusing on students’
creativity (Green, 2008). Teaching popular music is not simply teaching guitar or adding popular
repertoires in the classroom: it requires a change about the pedagogy and understanding the
culture.
This dissertation will explore the possible answers concerning the challenges raised
above. The purpose of this oral history research is to explore the experiences, thoughts, and
values of high education experts who have written and presented on popular music techniques
over time (from 1980-forward) who incorporate popular music strategies into their own teaching.
What is Popular Music
Music is often classified according to genre, period, or style. Starr and Waterman (2007)
believed that popular music is defined by its difference from other music types, such as folk
music and art music. Toynbee (2000) concluded the characters of folk music are: (a) learned and
4
distributed via oral transmission; (b) created by unknown composer (s); (c) in most cases
performed by the composer; and (d) performed by people over a long period over time. Art
music is created by professionally trained composers employing musical notation for the
performer. On the other hand, popular music is performed and distributed via recorded sound,
which has evolved through the mass media's efforts. Furthermore, composers of art music
learned formally, but popular and folk music are learned informally (Toynbee, 2000).
Popular music is a slippery term, no less so in a pedagogical context. The term of popular
music was first coined in 1573 (Gammond, 1991). Since that time, the term of popular music has
referred to many different styles. Starr and Waterman (2007) indicated several characteristics of
popular music: (a) popular music is mass-reproduced and disseminated via the mass media; (b)
popular music has been listened to by large numbers of Americans at various times; and (c)
popular music typically uses a lot of preexisting musical traditions. Thus, they claimed that
popular music should be related to a broader musical landscape with extensive styles, audiences,
and institutions and their interactions in complex ways.
Popular music has a broader range of audiences. Bowman (2004) stated that popular
music is the “music created by, and especially for, the enjoyment and enrichment of everyday
people in their everyday lives” (p. 36). On the contrary, the audiences of art music has been
specified to the western middle classes, which marked the distinction of its listeners’ preference
over, and against the mass cultural taste of the popular classes (Toynbee, 2000, xix).
Shuker (2016) suggested popular music can be musically characterized by its hybrid of
musical traditions, styles and genres, and often applied strong rhythmical components and relies
on electronic amplification. However, he pointed out that the “central characteristic of popular
music is the socioeconomic one: its mass production for mass, and still predominated the
5
youth-oriented market” (p. 4). Sometimes popular music is called, known, and considered as pop
music. However, those two terms are not interchangeable: popular music is a generic term and
includes a broad range of music genres, while pop music is one of the genres of popular music.
Wikipedia shows hundreds of genres of popular music, and new popular music genres came out
rapidly.
The terms of popular music include broad areas. Within this dissertation the term popular
music will be defined as music is native to young people and will include the various ways in
which they engage with it including but not limited to listening, singing, performing, creating,
producing, and improvising. In this paper, I will use the term popular music as a shorthand for
the music, largely but not exclusively, produced for and consumed by the youth market.
Furthermore, popular music is larger than just music styles or genres. Popular music is a music
making process, a philosophy, a learning style, and autonomy.
6
Literature Review
This chapter is divided into four sections. The first section discusses the benefits of
including popular music in the K12 and music education programs. The second section examines
the history of including popular music in K12 schools in the United States. This section is
structured chronologically, including three periods of the history of popular music teaching and
learning: before the 1980s, 1980 to 2000, and 2000 to now. The third section reviews music
teachers’ perspectives on popular music learning and teaching. The final section concerns the
popular music in colleges’ music program, including the music education and music
performance programs.
Why Include Popular Music?
Bridging the gap
When music educators include popular music in the classroom, the curriculum may
become more relevant to students and may connect school music to the music they listen to and
explore outside of school. Teachers might bridge the gap between their students’ musical lives in
and out of school by including popular music in the classroom (Adams, 2016; Mills, 2000). By
doing this, the music curricula could better “reflect the musical world in which we live” (Woody,
2007a, p. 32). Although some music teachers might be concerned about the musical value of
popular music, by exploring a variety of music and using the same criteria one would use for
classical music, teachers could find selections that would be useful examples of “expressiveness,
craftsmanship, subtlety, and abstractness” (Pembrooke, 1991, p. 31). Students might become
more actively engaged in the classroom when they are learning through popular music. As Green
(2010) suggests, students are more invested and willing to participate actively in their learning
when teachers use music with which students are familiar and with which they have positive
7
personal associations. In addition, the informal learning practices of popular musicians could
also be beneficial tools for students (Green, 2008). When students learn music by ear in the
context of popular music, their aural skills abilities increased (Tobias, 2015).
Preferences & Enrollment
Research articles showed most young people in Western countries prefer popular music
(Hargreaves, Comber, & Colley, 1995; Leblanc, 1979), as well as young people in non-Western
countries (Hui, 2009; Law & Ho, 2015). There are many studies that investigated American
students’ preference for different music styles in the 20th century. Leblanc (1979) examined the
preference of 278 fifth-grade students and found the students preferred easy listening popular
most, followed by rock, Dixieland, country-western, classical instrumental music, and sacred
choral. Law and Ho (2015) found a majority of Chinese students liked popular music sung by
Mandarin (88.4%) and English (81.6%), as well as popular music from Japan (68.3%) and South
Korea (56.2%). Similarly, Hui (2009) indicated students in elementary and secondary schools in
Macau prefer listening to popular music over traditional Chinese music from their own culture.
While participation in music programs has declined over time (Child Trends Databank,
2015), some suggest that one strategy music teachers can use to combat declining enrollment is
including popular music (Doyle, 2014; Isbell, 2007; Green 2008). Researchers suggested
teachers should consider students’ preferences and should connect to their students’ cultural,
ethnic, and social backgrounds (Droe, 2006). Droe (2006) found students’ interest in music class
increased when teachers used repertoire the students prefered. In addition, Droe suggested
teachers consider students’ music preference when designing courses, choosing music, and
delivering instruction because music preference affects students’ attitude and participation.
8
Popular Music Education in K12
The history of popular music education in the United States
Before 1980
Music curricula have broadened substantially since music education emerged as a subject
within the standard curriculum. While the aesthetic philosophy espoused by Leonhard and House
(1959) suggested an emphasis on Western classical music, that narrow focus historically led to
the exclusion of many other genres of music (Fung, 1995; Colquhoun, 2018). Since that time, the
Tanglewood Declaration established that “music of all periods, styles, forms, and cultures
belongs in the curriculum. . . . [and should] involve music of our time in its rich variety,
including currently popular teenage music and avant-garde music, American folk music, and the
music of other cultures” (Choate, 1968, p. 139).
Since the Tanglewood Declaration, music educators started to fit popular music in the
public school music curriculum. Sarig (1969) reported the Youth Music Institute, which the
University of Wisconsin-Madison held, intended to bring music educators into contact with
youth music. Music educators who constituted the Youth Music Institute believed it was a fact
that most music educators still reject including youth music, such as rock, in class, whereas
youth music played an essential role in students’ daily lives. Thus, it was essential to open a
dialogue between educators and students and brought educators into contact with the youth
music and those musicians. The Youth Music Institute attracted 31 music educators and 18 youth
music groups of high-school-age from all over the country. The music educators expected to
reverse their roles in the classroom and learn from their students. At the same time, several
professional rock musicians attended the Institute by performing, lecturing, and discussing with
the educators and the students. The music educators had a chance to try various equipment
9
essential to youth music performance, such as electronic organs and guitars and amplification.
The Youth Music Institute offered an opportunity to open a dialogue between students and
educators. The discussion topics included the reasons to include youth music in the curriculum
and the relative pedagogy. The youth groups were the students who practice youth music outside
of music programs, suggesting that the school offer help for them to learn youth music, such as
providing instruction of electronic instruments, space to jam, and the youth music performance
opportunities. Furthermore, the educators and the students discussed the definition of youth
music. At the beginning of the Institute, many educators had a stereotyped idea of what youth
music was, but most of them agreed youth music was the music that was created and chosen by
youth people. At the end of the Institute, the educators realized that it was important to know
students’ need to include their music in the classroom and include students in planning and
designing new programs, courses, and curricula.
Thompson (1979) reported his experiences of fitting popular music into a junior high
school. He found a shortage of male students in choral groups due to the gap between music in
the class and the music in students’ daily life, and he suggested left time for learning popular
music in the music curriculum. One of the essential benefits of including popular music in
classrooms was it would build a trustful relationship between the students and the teachers; thus,
it would be easier for students to accept teachers’ teaching regarding other music styles and
concepts. He introduced a clear idea to include popular music in general music class, and he
designed a year-long curriculum to introduce a history of rock from the fifties to the seventies.
Furthermore, he combined popular music topics by activity and movement.
Moreover, he used popular music selections in the choir. He pointed out one of the
problems: it was hard to find a selection that was acceptable for both the students and the teacher.
10
For instance, he adapted many SATB arrangements of popular music songs to make them
singable for young voices and changing voices. He also suggested that teachers select a piece of
music with appropriate lyrics. He also mentioned that piano accompaniment was not sufficient
for pop songs, and he suggested including popular music instruments accompaniment choirs.
Thompson proposed and experimented with a performance lab at his school. He found
many students, who were not members of the school band, orchestra, or chorus, learned music
from their peers, played music by ear without a teacher’s aid, and some of them were not able to
read music notation. Thus he simplified music reading in the performance lab: teaching students
to play from chord symbols or read a single melody line.
1980 to 2000
More writings on popular music learning and teaching had appeared since 1980. During
that time, music educators were attempting to broaden their teaching with new technologies and
new developments within popular music. When rock videos became a new phenomenon in the
1980s, Cuttita (1985) explored the advantages of using rock videos when teaching pop/rock
music. He used the video and the scenes changing to help students to identify instruments,
perceive musical elements, finds form and meter changes, and grasp phrasing. He also believed
music videos and also be used in classical music, as well.
Cuttita and Brennan (1991) introduced their experiences to including popular repertoires
in student ensembles. Many music teachers would like to include popular repertoires in
classrooms, but they also felt hesitant due to insufficient knowledge of popular music. Cuttita
and Brennan pointed out the differences between those two: the popular music band was in a
smaller group and improvisation is encouraged. They valued copy-by-ear learning in the popular
music ensembles because it was one of the best ways for ear training and learning stylistic riffs.
11
However, they realized the disadvantage of copy-band, because it was devalued by many popular
musicians and offered no value for students' creativity. Thus, they suggested music teachers start
with a leading sheet that contained the chords and the melody line of a song, then invited
students to improvise by themselves in the blank spaces. They believed such improvisation
would lead students to their own song writing. Also, they offered detailed suggestions for
playing each popular musical instrument in the band. For instance, they suggested each guitarist
should be aware of their role in the band: harmonic, melodic, or percussive. They mentioned that
all three guitars should not strum the same chord at the same time to keep a clear texture. They
also focused on the differences between classical piano and pop keyboard. The popular keyboard
player should work on chord structure and realize that the keyboard is not a solo instrument in a
pop band.
Wagner and Brick (1993) advocated the advantages of using karaoke machines in the
classroom. Generally, karaoke machines help shy and demure people feel comfortable singing in
public. The key of music accompanying in a karaoke machine could raise or lower as the singer
wishes from musical aspects. Selecting repertoires was a significant problem that music teachers
met when they include popular music in classrooms. Karaoke machines offered much more
contemporary songs than those generally taught in music textbooks. Moreover, karaoke
machines offered professional accompaniment, thus traditional keyboard accompaniments were
not needed. Besides, traditional music sheets are not needed as well. They used karaoke units in
four schools for four months as an experiment to explore students' responses. They found
karaoke machines helped students to concentrate on music because it was free to sheet music.
The lyrics or the text would appear on the screen, and students would look at it carefully; thus,
the teacher could stand next to the monitor and give suggestions when needed. Simultaneously,
12
because the teachers using the karaoke machine were free to play the piano accompanying
playing, they were free to move around the classroom to correct students' posture. Furthermore,
it was helpful to the music budget due to the sheet music not needed. After the experiment, they
found students enjoyed the karaoke and learned musical knowledge faster and easier.
In the 21st century
Green (2002) interviewed various professional rock musicians in the United Kingdom to
explore their music learning experiences and concluded that informal learning is the learning
strategy that most popular musicians use. Six years later, Green published a groundbreaking
book Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008), and
proposed five characteristics of informal music learning: (a) students’ authorities for repertoires
choice; (b) students play music by copying recordings by ear; (c) peer-directed learning; (d)
students acquire music skills and knowledge at the meantime; and (e) focusing on students’
personal creativity. Furthermore, she concluded a seven-stage pedagogy for the informal learning
practices of popular musicians. During Stage 1, the students picked their own “friendship
groups” to work with and chose a song to learn. The student groups had time to listen to the
recording and try to imitate it by ear. Students were also allowed to pick whatever instruments
they preferred. In Stage 2, the teachers gave the students a pre-selected piece of music to copy.
The CD recording of this piece also contained tracks of broken-down versions of the song,
concentrating on specific riffs or phrases. Stage 3 placed the students back in charge of all
aspects of their learning. They chose what piece of music to copy and what instruments to play,
yet again. Stage 3 differed from Stage 1 mainly because now the students had a better idea of
what was expected of them. During this stage, many of the students decided to pick out music
based on how difficult or easy they thought it would be to play, instead of whether or not the
13
song was popular. The fourth stage offered the students an opportunity to create their own
compositions. During the fifth stage, teachers brought popular musicians into the school, and
these musicians played for the students and explained their process of writing songs. Stages 6
and 7 introduced classical music to the informal learning practices. In Stage 6, teachers gave
students a CD with five excerpts of classical pieces that the students could pick from to aurally
copy. Green’s informal learning idea is deeply effective in popular music learning practice. Stage
7 was similar to Stage 2 because teachers once again gave the students a recording of a piece of
music to copy, and the CD recording also contained tracks of the piece broken down into
segments. However, this time the piece of music was a classical piece.
Based on Green’s informal learning theory, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation initiated and
funded Musical Futures in the United Kingdom in 2003 to devise new and imaginative ways of
engaging young people in activities through a process of informal learning based on popular
music. Hallam, Creech and McQueen (2017) that the students who engaged in Music Futures
demonstrated higher attainment levels, greater enjoyment of and positive attitudes towards music
lessons, enhanced musical and performance skills, teamwork, concentration, confidence,
listening skills, musical understanding, and independent learning. There are many benefits of a
curriculum that offers practical music-making, taking account of young people’s musical
preferences, and is inclusive, supporting all students in actively engaging with music. However,
they also found many challenges that music teachers had.
Koops, Hankins, Scalise, and Schatt (2014) surveyed to explore the long-term impact of
participation in an informal learning setting. They investigated The Lakewood Project (TLP)
alumni, which provided students with the opportunity to play music of their choice on their
preferred instruments. Findings suggest one of the social aspects was the most significant benefit
14
of TLP. Furthermore, the study reported increased ability in both the logistics of performing
music and motivation to pursue lifelong music-making, both for enjoyment and a possible career.
In addition, this informal music learning approach positively affected students in extra-musical
aspects, such as increased confidence. They also found Group practice plays a major role in
informal learning of pop music. Informal learning in the realm of popular music usually is a
group activity. The group members decide what music they will learn, how to approach the goal,
and how to improve the final outcome. Through conversation and negotiation to reach a
consensus, group members choose the music and instruments; they also listen to the sound of
each other’s playing to adjust their playing. This non-vocal communication pattern is more
effective in group activities than vocal communication.
David Wish founded Little Kids Rock (LKR) in 2002, a national nonprofit organization
that aims to promote popular music in K12 public school music classes (Little Kids Rock, 2021).
The LKR team proposed Modern Band, a new school music program, to teach students to
perform, improvise, and compose using popular music styles. More than 850,000 students from
more than 400 school districts in 45 states have been reached. Wish et al. (2020) proposed a
popular music learning theory Learning Music as a Second Language for the Modern Band
curriculum. Three lenses are applied in the method: play music before reading music notation,
play chords before understanding the music theory, and allow sloppy approximations when
students are playing.
Powell, Krikun, and Pignato (2015) found popular music programs started in K12 public
schools in 2010s. The Music Makes Us (MMU) was launched in 2012, which developed popular
music ensembles in the Metro Nashville Public Schools system in Tennessee. Furthermore, the
New York City Public School system, LKR, and the Berklee College of Music launched Amp Up
15
NYC to help establish Modern Band, which is a popular music program, in more than 600 public
schools in public schools in New York City.
Authenticity
Many music educators considered authenticity as a critical issue of popular music
teaching and learning. When including pop music, teachers are concerned that they will not
recreate an authentic popular music learning experience (Wright, 2016). Informal learning is the
learning strategy that most popular musicians use (Green, 2008), and this type of learning does
not always translate to every classroom setting (Wright, 2016). Outside of school, popular
musicians make every choice and work coherently in an agreed-upon group structure. When this
is brought to the music classroom, teachers may not feel comfortable giving students freedom of
choice, both in choosing the repertoire and the instruments (Wright, 2016).
Perspectives of Music Teachers
Many research articles investigated teachers’ perspectives on including popular music in
the classroom, the factors that enable the success and effectiveness of popular music programs,
and how the music teachers enact change when applying popular music in their classroom.
Kondracka-Szala and Michalak (2019) investigated the presence of popular music within
preschool education by using an online survey with 115 Polish preschool teachers. The research
questions are to what degree popular music is used in the preschool class and the teachers'
perspectives of using popular music. Almost 87% of the teachers used popular music in the
classroom, and many of them responded that they used popular music at parties (82%), games
(81%), celebration and children’s performance (71%), and in didactic class (50%). Popular music
is most frequently used in the course of music and movement classes (about 96%), followed by
in the course of listening to music (56%), and during singing workshops (about 47%). For the
16
value of popular music includes the artistic/aesthetic value (81%), didactic value (47%),
educational value (37%), and therapeutic value (49%). The majority of respondents (96%)
believed that children’s reactions to this type of music were positive due to the music's character
and features such as vibrancy, simplicity, audible rhythm, easily memorable lyrics, and musical
motifs. Moreover, children are familiar with this type of music because they listen to it at home
and other places, therefore the joy and pleasure it produces is even greater.
Ng (2018) explored teachers’ perspectives about the factors that may enable the success
and effectiveness of popular music programs in public schools in Singapore secondary schools.
Specifically, the participants are three music teachers who attended three three-hour popular
music workshops to better acquaint them with popular music teaching practices and lesson ideas
in the music classroom. Ng found four interactive enablers for delivering popular music in class:
pedagogy, resources, students dispositions, and school disposition. First, from the pedagogical
perspective, curriculum structure, management strategies, and teaching strategies are essential to
pedagogy's success and effectiveness. Second, enough resources are important to popular music
teaching and learning, such as readily available equipment, sufficient time, teacher-student ratio,
available space for students to practice. Third, student disposition towards popular music
learning was enhanced by involving and engaging them directly to improve motivation and
attitude, such as student role modeling and peer tutoring, and ownership of learning. Moreover,
school leadership and school culture impacted teachers' ability to craft and deliver their popular
music programs in ways that they felt would best develop and engage their students.
Musical Futures is a program in the United Kingdom for including popular music in
public schools. The initial aim of Musical Futures was to devise new and imaginative ways of
engaging young people in activities through a process of informal learning based on popular
17
music. Hallam, Creech, and McQueen (2017) researched teachers’ perspectives of the impact of
applying the Musical Futures approach on students’ learning and attainment. They surveyed 28
music teachers and interviewed 30 music teachers in six case study schools. The results indicated
many benefits of applying the Musical Futures approach in schools. The majority of music staff
agreed that the students who engaged in the Music Futures program demonstrated higher levels
of attainment, greater enjoyment of and positive attitudes towards music lessons, enhanced
musical and performance skills, teamwork, concentration, confidence, listening skills, musical
understanding, and independent learning. The focus on active music-making and performance
enabled teachers to identify those with high-level musical skills acquired outside of the formal
school system who might otherwise have remained unrecognized enabling them to fulfill their
potential. There are many benefits of a curriculum that offers practical music-making, taking
account of young people’s musical preferences, and is inclusive, supporting all students in
actively engaging with music. However, they also found many challenges that music teachers
had. Teachers felt pressured to engage with the workshopping approach required to implement
Musical Futures daily, and they should have an integrated informal approach that satisfies all
young people's needs into the target-driven priorities of schools. Furthermore, teachers also need
appropriate instrumental and musical skills to engage rock/pop music in the classroom.
Vasil (2019) conducted a multiple case study to examine practices and perspectives of
four music teachers who integrated popular music and informal music learning practices into
their secondary school music programs in the United States. This article also described the
process of music teachers enacting change. She pointed out that it was a fact that there was a lack
of student engagement in music classes because the students felt insecure in their musical
abilities and disconnected from the content and pedagogy used in music classes. For the teachers
18
in this study, the solution was integrating popular music and informal music learning practices to
keep the students. Eight characteristics of effective teacher-initiated change in secondary
music education had been found: (1) teachers had holistic and gradual change processes; (2)
teacher reflection and inquiry, which means that teachers thought deeply about students’ abilities,
needs, and interests when designing pedagogy; (3) teacher autonomy, that they were able to
make changes within existing classes without prior approval; (4) enabling institutional factors,
that school structures of time and space were flexible enough for teachers to bring their ideas for
change to fruition; (5) use of a variety of supportive networks, such as administrators,
colleagues, parents, and students; (6) student-centered pedagogy, (7) teacher-selected
professional development, and (8) a balance of structure and chaos and formal and informal
learning.
Springer (2015) investigated music teachers’ perception and preparation of teaching
popular music in the classroom. He surveyed 160 music teachers from two regional chapters of
the American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA) located in different United States regions.
All participants completed an online questionnaire. Results suggest that the sample viewed
popular music to be effective as a tool for addressing the 1994 National Standards, and their
ratings of popular music’s effectiveness reflected some commonly-cited trends in the literature.
However, results showed low effectiveness ratings for the “creativity standards”—standards 3
(improvising) and 4 (composing and arranging) when including popular music in the classroom.
He also found that 90% of teachers felt unprepared to include popular music because their
undergraduate preparation courses involved limited popular music making experience. Springer
suggested teachers could increase informal experiences (such as listening) by practicing current
19
popular music, seeking resources to support, and attending conferences and professional
development.
These articles contributed to the positive attributes of the inclusion of popular music in
schools. Because students are familiar with the music genre (Kondracka-Szala & Michalak,
2019; Springer, 2015), they have a positive reaction (Kondracka-Szala & Michalak, 2019) and
are more willing to engage with and stay at the music class (Hallam, Creech & McQueen, 2017;
Ng, 2018; Springer, 2015). However, professional training is needed because many music
teachers lack popular music and pedagogical training. As a result, they are hesitant to include
popular music in the classroom (Spring, 2015). Music Futures offered professional training to
music teachers, which has many benefits: students’ attainment and engagement, social
interaction, subject, intellect (Hallam, Creech & McQueen, 2017). However, many teachers
believe the professional development program is pressure, and it is hard to meet schools’ needs
(Hallam, Creech & McQueen, 2017). Successful popular music program needs school support
(Ng, 2018), including teachers’ autonomy, institutional factor, supportive networks (Vasil, 2019).
It is important to help teachers with their professional development in an easier way (Hallam,
Creech & McQueen, 2017), because pedagogical and popular music skill training are important
for the success (Hallam, Creech & McQueen, 2017; Ng, 2018; Vasil; 2019).
Popular Music in Music Programs
In music education
Music programs in colleges have mostly retained the conservatory model, which has been
consistent since the 19th century (Greher, 2008). Most music teacher preparation programs
focused on notation-based western classical music making and teacher-centered pedagogy.
Furthermore, it was hard to apply new practice and content due to lack of time, financial support,
20
space, less concrete outcomes, and hard to assess due to popular music practice (Vasil, 2015).
Thus, music education students had limited experience in popular music making.
As a result, although these teachers reported they perceived popular music as an effective
instructional tool in the music classroom, music teachers felt unprepared to include popular
music in their classrooms, because most music teachers had experience with and were trained in
formal music practices exclusively (Springer, 2015). Furthermore, music teachers reported a lack
of popular music performing experience is another reason that they felt uncomfortable including
popular music in the classroom (Allsup, 2011). On the contrary, music teachers spent most of
their time on Western-art music study when they were undergraduate students. A research study
(Wang & Humphreys, 2009) estimated the percentage of time that music education majors spent
on 13 styles of music during the 4-year program. The study showed music education majors
spent more than 90% of their time on western-art music performance, history, and theory, but
spent less than 1% of their time on pop music courses. They stated that music education majors
received too little popular music preparation in their core music courses, which enabled them to
teach successfully in accordance with many district, state, and national policies, including
several of the national music standards. They suggested that allowing music education students
to satisfy a portion of their ensemble requirements through participation in non-western or
popular music ensembles might provide more multicultural balance to the music teacher training
program. Leung and Hung (2008) pointed out that the lack of popular music teaching and
learning preparation in music teacher programs will promote the gap between the classroom
content and the actual context of students’ out-of-school music experiences.
Popular music in music teacher education has developed in a positive direction since
2010. Many teacher education programs started to include popular music making experience as
21
part of their traditional pre-service teacher training programs. For example, Michigan State
University has included songwriting courses for music education majors since 2014; the
University of Nebraska Lincoln offered songwriting and rock band for music majors since 2013.
Furthermore, the University of South Florida started an innovative popular music methods
program, Creative Performance Chamber Ensemble, for the undergraduate music education
majors in 2011 (Powell, Krikun & Pignato, 2015).
In music performance programs
Popular music studies have had a long history in tertiary education, and people could take
private lessons from individual teachers or studios. However, rarely were organized popular
music courses offered in higher education, especially practical music-making experiences, such
as performance or songwriting (Krikun, 2010).
Although popular music courses largely consisted outside the music departments, the
inclusion of popular music in collegiate music programs in the United States was increasing. The
University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music launched a popular music
performance program in 2008, which was one of the first specialized popular music performance
programs offered in a conservatory in the United States (Greenwald, 2013). Moreover, The
SUNY Oneonta started a music industry program in 2014, which offered many popular music
ensemble courses, including jam bands, funk ensembles, rock ensembles, as well as songwriting
and production courses focused on popular repertoire.
Higher music education program calls for a change. Popular music, which plays a vital
role in the 21st century, should be included in higher music education. The question of many
music educators in higher institutions is: where and how to start? It may be wise to start from the
experiences of the experts in the field. Furthermore, although many studies explore applications
22
of popular music learning and teaching in music teachers’ education with people of different
ages, races, cultural contexts, or music experiences, few studies concern the histories of high
education experts who have written and presented on popular music techniques over time. What
are the thoughts, stories, and experiences of music education researchers regarding popular
music teaching and learning, who published on this topic from the 1980s forward? Thus, The
purpose of this oral history research is to explore the history, thoughts, and values of high
education experts who have written and presented on popular music techniques over time (from
1980-forward) who incorporate popular music strategies into their own teaching. The research
questions are:
1. What are the higher music education faculty's personal histories of developing interest in,
researching, and presenting and publishing on the topic of popular music in music
education?
2. How have they implemented their ideas and the ideas of others about popular music
education within pre-service music education settings?
3. What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during their
explorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal, from
school, community, curricular standards) in higher education?
4. How has the implementation of their ideas fit within preexisting curricular structures?
i. What were the thoughts and feedback of their colleagues in their
programs?
ii. What are their current practices and how that compares to where their
thinking began, including the impact on culture?
23
Method
Methodological framework
The methodology of this research project is an oral history. Oral history consists of
gathering personal reflections of events and their causes and effects from one individual or
several individuals (Plummer, 1983). Oral history is a method of conducting historical research
through recorded interviews between a narrator with personal experience of historically
significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of adding to the historical
record (University Library of UC Santa Cruz, 2020). Through oral history, researchers can gain a
deeper understanding of historical experience (Oral History Association, 2009). Creswell and
Poth (2018) mention oral history is a research method of the narrative approach, and oral history
involves interviewing people about their historical lived experiences. This article uses the oral
history method because it intends to explore the experiences of higher education experts in
popular music learning and teaching encounters by exploring the history, thoughts, and values of
high education experts who have written and presented on popular music techniques over time
(from 1980-forward), and who incorporate popular music strategies into their own higher
teaching.
Participants
A purposeful sampling strategy was used to recruit participants. Four higher music
experts were invited to participate. These four researchers represent different periods of time in
popular music publications from the 1980s forward. Each invited participant is a researcher who
is well known in the field of popular music education in the United States and that serves as
faculty in music education degree-granting institutions and has or had included popular music
learning and teaching in their program regularly.
24
As participants were of the age of consent, thus Penn State IRB is not required (even at
an exempt level as Penn State does not view oral history as “research”). Using an oral history
approach I was able to make progress on my dissertation regardless of lasting impacts resulting
from Covid-19 as interviews with participants occurred over the phone or via video conferencing
and materials could be shared electronically.
I conducted preliminary research using non-oral sources to identify potential
participants, then I made a list of six potential interviewees. I emailed them one by one (see
Appendix A for the recruitment email). Four interviewees agreed to participate in this research.
Here is detailed information of the four interviewees:
1. Dr. Robert Cutietta is a professor of Music Teaching and Learning. He has served as dean
of the Thornton School of Music and the Kaufman School of Dance at the University of
Southern California since 2002. He is one the finalists judges of GRAMMY Signature
School Award and GRAMMY Outstanding Educator Award. He started a well-known
popular music performance program in USC, which is the first specialized collegiate
popular music performance program in the United States.
2. Dr. Robert Woody is a professor of Music Education in the Glenn Korff School of Music
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He contributed practically and theoretically to
popular music learning and teaching in higher music education, and he is the founder of
Popular Musicianship for music education undergraduate students. He started his career
in music education in the 1990s.
3. Dr. Bryan Powell is an assistant professor of Music Education and Music Technology at
Montclair State University, New Jersey, who served as the Director of Higher Education
for Little Kids Rock. He was also the Interim Director of Amp Up NYC, a partnership
25
between Little Kids Rock and Berklee College of Music. His music education career
started in the 2000s.
4. Dr. Jill Reese is an associate professor of music education at State University of New
York at Fredonia. She is the founder of Fredonia Ukulele and a YouTube channel that
provides play-along videos for ukulele. Her music education career started in the 2000s.
Data Collection
Oral history depends upon human memory and the spoken word (Moyer, 1999). The
forms of data collection of narrative inquiry primarily use interviews and document analysis
(Creswell & Poth, 2018). Thus, the data collection procedure includes interviews and artifacts
collection. First, I interviewed each interviewee twice via Zoom. Each interview lasted 45
minutes. These interviews are recorded by zoom recording and phone recording. The interviews
are transcribed by myself. Table 1 shows the timeline for interviews.
Table 1: Interview Timeline
Name Interview 1 (Estern Time) Interview 2 (Eastern Time)
Dr. Cutietta Sep. 14, 2020, 5pm - 5:45pm Sep. 16, 2020, 5pm - 5:45pm
Dr. Woody Sep. 4, 2020: 10am - 10:45am Sep. 11, 2020: 10am - 10:45am
Dr. Powell Aug. 17, 2020: 4pm - 4:45pm Aug. 24, 2020: 4pm - 4:45pm
Dr. Reese Aug. 5, 2020: 2pm - 2:45pm Aug. 12, 2020: 2pm - 2:45pm
The interview questions are developed based on the research questions. The interview questions
have been approved by the chair of the committee. See Appendix B for the detailed interview
questions.
Second, I collected related materials as artifacts, including their resumes (See Appendix
C, D, E, and F), publications, written research materials, teaching and classroom materials,
26
including course syllabi and lesson plans (see Appendix G and H). I requested their resumes and
course syllabuses in the invitation emails. I collected their publications via the University Library
System based on their publication list in their resumes.
Data Analysis Procedure
I transcribed all the interviews. I first focused on the analysis of each individual by
reading the transcripts. Then I used MAXQDA 2020, a computer software program that enables
researchers to code and organize themes for qualitative research to code.
After I transcripted the interviews, I coded them by utilizing a structural coding method.
Structural coding is a method to code data according to research questions or topics, to take a
large set of semi-structured data. First, I made a list of interview questions. Second, I turned each
interview question into a code. Third, I read through the transcripts and then applied the code to
sections relevant to the interview questions. Fourth, I analyzed within interview questions. I also
used artifacts as supplements to help triangulate the data from the interviews..
Trustworthiness
Oral history has its limitations because oral history depends upon living people as
sources. Moyer (1999) suggested using tape recorders or similar technology equipment to record
oral narratives accurately. Thus, I recorded all interviews with multiple devices to increase
trustworthiness. Trustworthiness would be achieved via member checking, triangulation of data,
and consideration of researcher reflexivity prompted by critical analysis (Creswell & Poth,
2018). I invited all interviewees to read the transcripts after they finished their second interviews.
All interviewees offered corrections. Because oral history is the story about people’s lives and
may have some misremembering of specific time or location, I checked those with their resumes
to ensure accuracy. Furthermore, I read their writings concerning popular music education,
27
including those they mentioned in the interviews, and others they did not mention in the
interview but appeared in their resumes, to achieve the full picture of their thoughts, philosophy,
experiences, and history of popular music education. In addition, I read the syllabus of the
popular music making courses they are teaching, to acquire more information.
Limitations
The first possible limitation could be the shortness of interview time. All interviewees
have rich experience and long history in popular music making, learning, and teaching. A total
90-minutes interviews may not allow them to describe their experiences fully, and detailed
information may be missed. Second, there are no video clips offered by the interviewees, it might
be a shortcoming to understand their experiences in a detailed, accurate way.
28
Findings
Dr. Cutietta
Dr. Cuttietta is working as Dean of both the USC Thornton School of Music and the
Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. He is one the finalists judges of GRAMMY Signature School
Award and GRAMMY Outstanding Educator Award. He started a well-known popular music
performance program in USC, which is the first specialized collegiate popular music
performance program in the United States.
RQ 1: What are their personal histories of developing interest in, researching, and
presenting and publishing on the topic of popular music in music education?
Dr. Cuttietta was born in 1953 in Cleveland, Ohio. He described his music making
history before college as “all in Rock and Roll” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020).
Although he took accordion lessons from fourth grade, he quit it soon. He started bass guitar
playing during fifth grade because he was interested in popular music, such as the Beatles. He
learned bass guitar with his older brother and the peers in the band. He learned bass guitar fast,
which made him be able to play gigs at bars when he was 12 years old. By the time he was in
high school, he had played bass guitar professionally in bars five nights a week. Dr. Cutietta
claimed that he was rarely involved with school music: he quitted choir in the fifth grade, but he
took AP Theory for two years in high school.
He started his undergraduate program at Cleveland State University, majored in music
theory. Because there was no bass guitar performance program available in the college, he
majored in music theory alternatively. He taught music theory for sixth and seventh graders in
his senior year, making him interested in a music teaching degree.
29
He claimed that three tracks are going on in his life: a professor, a musician playing in
bars, and a Church musician. He ran music programs in the Methodist Church literally for 30
years, and he conducted the bell choirs, adult choirs, and a praise band. He continued his bass
guitar playing until today. He claimed it was an essential part of his life: “I am still playing when
I become a dean here... I am 50 years old and I was still playing at least three nights a week in
bars, so it is just an important part of what I did" (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020).
Dr. Cutietta acquired a music education bachelor's degree in 1975, a master's degree in
Cleveland State University in 1978, and a doctorate in music education in Penn State in 1982. At
that time, popular music had not yet drawn much attention in the music education community.
Before he became the dean of the school of music at USC in the 2000s, he worked in many
higher education institutions, including Montana State University, Kent State University, and The
University of Arizona. He always advocates for popular music learning and teaching in music
teachers education. However, he rarely applied his ideas before becoming the dean of USC. He
believed those schools he used to work are very traditional, and all of his colleagues and students
in those schools were playing traditional instruments. After he became the dean of USC, he
started a program reformation in 2002:
So when I became dean here, that suddenly I said, “okay I have been writing about this
for 15 years, now I'm in charge. If I don't do it, then all that I should just take that all out
of the literature”. So we started work on instructing a popular music program, and it was
a true popular music program. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020)
Dr. Cutietta claimed that he has rarely published peer-reviewed research articles in
popular music learning and teaching. He believed that his writings were majorly concerned with
advocacy. His first article about popular music learning and teaching was published in 1985, at
30
that time more writings on popular music education appeared. This article was about using rock
video as an educational tool to teach music elements such as identifying instruments, form,
meter, and phrase. He also presented his ideas in many peer conferences.
There were two major advocacies that Dr. Cutietta mentioned in the interviews. The first
is the authenticity of popular music making in schools. He referred to the authenticity of popular
music making as using the popular music instruments and songwritings, rather than covering
others’ repertoires by traditional instruments. The second is his philosophy of music education:
schools should look different from each other. In other words, schools should build their music
program based on their community:
A school in the middle of Nashville, the country music capital of the world, should not
look like a program in Minneapolis, they have to reflect their culture and where they are.
And every place has that: if you are in the Southwest like we are, every city here has a
Spanish name, Los Angeles it's a Spanish name, why are not we reflecting in our schools
much more energy to a much more Hispanic mariachi. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep.
14, 2020)
He believed it would be beneficial if all K12 schools include popular music in music
programs in an authentic way. He suggested that schools change in the type of ensembles that are
there. An authentic popular music program should use “the right instrumentation, or least
appropriate instrumentation, and it is not enough by just reproducing, it should be making it your
own” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020). Moreover, he believed that the most critical
part of authenticity is learning orally, rather than learning by notations. Furthermore, popular
music creating, such as songwriting and music technology, is a huge part of authentic popular
music making.
31
Furthermore, similar to his idea that schools should look different from each other,
popular music programs should be built based on the local community culture, that is, popular
music programs are more suitable for the schools that have the tradition of popular music
making. Besides, the pedagogies should be based on the community, as well: “it could be very
different in Nashville and in New York City, and It could be very different in France than it is in
the United States. So I think there's going to be Regional things” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep.
14, 2020).
He believed successful popular music teachers need to have been involved in the popular
music culture to understand it before they teach students, and it cannot have just happened
casually with some others. For the music teachers who would like to include popular music in
the class but have fewer experiences with it, he suggested:
What they have to do first and foremost is not worrying about teaching yet, they have to
learn themselves, they have to experience, I wanna say to relearn to be a musician, but
that is too extreme, but they have to first of all experience as a musician. So you know for
example, right now there are so many wonderful things you can do online with software
like creating music, recording, all those things, they should take the time to learn to be
songwriters, they have to first increase their musical skills to do that, that is number one.
Number two is too many people want to take a class from music education how to teach
it, that doesn't do any good if you are not doing the first yourself, I mean you cannot take
an English teacher and make him a band director if they have never played in band, and
so it is the same thing here. That is my advice, start first and do not worry about teaching,
don't worry about teaching skills anything like that, that comes second, really includes
32
yourself into the popular music making culture. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14,
2020)
He mentioned the most significant challenge when including popular music in the
classroom is the lack of authenticity. First, many music teachers use popular music as a tool to
teach music elements, rather than making popular music actually. Second, he mentioned music
teachers might have a misunderstanding of popular music making. For instance, many music
teachers teach popular music in a traditional way, such as covering popular tunes with classical
instruments or traditional choirs, but claiming that they have included popular music in the
classroom. Third, lack of authentic facilities could be a roadblock:
They [music teachers] have traditional band rooms and choir rooms, a choir room means
you can sing and resonate. You put up a pop band in there and it just does not work. So
the facilities are wrong, the instruments are wrong. They do not teach synthesizer, and
guitar, and bass, or drum set, they just do not do it. And even things like teachers are
evaluated on solo ensemble concert contests, they do not have them for that, they only
have them in the traditional ways. So even classical guitar hasn't come into the schools.
(Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020)
RQ 2: How have they implemented their ideas about popular music education and the
ideas of others within pre-service music education settings?
Dr. Cutietta started his idea of the reconstruction of the music program when he became
the dean of the school of music at USC in 2002, which he never had a chance to do before. He
started a four-year popular music program at the USC, which was one of the first specialized
popular music performance programs offered in a conservatory in the United States (Greenwald,
2013). The program mainly focused on popular music performance and songwriting. The
33
students who have finished the program would acquire a bachelor's music degree. In the first two
years, the students learn to perform in the style they chose, such as 90s Punk, country music,
Beatles, or Motown. Their goal was to learn to reproduce the style authentically, rather than play
the tunes with orchestra instruments. Students will be graded and evaluated by the infield
musicians who were experts of the style. Simultaneously, students would also take songwriting
classes. In their third and fourth year, they will make all original music:
Because most popular music performers are also songwriters and arrangers. The students
will help in the creation of it, which is very different from classical music, who do not
dare change something on the page. The Great artists in popular music either write their
own, or change to make it their own but the person is written. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview,
Sep. 14, 2020)
There were many challenges that Dr. Cutietta faced when he started the popular music
program. He claimed that there was a lack of facilities, courses, and faculties for the program.
Everything is the road blocked. Because I found that when we wanted to start our
programs, we had a very good music building, [but] none of our rooms worked. They are
all made for acoustic music making; none of them work for amplified music. None of our
classes worked; traditional music theory does not work if you talk about hip hop, it just
does not work. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020)
Because the music school of USC is a conservatory, there was no music education in the
popular music program. Dr. Cutitta tried to create a one-year intensive certification program for
the students who were also interested in popular music teachers after graduation. He believed it
would also help the non-traditional students who want to study in music education majors but
hard to get through the program.
34
The one-year teaching program was successful, but not entirely successful. Although
there were about 12 or 13 students who graduate each year, it was hard to find appropriate music
education faculty to teach popular music pedagogy method courses. Dr. CutiettaI stopped the
program once to find a new faculty who could teach popular music pedagogy. After about two or
three years, a new music education faculty was found and started the program again.
Nevertheless, in 2019, the program was closed for the second time because there were not
enough students to sign up for it: there were only two students in the program in the 2018-2019
academic year. Dr. Cuttieta pointed out that finding a faculty of popular music education is one
of the roadblocks he met:
That was hard to find, because music education faculty, again, now they are hired from
the traditional route, the route you follow, the route I followed, and there were not a lot of
people that came through in that way; they all came through the traditional school. So
that was part of the problem to finding the faculty. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14,
2020)
He believed that popular music pedagogy is totally different from the traditional
pedagogy, thus he had additional requirements for the popular pedagogy faculty. First, the faculty
should learn music orally before diving into notation or written music: “they probably should
have learned oral first and instead of notation, they would have learned by ear, that is a critical
part” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020). Second, the faculty should be experienced in
music creating: “They would have had creating, whether was just a soul or something else from
day one, as well, so not that tied to the written page” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020).
He gave a sample based on his music making experience: “when they learned, like myself, I had
35
learned to read notation way after as a professional musician, now it seems backwards to most
people, so I think they have to come from that” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020).
He admitted that it was hard to find faculty who could meet his requirements. The most
crucial reason was that all music education programs in the United States follow a traditional
route, where art music plays the dominant role in their music making experiences. Again, the
characters he was looking for from popular music education faculty are the authentic popular
music making experience, which can rarely be found in the music educators who have learned in
the traditional music training system.
RQ 3: What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during their
explorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal), from
school, community, curricular standards in higher education?
As mentioned above, Dr. Cutietta claimed his publications were mainly focused on
advocating his music education philosophy: suggesting including popular music in public school
programs and encouraging diverse programs based on the local community from the 1980s. In
other words, he suggested that music programs in both K12 public schools and in colleges should
look different from each other, rather than having the same structure across the country:
We need to be more location-based: a school in the middle of Nashville, the country
music capital of the world, should not look like a program in Minneapolis, they have to
reflect their culture and where they are. And every place has that: if you are in the
Southwest like we are, every city here has a Spanish name, Los Angeles is a Spanish
name, why are not we reflecting in our schools much more energy to a much more
Hispanic mariachi. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020)
36
He criticized the current music program because it does not reflect local culture or
population. For example, the wind ensembles are offered in almost all music programs in the
United States, however, it was the tradition in the Army, rather than the tradition of the whole
society. “So are we really just training for Army?” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 16, 2020), he
doubted it, and criticized the idea that “there is only one way to teach music, and only one type
of music you can teach, and it is so out of date” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 16, 2020).
He believes popular music should be included in school music programs, but not all
programs in the country. For example, popular music is sense-making to be included in the USC,
because it is located in Los Angeles, the recording capital of America; the country music is
sense-making to be included in Nashville, the country music capital of the world. “So that is
what I have been advocating for, more than just popular music, it is really creating programs
around what is in the community, not what the profession tells us” (Cuttietta, Zoom interview,
Sep. 16, 2020).
He met many roadblocks when he advocated and implemented his philosophy. He met
resistance from in-service music teachers. When he started a popular music program in USC in
2008, he received hate mails from high school music teachers who said he was ruining the field.
When he published his first article about popular music learning and teaching in a practitioner
journal in the 1980s, people complained to the editors. They threatened that they were going to
rip off the membership cards because they believed the article was ruining their careers:
If you are a high school band director, you don't want to hear this, first of all you know
it's going to be more popular than what you do. Talk about recruiting, imagine those high
schools that had a big wind ensemble or had a whole bunch of small rock bands, where
the kids are gonna go? (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020)
37
Furthermore, he also received complaints from music education professionals. After he
advocated for popular music learning and teaching in a professional conference in the year of
2000, he was told to stop because his ideas were dangerous, which would bring down the whole
field by losing financial support from conflicted organizations' interests. He also mentioned
many challenges that other popular music educators told him nowadays: an
all-African-American college that would like to start a music program was based on their own
community's needs, received resistance from the National Association of School of Music, who
believed that the program rarely meets the guidelines, and the program has been shut down as a
result.
As a response to the worries of in-service teachers and professionals, he believed that
popular music would not hurt students’ willingness to participate in traditional ensembles. He
quoted Rick Dammers' metaphor (as cited in Cutietta, 2017), that students need diversification in
their music classes:
Instead of trying to reach the other students with the same offering, we now need to add
new and different classes to reach the other students…. If we were Coca-cola, we would
need to look beyond trying to get everyone to drink cola. We would need to offer other
types of drinks as well. This diversification strengthens the whole company without
hurting the original brands. For example, when Coca-Cola sells Dasani bottled water, it
does not reduce the number of people drinking Coke, but the company benefits from
making a sale to people who wanted water instead of soda. (p. 260)
He believed expanding curricula encouraged the students to participate in the school of music
without decreasing the number of students participating in traditional ensembles. On the
contrary, it will only increase the number of participants.
38
RQ 4: What are the impacts on the higher education program in which they teach as a
result of the inclusion of popular music?
In his article, Dr. Cutietta (2017) called for a change in music education. He pointed out
the change should come from within the professions: it was unrealistic to ask in-service teachers
to start the change because they are busy and have faith in the existing system. He suggested that
changes should start with the collegiate level. More specifically, it should start with the dean of
the school: “there is only one fulcrum within the cycle, and it is the administrator in charge of the
school of music” (Cutietta, 2017, p. 263). As a dean himself, he made a great effort to make the
change. He started the change right after he became the dean of USC. He started his changes by
dealing with various aspects: colleagues, finances, legitimacy, faculty, and auditions.
He started the change by seeking support from the current faculty, who were all
professionals in traditional music. He started the conversation by asking about their concerns.
Most of the concerns were about reputation and budget. He convinced the faculties by promising
students’ musical quality and promising not to decrease the budget. It worked. When it went
through the school curriculum committee about the new curriculum, all the faculties passed
unanimously.
In terms of the financial aspect, Dr. Cutietta mentioned he has the authority to spend the
money on the program development:
The USC is very very different from any other place, deans have a lot of freedom to do
things. And basically all of the tuition dollars and all of the fundraising that I do, stays
within the school. So it does not go to USC, [it] stays in the school, and then we pay a tax
to belong to USC. (Cuttietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 16, 2020)
39
Because of the new program's success and the growing number of students registering, he rarely
met challenges in terms of finance.
Dr. Cutietta discussed the legitimacy issue of the program. In the unique operating system
of USC, it is not required that the deans of affiliated schools acquire the approval of the provost.
Dr. Cutietta and his team worked on preparing the program for two years without discussing it
with the provost. The night before they announced it, he talked about the program and assumed
potential complaints with the provost. He considered him lucky because the only concern that the
provost had was about finance, which he believed would not be a roadblock to the program.
However, he suggested that it would be a challenge to have such programs in a state institution
because it would have to go all the way to the state legislature to be approved. Thus he suggested
his success cannot be a sample for other higher institutions, especially state institutions.
He made a significant change on audition. The potential students were required to show
their popular music performance, and they were also required to show their abilities of creation
and leadership. The audition committees expected students to be music creators; thus they
required students to submit either an arrangement they had done or an original song they wrote.
They also expected the students to show their leadership in music; thus the students should
submit evidence to show their influence on the public, such as experiences of putting together a
fundraiser concert, or/and a significant number of followers in social media in professional
aspects.
It was worthwhile to consider that he made changes to the faculty recruitment and
promotion system. Some of the popular musicians he recruited did not have college degrees but
came with outstanding popular music making achievements. There was no tenure for the popular
music faculties but a starting three-year recurring contrast. After the first contract, Dr. Cutietta
40
can stop renewing it for no reason. Once it has been renewed once and then he would not like to
renew the contract, he has to go to a committee which is made up of faculty and show that the
faculty did not finish their work, and submit other potential candidates. Furthermore, although
there is no tenure there, the faculties can still be promoted to be assistant, associate, and full
professors. Every time they get promoted, their contact gets longer: assistant professors have
three years, associate professors have four years, and professors have five years. In addition to
those core faculties, he also hires in-field popular musicians as artists in residence, who will
teach in the school for months.
Dr. Cutietta mentioned he had no idea of starting a popular music program when he came
to USC because of a lack of successful samples. Thus, he and his colleagues invented them all:
they worked a couple of years to create the pedagogy by fundamentally asking what popular
music students would need. They found students need to learn how to work in a recording studio,
work with audio equipment, and music arrangement. He believed it was a successful program
because of its outstanding reputation, which attracts a great number of applications every
semester.
Dr. Robert Woody
Dr. Woody is a professor of music education, currently working in the Glenn Korff
School of Music, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He teaches general music methods, music
learning and development, and popular musicianship for undergraduates, and advises graduate
students. His research focuses on music education psychology.
RQ 1: What are their personal histories of developing interest in, researching, and
presenting and publishing on the topic of popular music in music education?
41
Dr. Woody believed he grew up in a pretty musical family because his father was an
amateur musician. Dr. Woody started playing trumpet as a child with his father at home, rather
than learning in elementary school. In the 1980s, he played trumpet in school music when he got
into junior high school and high school in concert band and jazz band.
Dr. Woody claimed the music programs he attended in schools were fairly traditional,
thus there were very few popular music making experiences there. However, he mentioned his
first meaningful exposure to popular music making in the school of music programs was his
senior year in high school with help from a new band director: he and a group of seniors in the
school wind band, including a couple of trumpet players, saxophone players, and a trombonist,
created their pep rock band to play at the new school basketball games. They recruited a rock
drummer, and a bass player, and a guitarist from their peers. They made those arrangements
themselves by ear as popular musicians do. The wind instruments players played the melody of
the songs, and they had to figure out how to play the vocal melody on their instruments. They
were led by the guitarist in the group, who was an ear musician. Dr. Woody believed this
experience was great fun and was beneficial to his musicianship development. Besides, he was a
popular music lover outside of school. Although he never really learned to play any popular
music instruments, he listened to popular music almost exclusively outside of school and would
sing along to songs on the radio.
He went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1986 for his trumpet performance
undergraduate program. He was interested in jazz, but he claimed that he was not good at it. He
found it was hard to find a job with a music performance degree after he graduated. He started
his music education program and acquired a master's degree at Florida State University. In 1998,
he acquired his doctoral degree in music education at Florida State University.
42
He acquired teacher certification during the master's degree program, and then he taught
in a middle school in a rural county in Florida from 1994 to 1996. He taught all music classes in
the middle school: instrumental, choir, band, and general music. At least 90% of the school
district students were African American, thus Dr. Woody, who described him as a “white man
from the Midwest in the U.S.” (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020), found he and his students
had different musical backgrounds and musical preferences. He realized right away that he
needed to be more aware of what the students thought about music. Consequently, he learned a
lot about black gospel music, which he did not know much about before. Furthermore, he found
it was necessary to learn to adapt the way he teaches, as well as in the way to think about music,
in order to make the music class more meaningful and related to the students. The teaching
experience in middle school helped him inform his perspective later on as he went into higher
education and taught at the college level and his interest in bringing more popular music-making
into school music.
Besides the students' inspiration in the middle school where he taught, Dr. Woody is a
popular music lover himself. On the one hand, he was a trumpet player in junior high and high
school bands, and he was a trumpet performance major during his undergraduate study. “When I
was a child in school, and the music I did in school, largely playing the trumpet from notation in
a large group setting or maybe in an individual one-on-one lessons setting” (Woody, Zoom
interview, Sep. 4, 2020). On the other hand, the other side of his identity musically was the music
that he loves, the music he listens to, and the music he considers to be real music: pop and rock
in the 1980s. However, he felt pity that his music making experience in school can barely be
connected to his popular music identity outside of school: “I kind of was aware that I had this
kind of split personality, there is me in school… I was always aware that these two different
43
worlds and they just did not ever meet” (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020). He believed that
the school music and experience outside of school should be brought together.
Dr. Woody insisted that popular music should be included in all public schools in the
United States because popular music plays an essential role in students' lives.: it is the music
genre that students are familiar with and prefer, it is part of students’ identity
Educational psychology is very clear that if you ask somebody to learn in an
environment, in which they feel like they need to suppress their identity, that they are in
an environment which is totally foreign to them, it is that they ca not really relate to, that
type of culture [would] clashes [and] hinders learning, it hurts learning. So when students
can feel like who they are is embraced, you know they're native language, and their
native music, and their native identity, who they are is welcomed and accepted and can be
expressed in their learning, and then they learn better. Popular music is part of kids’
identity, so I absolutely think that should be included in education, so kids can learn
optimally, so that they can learn effectively. That's just good education. I think we all
kind of know that’s true. (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
By including popular music in the classroom, he believes that there was no competition
between popular music and classical music. However, there are some strong entrenched ideas in
music education, that educators need to focus on musical quality. In other words, only the best
music, which generally means classical music, music written by published composers, and the
Masterworks of classical music, should be taught in the classroom. He disagreed with that and
suggested educators should offer diverse music genres, and the students should be the person to
decide what music genre is best for them, and what music genre they want to learn.
44
Popular music making, in his thoughts, can be included in all classroom settings. In the
general music class, popular music can be the music for all kinds of activities: listening activity,
beats keeping activity, and movement activity. Many music teachers use classical music and jazz
music recordings for activities, and popular music recordings should be an option, as well. He
also believed popular music could be involved in instrumental music instruction and vocal
instruction. The goal of the instrumental music instruction in public schools is not for
professional music training, but for acquiring music instruments playing experience. Thus,
popular music instruments learning should be taught in school, just as other concert band
instruments. Furthermore, he believed that there is no need to limit popular music experiences
according to labels, like band, choir, orchestra. In the vocal instruction, he mentioned:
In popular music everybody sings, the drummer, sometimes you see if you have a
drummer back there, they have a mic right here, so they can sing background vocals
while they drum, so everybody sings. So whether it is in choir, or band, or general music,
for orchestra, everybody can be involved in popular music making through singing.
(Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
He believed popular music making should be engaged authentically: “the authentic way
to do popular music is by ear, it is not through printed notated arrangements” (Woody, Zoom
interview, Sep. 4, 2020), such as “letting kids being smaller groups, and letting kids learn by ear,
letting kids play on instruments that are authentic to popular music” (Woody, Zoom interview,
Sep. 4, 2020). On the contrary, he did not have a high regard for the inauthentic popular music
engagement, such as rearranging popular music tunes by the concert band, which made popular
music on exclusively brass and woodwind instruments, because it would be very artificial.
45
It also should be noted that he considers the authentic music making process more than
authentic music productions. Although he mentioned a negative perspective to popular songs
rearranged by concert bands, it was acceptable if the students learned the song in an authentic
music making process: learned by ears, and focused on music expressive rather than techniques.
He gave an example of a cello duel on Michael Jackson:
I've seen two cellists kind of have a duel between themselves on the music of Michael
Jackson. I think it’s great. Is that authentic to Michael Jackson? No. Michael Jackson
never played the cello. But I think it is better than no popular music at all, specially if
students are engaged in playing Michael Jackson music on cello, but they learned it by
ear, and they are learning it from the recordings, and their focus is on making their music
expressive, and not so much worried about proper technique and all, that because that's
not authentic popular music, either. (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
Dr. Woody believed that popular music plays a vital role in public school music and
music teacher education because it motivated and attracted students. It broadened students’
music making experience and gained students’ musicianship. First, he believed popular music
motivates students in music classes, because it is students’ native music, and they love it.
Including popular music, in his opinion, could excite students in music class. Second, compared
to classical music and traditional school music, popular music is more attractive to the students
in music classrooms. Third, popular music making offers students an opportunity to be creative,
holistic, and expressive. For instance, songwriting, which is an important part of popular music
making, makes students whole in musicianship development because they will make music in
many ways, rather than just performing. Also, students can be more expressive because they can
46
express themselves through music that is native to them, and they can express themselves better
than the music is assigned.
RQ 2: How have they implemented their ideas about popular music education and
the ideas of others within pre-service music education settings?
Dr. Woody has worked as a music education faculty in the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln since 2001. He taught general music methods, music learning and
development, Popular Musicianship for undergraduates, and advised graduate students. Two
courses he was teaching are related to popular music: the first course was a music teaching
methods class for juniors, which focuses on teaching music composition and technology. The
students in the course would study composition and learn how to engage their students in
composing.
The second course was an elective course for the seniors, which most seniors were
elected to do, named Popular Musicianship. The course was started by Dr. Woody about ten
years ago, inspired by a popular music making experience with his students. When he started
teaching in the university, he knew some college students personally. Those students were
musical, and some of them were not in music major. Dr. Woody was impressed with how musical
they were and making the music they loved. The students formed a rock band, and jammed and
played for some of their friends from time to time. The students invited Dr. Woody to make one
of his favorite songs with them in a live performance. Dr. Woody believed it “opened up a part of
my musicianship which had always been closed” (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020). As a
result, he started looking into popular music learning and teaching and discovered some music
education Scholars writing about it, such as Lucy Green.
47
After reading Lucy Green’s research in popular music learning and teaching, he realized
the disconnection between the music in the classrooms and the music in students’ daily lives.
Although he did not consider himself a rock musician, he decided not to let his limited music
making experience narrow the experience of his students, thus popular music making, learning,
and teaching should also be included in music teacher education. He suggested it his music
education majors:
Do not let your limits become the limits of your students, find a way to exceed your own
experience to give your students better. If I try to do that myself, even though I did not
have a good popular musicianship experience, I decided I should try to give that to my
students for the benefit they can get. (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
There were no facilities to support the course in the first year. Dr. Woody asked students
to find resources by themselves, such as instruments and practice spaces. He also borrowed
music instruments from other groups in the school of music, for the students who were not able
to access it. Because of the success of the performance in the first year, he acquired financial
support from the director of the School of Music, then bought two electric guitars and amps, bass
guitar and amp, electronic drum set, keyboard, synthesizer, and some speakers, monitors, and a
mixing board.
In the first year, the first thing he talked to the students was the performance at the end of
the semester, which is also the most important course goal. He asked students to form rock bands
with their peers and cover one song they like. One group not only did the song they covered, but
they did an original song too. He invited all juniors to the performance for inspiration and
modelization. It worked. In the second year, all students decided to perform a cover and create an
original song. In the performance, one of those groups not only did a cover and an original song,
48
but they did a rearrangement as a third song. “So over the years the students themselves have just
kind of increased the expectations they have to themselves” (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4,
2020).
Typically, there are 15 to 20 students registered in the class, and the numbers depend on
many music education seniors they have in the year. In the Fall 2020, there are 19 students in the
class. It was a one-credit hour class, and they meet once a week across the semester. In the class,
Dr. Woody helps the students organize themselves into rock bands and then challenges them to
learn something new. The students learned by themself: Dr. Woody would not teach them to play
the guitar or any popular music instruments. There is rarely music-making in the class: most of
the students' practices were outside of class. The class time concerned discussion, such as
strategies sharing for songwriting and performing for each other. He described the class below:
Because I can not teach kids how to play popular music, I do not have that kind of
expertise, but I can tell them, here is what last year's group did, and then they do it. And I
can tell them, this is what's authentic about vernacular music making, it's listening to
music, figuring stuff out, using the internet to resources, I tell them this is what popular
musicians do. And then they do it, they figure it out. And most of them report back after
the experience said, “wow it's just opened my mind and music making”. (Woody, Zoom
interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
He also asked students to set up all equipment by themselves before they practice. He
invited experienced students to set up while asking others to pay attention to learn. He also
encourages students to look for resources online, such as setting up, playing instruments, or
songwriting. He believed it was the essence of popular music learning because it gave students
insight into how normal people make music.
49
This is how normal kids learn music outside of school: they just look it up online, and
they figure it out. I am perfectly comfortable telling the students: “look, I want you to
learn how to do some of the stuff, the your students in the future will learn how to do
some of the stuff by looking it up online.” And you might be thinking: “well that is not
how I have learned music in the past.” Now I started to telling my students to blowing up
your mind, this is the way the world outside of school, and I do mean the world, this is
how people have learned music all through history, that is they learned it by trying things
out, by watching more experienced people, this is how human beings learn music, and
you know it's good for you, I tell the students, to do it this way… So I guess I really kind
of give them a little guidance, and I really ask them to get in there, and try things out, and
experiment, and explore, and do what they need to do, which as we know, that is
basically how people learn anyway, in anything. (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
He received positive feedback from the students in the Popular Musicianship course. Dr.
Woody mentioned that one of the students said that he found his musicianship is even better than
he thought it was: he found that he had a good ear and could make music by ear. Other students
mentioned that they were not confident in singing before the popular music making experience,
but then surprisingly found they could perform the song singing. Other feedback is not verbal but
still significant. Although all the seniors are busy on their final recitals or job interviews, they
could still find time to devote to the popular music making experience. They accomplished the
performance amazingly. Dr. Woody believed they acquired such achievement because they are
satisfied with and excited with the popular music making experience in his course.
50
Dr. Woody believed there are some potential challenges when including popular music in
both K12 public schools and music teacher education programs: the resistance from others,
especially the people whose livelihood and music identity are wrapped up in classical music.
Those people were threatened by popular music. Those people believed students would choose
rock bands over concert bands, threatening the popularity of classical music among the students.
Thus they may not be happy to include popular music as an option for students and keep popular
music out of the picture.
Music educators might meet challenges when including popular music in schools and
colleges because others might be threatened. He suggested not to threaten the other types of
music overtly: it was unnecessary to set themselves up as competitors to these other styles. He
gave an example to avoid such potential conflict based on his experience: if the big instrumental
ensemble rehearsals and the big choral ensemble rehearsals that many students are participating
in are at 3pm, the popular music teacher should make sure not to schedule the popular music
experience at the same time. In other words, avoiding time conflict and potential competitive
situations are the key element to not overtly threatening other people. He believes that students
could be flexible in their popular music practice because it was a small group rehearsing, and
they would not refuse to spend extra time on popular music practice.
They are doing all of these things willingly while they are doing all these other things in
their formal music making. So I think it can be done, and there's no reason for popular
music people to present a conflict, or to be seen as a threat to these other types. All kinds
of music exist together, so there is no reason to have that kind of potential conflict, my
opinion. (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020)
51
RQ 3: What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during their
explorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal, from
school, community, curricular standards in higher education?
In the early days, Dr. Woody’s research focused on music psychology. His doctoral
dissertation concerned making music expressively from the perspectives of music cognition or
the psychology of music. He started his popular music education writing several years after he
started his job at the university level. In 2003, he published his first article about popular music
education, a review (Woody, 2002/2003) of Lucy Green’s book Review of the book: How
Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education (Green, 2002). He was motivated
by the book and believed it opened his mind to using popular music in formal music education.
He realized how different the music learning process is for popular musicians compared to
formally trained musicians.
Encouraged by Lucy Green's (2002) book, Dr. Woody published his first popular music
learning and teaching research article in 2010 (Woody & Lehmann, 2010). It is a research article
that discussed playing by ear. It was one of the first quantitative empirical research studies done
on playing by ear in quite a long time. The article showed that people who were good at playing
by ear could hear the melody as an indicator of the underlined chord progression. By identifying
and ensuring the chord progression, they can learn the melody more quickly. One of the things
that his research tried to emphasize was that the people with good ears, which people typically
acquired for popular musicianship, were good in all music styles: not just popular music, but also
for classical musicianship. He believes that if people practice more popular music making as
children, they would not need ear training when they become music makers. Moreover, he
believes being able to play by ear is an essential skill for all musicians, and it is a natural way to
52
make music within popular music. Thus he suggested schools should incorporate popular music
into their music education programs because it builds young musicians' ears. In 2019, he
published another study concerning playing by ear (Woody, 2019). It was a follow-up
experimental study on playing by ear, where he found that people's ear playing could be
improved by scaffolding, such as directing their attention to the chord structure.
He also addressed the topic of playing by ear from a psychological standpoint. He
explored how popular music learning, informal music learning, and playing by ear affected
students' music learning. These contributed to exploring cognitive processes of popular
musicianship learning, songwriting, learning instruments by ear, and collaborating in a group.
It is worth mentioning that he had met some pushback and resistance when he advocated
his popular music learning and teaching idea. In 2007, he received emails and voicemail
messages from traditional music educators, who were threatened by the article that he published:
it was an article about popular music learning and teaching in American public schools in Music
Educators Journal (Woody, 2007a). A gentleman left a voicemail message saying that the article
undermined everything that he had spent his entire career trying to do for music education. That
gentleman claimed that he would not take Dr. Woody's perspective seriously, and what Dr.
Woody advocated was terrible for music education. Dr. Woody believed it because people were
threatened by the idea of allowing kids to study popular music:
So I mean I listened to voicemail messages, and I have since used it in my teaching and
to show that people are threatened by this… because they think if they are given the
choice between studying classical music and studying popular music, that kids are all just
want to stay popular music, and therefore classical music just disappear. (Woody, Zoom
interview, Sep. 11, 2020)
53
He disagreed with the idea that including popular music in the classroom would hurt the learning
of any other music genres:
I think that is a really low regard for classical music, because if you really think classical
music is great and worth teaching, which most of us do, we will believe the music itself
will survive on its own merits. We do not need to hold students hostage and prevent them
from studying other types of music, so they will only study classical music. I do not agree
with that at all. (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 11, 2020)
Moreover, a couple of people wrote letters to the editor disagreeing with the article. Then
the editor of the Music Educators Journal offered him a chance to respond to those letters. One of
the letters said that it was troubling when music teachers dismiss musical quality. Many popular
songs, such as Madonna’s music, attracted listeners not because of the high quality. Contrary,
more sophisticated music is more suitable to be included. Dr. Woody (2007b) pointed out the
misunderstanding of music's quality and sophistication in this critical article. He pointed out that
those terms are not interchangeable, which meant there was no need to say that only
sophisticated music is the music with good quality. He pointed out that “if the overriding purpose
of music - and the arts in general - is expression, then a quality musical work is one that
successfully moves people to feel something, think of something, or do something” (Woody,
2007b). Thus, popular music, which young people love, is quality music works, and it can be
included in the classroom.
Besides research articles, Dr. Woody has done many workshops with in-service teachers
about implementing popular music in the classrooms around the 2010s. The workshops were
specifically addressing the topic of ear playing. He also shared some strategies for teachers to
incorporate more ear based activities. He mentioned that he received help from the teachers:
54
many music teachers illustrated conceptual ideas he was advancing by using ear-based activities
with real-life children. He used some of the activity ideas he learned from the music teachers and
wrote an article on playing by ear for the Music Educators Journal in 2012.
RQ 4: What are the impacts on the higher education program in which they teach as a
result of the inclusion of popular music?
Dr. Woody received help from his colleagues when he started the popular musicianship
course. One of his colleagues, a music education professor in the university, helped him get the
course started. The professor had in-field experiences as a popular musician: he played electric
guitar in rock bands as a younger person, and he was familiar with writing original rock and roll
songs. Besides, Dr. Woody mentioned other faculty in the school of music were generally
supportive, "they had not been unsupportive” (Woody, zoom interview, Sep. 11, 2020). He
believed their supports came from the free of conflicts:
I've never asked other professors to let students do less on their senior recitals in order to
give more attention to the popular music experiences; or ask them to get out of classes,
get out of the lessons that they would normally be in so they can do popular music. I have
never asked anything like that. I have arranged the experience so it doesn’t conflict with
other things that students are going on. So I would expect other music professors to
support that way, because it does not represent any type of problem or conflict, I think
that is a very important part of why I have been so supportive, or at the very least
accepted. What we are doing is valuable. (Woody, zoom interview, Sep. 11, 2020)
The original goal of the course was to encourage students to make popular music. As a
traditionally trained musician, Dr. Woody had no idea where to start in the first year. He
mentioned that the first year of the course was less organized because he did not know what to
55
expect or what students could do. The only thing he knew was that most students had not been in
a rock band and had little experience of popular music making. He called the course an
experiment. Soon he found out the students were interested in popular music, which inspired
them to invest time and effort to practice. Then he found out that the students did not need much
help from the professor because they ended up teaching themselves and showing great
resourcefulness. He decided to be a facilitator to offer the popular music making experience,
rather than being a teacher to teach knowledge.
He described the differences of the course in the first year and now. In the first year, he
did not know what to expect precisely: he just expected the students to form rock bands and
made one cover song. Now, he knows what to expect. He expects the students to learn one cover
song, and an original song that they have written together as a group. In addition, he also
expected the students to make a third song: it could be an original or another cover song. Today,
he can communicate his expectations more clearly with students. He also notices that the
students could usually exceed the expectation.
Dr. Bryan Powell
Dr. Powell is assistant professor in Montclair State University, New Jersey. He used to work as
the director of higher education in Little Kids Rock, which is a non-governmental organization
that provides popular music education for students and music teachers in the United States.
RQ 1: What are their personal histories of developing interest in, researching, and
presenting and publishing on the topic of popular music in music education?
Dr. Powell was born in a musical family in California. His father was a marching band
director, which made him grow up in that tradition. He learned trombone as a kid, and
participated in band, choir, and orchestra, all of the ways involved in school music. Popular
56
music has always been his favorite and he listened to it quite often. However, there were no
popular music making experiences offered in the schools. When he was a child, he learned guitar
by himself, and he played popular music by guitar with his friends after school.
Since high school, he would like to be a music teacher because he loved music and
working with kids. In 2000, he started his undergraduate study in music education at Pepperdine
University, California. He chose the college because “it was close to the beach” (Powell, zoom
interview, Aug. 17, 2020), without noticing there was very limited popular music experience
offered there. Similar to many other students in a traditional music education program, he played
trombone in the orchestra, sang in the choir. He was not involved in any popular music making
in college. Besides, he was playing guitar with friends from time to time.
He acquired his master's degree in Chapman University in 2008. In the meantime, he
moved to New York City and taught general music to Kindergarten to eighth-graders in a public
school from 2003 to 2008. He started playing popular music more while he was teaching: he
played more bands with friends, and they toured on holidays. He rarely considers including
popular music in the music classes because he did not have an example of what it could look
like.
However, during an early period of his teaching in the New York public school, he found
that the students were really into popular music, and they did not want to play traditional band
instruments. Because he wanted to bridge the gap between music and the students were
interested in school music, he started including popular music in his teaching. He applied grants
for guitars and started a guitar program. He also started an after-school rock band program and
had a mandolin ensemble. Furthermore, he dove into music technology in 2003 when the school
57
facilitated a Mac computer lab. He taught GarageBand and operated projects with the students
together using the Loops recording.
He started popular music teaching unintentionally in the public school by including
culturally responsive music upon request. In the fall of 2003, there was an assembly with the
parents and students, which was a school tradition. The fourth graders chose to sing and dance
with the music of their culture, such as the music of Puerto Rico. He was impressed by the
engagement of the students and their parents, which made him decide to include Salsa and
Reggaeton in the classroom. He believed it “was kind of just educating myself because a lot of
students already knew about this music” (Powell, zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020). Since he
started teaching more culturally responsive music by letting the students bring in their music.
The students brought the music from their culture, and some students brought popular music into
the classroom.
At the same time, he started an after-school band with 12 students involved. He found
that the students were not interested in playing traditional instruments, thus he decided to teach
them popular music instruments. By the donation from many non-profit organizations, he bought
many popular music instruments for students, such as guitars and keyboards, and then
incorporated more popular music in the classroom. He described, “it just happened naturally”
(Powell, zoom interview, Aug 17, 2020).
It was a difficult time for him to start because he had no idea how to teach it. He learned
nothing in college related to the popular pedagogy, and there were few resources available, no
matter online or in-person. There were no samples he could learn:
The funny thing is I did not think of myself as a popular music educator, ‘cause I did not
even know there was such a thing, I was just kind of making it up as I went along and
58
figuring. I knew it was different from my experiences growing up, but this is before
Facebook, so I did not really know what other people were doing... the internet was not
what the internet is now, you know you could not just go on the internet and easily look
up every chord to every song that you wanted. YouTube was not really a thing. This was
a crazy dark time. Some of the struggles were kind of figuring out what resources to use
and is there a curriculum… (Powell, zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020)
More specifically, he pointed out many challenges he had at that time:
So I think some of the challenges were figuring out like, what are the Best Practices, what
the assessment look like, is there a curriculum, how to allow students choose the
repertoire, at that time when the rap still be kind of, driven by me as the teacher, trying to
figure out like what the chords were, and what key to put the song. (Powell, zoom
interview, Aug 17, 2020)
He struggled many ways to make it happen alone:
I was just kind of putting it together… I would write out the chord diagrams and point to
the chords. So even my guitar program was not as cool as I wanted it to be, because
everything was me trying to figure out how it works. (Powell, zoom interview, Aug. 17,
2020)
Besides the teaching challenges, he also had problems with other perspectives: the budget
and the lyrics issues. He found a way to fundraise by looking for help from local
non-governmental organizations. The other problem was the lyrics. Some popular songs are
problematic, such as drug abuse, violence, and discrimination. He mentioned the school principal
showed a negative attitude to these songs by saying: “I think you are not going to do that”
(Powell, Zoom interview, Aug 17, 2020).
59
To sum up, he mentioned many challenges of implementing popular music in public
schools according to his teaching experience, and many of them still exist today: problematic
lyrics, lack of resources, budget, and the most important one, teacher preparation. Many music
educators are not well prepared to facilitate popular music experience because they have only
experienced traditional music making. Thus, they might not feel comfortable including popular
music in the classroom. Lack of popular music training in music education programs also
influenced teachers’ mindsets. Many music teachers believe they need to be the expert in the
classroom, and they would not include the music they were not familiar with in the classrooms.
However, many music education programs did not incorporate such experience, which would
result in many teachers’ resistance.
As an experienced popular music educator, Dr. Powell suggested many solutions to the
challenges. First and the foremost is to offer popular music making experience in teacher
education in college. Although many educators tried to diversify the curriculum, nowadays, the
music teacher education in college is traditional. The college students spend four years studying
music in a western European classical contest: history, theory, performance. The pedagogy
courses were also limited in general music, traditional choir, band, and orchestra. He suggested
that the colleges can start to change by “just exposure for these students to understand what it
looks like, what's possible, that is a big one” (Powell, zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020). In
addition, it would also solve the problem of mindset by the popular music pedagogy course: the
role of music teacher in the classroom, especially in popular music, should be a facilitator rather
than an expert. Many band directors could also be good music teachers without knowing to play
all instruments in a band, and “it is OK if your students can do [the instrument] better than you”
(Powell, Zoom interview, Aug 17, 2020). Involving in popular music making in college, and
60
learning popular music pedagogy, could gain students confidence in their future popular music
teaching.
Second, he gave suggestions for the in-service teachers who would like to include
popular music in their classrooms. There are many opportunities for teachers to get additional
professional development nowadays, such as Little Kids Rock, and there are other ways teachers
can learn how to engage and facilitate these experiences. Moreover, there are many free
resources available online, such as YouTube, that teachers could learn almost everything they
need for popular music teaching: instrument playing techniques, chord progressions,
technologies, and even lesson plans. It is also easy for teachers to communicate with other
teachers who are experts in popular music teaching via social media.
Third, although lyrics could still be a problem. Dr. Powell suggested that a good answer
could be songwriting or music creating: “I am really interested in music creation, not just
covering the music of other people, … but creating your own songs. Because if we are creating
music, then we control the lyrics, and we can decide what is problematic or not” (Powell, zoom
interview, Aug. 17, 2020). Songwriting, or music creating, is not only useful for creating the
lyrics of a song appropriately but also help students to learn rap in its cultural context:
if we are making a beat, we're going to rap over, or we write the lyrics for the rest, so we
do not have to worry about any of those things. Sometimes we can not do hip hop
because of the words. [What we can do is] do not cover songs, but create new songs. If
you have been in the authentic rap community, rappers do not cover other rappers' music
you know. In pop music we cover other people's music all the time, [but] rappers do not
really do that, it is all about creating new stuff, it is not about repeating what someone
else has done (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug 17, 2020).
61
Fourth is about the budget issues. He mentioned that many instruments, such as guitars,
are not expensive. For example, the price of one marching euphonium can buy an entire
classroom of guitars. Although there are some expenses involved in purchasing popular music
ensembles and the technologies, compared to what the music education community pays for the
traditional band instruments, it was not that expensive.
Dr. Powell believed including popular music in public schools is essential. From the
music production perspective, it bridged the gap between school music and music in their daily
lives: students wanted to create their own music, and they wanted to play music that was familiar
to them that they heard from the radio. He learned from his public school teaching experience
that the students, who were students of color, and at or below the poverty line, would like to
participate in popular music making, rather than the traditional music making. Popular music
could validate the musical identities of the students in the classroom. From the music making
process, students can express themselves through music and dialogue with them about what they
think is important. Students are the people who take ownership of some of the rehearsal process
and the music selection, and they are engaged in music making a way that they would not be if
they just showed up and the teacher handed them a piece of sheet music and asked them to play.
He also considered that popular music could keep students in the music class:
If we keep offering a brand of music education that is unattractive to students, and
students aren't signing up for that, eventually more and more students are going to say,
“well I'm not going to do that”, and then administrators are going to look at those
programs and say, “well we're not going to have a band, choir, orchestra if students don't
want to participate in them. (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020)
62
In terms of how to teach in the classroom, Dr. Powell insisted on the most important idea,
and the first step that needs to be done is to make sure that students own the classrooms'
authority. He mentioned many music educators think of themselves as givers who know
everything about music. Meanwhile, those music educators considered students as takers who
know nothing about music. In fact, the students know a lot about music, and they have listened to
music in their whole lives, they know what music they like and dislike, and they know how
music functions in their life. Music teachers should change their mindset to be a facilitator to
offer help to the students, rather than an instructor who delivers knowledge to the students. Thus,
engaging students with music meaningful to them without overly worrying about being an expert
on popular music would be a great starting point for teachers. When Dr. Powell was a general
music teacher, he would invite the new students to share their favorite song and then learn the
song himself and other students. However, he admitted this approach was harder for band
directors, and it could not be applied to every circumstance.
RQ 2: How have they implemented their ideas about popular music education and
the ideas of others within pre-service music education settings?
At the same time when Dr. Powell was dedicated to his doctorate’s degree at Boston
University, Dr. Powell started to work for Little Kids Rock (LKR) as the director of higher
education in 2008. He worked for LKR for a decade. In the meantime, he was teaching popular
music for many higher education institutions, such as New York University in 2017, Ithaca
College from 2017 to 2018, Bergen Community College from 2012 to 2018, and Slippery Rock
University from 2016 to 2018. Then he started full-time working at Montclair State University in
2018. He taught many popular music courses at Montclair State University for undergraduate
and graduate students, including Popular Music Techniques, Rap and Rock as Cultural
63
Phenomena, and Introduction to Music Technology to undergraduates, and Teaching Popular
Music for graduates. The Popular Music Techniques and the Teaching Popular Music are the
main courses for popular music pedagogy.
The Popular Music Techniques is an elective course for undergraduates. It is one of the
eleven techniques courses. Other techniques courses include brass techniques, woodwind
techniques, percussion techniques, et cetera. The students would choose one. For instance, many
students who are a trombone or a tuba player, might choose popular music techniques, but not
the brass techniques, because they want to learn more about popular music learning and teaching.
In the first week of the Popular Music Techniques, Dr. Powell would create a Spotify
playlist and invite students to add songs. He would listen to every song that they added to the
playlist because it was important to the teacher to learn about music meaningful to the students.
Besides, many topics were included in the popular music class. The first was popular music
making techniques, such as keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, full-band experiences,
songwriting, music technology, and hip-hop. Second was pedagogical strategies, such as power
chords, improvisation, scaffolding, soloing. Guest speakers will be invited to share their
experiences. Students will gig in a local bar at the end of the semester to acquire an authentic
popular music performance experience.
Compared to the undergraduate course, Teaching Popular Music, the graduate course,
included more reading from journals. Furthermore, students would conduct a research project or
interview the music makers who had not learned their craft in schools, such as DJs, people
playing open mics, gigging musicians in a rock, and learning how they teach music. He would
also invite guest speakers to talk about their experiences and answer questions.
64
Both the undergraduate course and the graduates course offered hands-on experiences to
the students. However, it was challenged for him in the Fall 2020 semester because of the
Covid-19, which made the courses online. Dr. Powell cooperated the online course with one of
his colleagues by using soundtrack on band lab more often in the quarantine to record parts to
cover songs. They also wrote songs collaboratively with other universities.
The courses' goal was to teach the students about popular music pedagogy and be a
facilitator, more than to train the students to be good at the guitar. He hoped all the students who
finished the courses could lead a popular music making class, and help their students form a rock
band in the future. He also hoped all the students feel comfortable enough to facilitate
opportunities for the students they are engaging with and make meaningful music together.
The ultimate goal of the courses, he believed, was the student's future success. Being able
to include popular music in the classroom, he insisted, would help the preservice teachers for
unknown situations. He pointed out it was a fact that the first job of music teachers was not the
same as they imagined: it might be a school that did not have a music program previously, or it
was not a well-funded or well-supported program. Those preservice teachers’ experiences in
high school may necessarily translate into their job in the future. Many of them would like to be
a band director, but they might find a job as an elementary teacher. Others might need to operate
music technology, a guitar club, or an after-school rock band. To sum up, he wanted the students
to understand the different teaching approaches and became a more well-rounded music
educator.
Montclair State University is located in the New York City Metropolitan area, and many
of the students were getting jobs around. Thus Dr, Powell believed “they need to be able to
engage meaningfully with students, because they can not just show up like, ‘it is a band or
65
nothing’, because the students might not connect with that and then they will be out of job”
(Powell, Zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020). He was also learning popular music to help the
students adjust to the rapid change of the popular music world:
I said “we are forming a rock band“ and I'm partially guilty of this myself with a lot of,
the most popular music was hip-hop, and EDM is popular, and Music Creation. And so
you know I have got a lot of toys here (midi controller), because I am trying to
meaningfully engage my students in music that is actually popular in a society, so that
they get a job they might actually be able to function and have success. So I think it is
important in the University settings because we wanna our students to be prepared, and
increasingly get their job done. (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug 17, 2020)
Nine graduate students participated in the popular music making course in the Spring
2020, which grew to 20 in the Fall 2020. There were 14 undergraduates in the Popular Music
Techniques in the Fall 2020. His courses received much positive feedback from the students. He
started the graduate course first and received much positive feedback, which allowed him to start
the undergraduate course. Many students reported that they experienced a new music making
experience and took the joy back in their life by learning new instruments, forming bands, and
writing their own songs. Many students considered the courses' usefulness that they believed
they could teach a popular music ensemble immediately. Moreover, some graduate students
implemented what they learned in the courses in their teaching: some of them were applying
grants for ukuleles, while others were starting a guitar program.
Dr. Powell felt lucky to teach at Montclair State University because the popular music
pedagogy is an independent course here, rather than being included in secondary general music
courses. However, there were still many resistances he noticed that other popular music
66
educators across the country had, such as the audition requirements. Many conservatories
decided their audition results only by traditional routines, such as Western Classical music theory
and performance, to keep up with the idea of excellence. In other words, the students who are
experienced in popular music making, but lack traditional music training, may not be accepted in
music education programs. Furthermore, people might be threatened by the possibility of
replacing traditional music subjects. Many other higher institutes used NASM as an excuse for
not changing: they said they would like a change, but NASM would not allow it. He believed
these people used NASM as an excuse for not changing because what NASM provided were
guidelines, but institutes can decide how they want to address those guidelines by themselves. He
found the NASM is open to incorporating popular music if they restructure programs to meet the
requirements. “I think that some of these are generational, but there is a little reluctance,
especially in some conservatories toward rethinking these things” (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug.
24, 2020).
He believed more successful examples in the field would help the change. Those
examples could be a diversification of music education program in universities:
We need more examples of universities who take in non-traditional students and bring
them along; we need more examples of universities who bring a hip-hop ensemble and
maybe allow that ensemble to count for the ensemble credit that students need for a
music education degree; we need more universities examples that universities will accept
a DJ, or a rapper, or somebody does beat creation as a music education major, not just
popular music performance. (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug 24, 2020)
Furthermore, the example can be in community music making and in public schools.
67
We need more examples of success, we need more people publishing on what's possible
when you bring in community members to do popular music; what’s possible when you
connect students to music that's relevant to them; what’s possible when you provide a
pipeline for participation throughout K12 and into university. (Powell, zoom interview,
Aug. 24, 2020)
Although there were many challenges including popular music in colleges, he believed
that changes were in process: it was a unique time in the country where change is happening and
people see that in society everywhere. Although it was not fast enough, people were having the
conversation about it. “How do we diversify what we do? how do we think outside the box, how
do we be more inclusive? I think that is a powerful time to have those conversations now”
(Powell, zoom interview, Aug. 24, 2020).
RQ 3: What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during their
explorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal), from
school, community, curricular standards in higher education?
Almost all of Dr. Powell’s research was about the topics of popular music or music
technology. His doctoral dissertation was about popular music ensembles in collegiate music
programs (Powell, 2011). In recent years, he has many research interests about equity, inclusion,
and diversity in popular music education, such as marginalized populations' experience in
popular music ensembles. For example, what challenges does a female electric guitar player face
for such a men-dominated instrument, and even the rock bands can still be gendered and
exclusionary (Powell, 2019a). In this article, he found if there was a female teacher, the more
female students would participate in the rock band if it was elected because they see themselves
68
reflected in the teacher. Moreover, he discovered the question if popular music ensembles extend
the diversity of the students participating.
Sometimes we throw around these terms like, “I wanna be more diverse”, “I hope more
students of color sign up for band next year”, and we just keep doing things like we have
always done. If we, as music educators, want to diversify our class, if you want to
increase access and diversity inclusion, so we have to diversify what we do. We have to
be more inclusive, we have to provide easier access. (Powell, zoom interview, Aug 24,
2020)
He found students in lower SES status are more likely to participate in a rock band in school
than an orchestra. Popular music ensembles engaging students previously were not engaged.
Such engagement with popular music ensembles would not take students away from the
traditional bands, choirs, and orchestra programs but attracts a new different type of student
(Powell, 2019b).
Furthermore, he examined in-service teachers’ perspectives of teaching popular music in
classrooms, including how it changed their teaching, how it gave them longevity, how it
encouraged them to start new things in it, and how it brought a sense of energy back into their
teaching (Powell, 2019c). “I think that those biggest takeaways is, this is doable that regular
music teachers are incorporating this into the classroom and having success” (Powell, Zoom
interview, Aug. 24, 2020). Moreover, he had done research on music technology, such as
collaborating online for music making and deterritorialized context, by discussing how do music
educators collaborate online with other people, how do music educators make something that
someone else can contribute to, and what are the software that allow this to happen (Cremata &
Powell, 2017).
69
He published many articles about Modern Band, which is a kind of popular music
ensemble that increased the presence of popular music in K12 settings (Burstein & Powell, 2019;
Powell, 2019b, 2019c, in press). In those articles, he discussed the history of popular music
education in the United States and how Modern Band fits into the music programs of public
schools by the perspectives of meaningful participation and inclusion. In addition, he also
considered how music education helps music educators for the 21st-century skills by using
technology and being creative (Vasil, Weiss, & Powell, 2018).
Besides the research articles, he has many writings from practical perspectives. He also
published articles on assessment in popular music education and discussing what assessment
should look like (Powell & Smith, 2019). Currently, he is working on a book on popular music
pedagogies with two other popular music educators. He mentioned that he was proud of the book
because it provides a context for many different pedagogical approaches to popular music. The
book has been scheduled to be published in the fall of 2021.
He wished further research about popular music learning and teaching could be more
diverse. It was a fact that most of the research articles on this topic were based on similar
environments:
We need more and more examples of people working in community centers, such as with
refugees, and connecting popular music and technology there; and we need more
examples of hip hop and beat making after school programs; and we need more examples
of how we can bring in people to expertise, not just with doctor degrees, to universities to
teach these classes and how can we benefit for that. We just need more and more
examples of how this can work. (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug. 24, 2020)
70
One of the contributions he made for popular music education was he started the Journal
of Popular Music Education in 2017 with his colleague, Dr. Gareth Smith. This idea came from a
challenge he met in publishing popular music education articles. There were few academic
journals to popular music education in the early years. For the music education journals, popular
music was “too kind of out there” (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug. 24, 2020); for the popular
music journals, school-based popular music education was too music education based. He
believed the journal provided a large umbrella for popular music in schools and people who are
making music and songwriting on the internet. In addition, it published special issues for hip
hop, rock bands, popular music, and families. He is currently serving as an editor of the journal.
Dr. Powell also contributed to many popular music education organizations. He has
served as the executive director of the Association for Popular Music Education since 2013,
which is a special research interest group for NAfME. The APME is a popular music education
organization that brings institutions and NGOs and engages in popular music education through
annual conferences and resource building.
One of the most important contributions of Dr. Powell was his engagement with
in-service teachers. During his work in the Little Kids Rock from 2008 to 2018, he conducted a
great number of workshops with in-service teachers, higher institute faculties, and preservice
teachers. In the past three years, he conducted more than one hundred workshops around the
country. “If a university wants to bring someone in to do a workshop on popular music education
in the classroom, I am the person they are going to bring in, I say humbly” (Powell, Zoom
interview, Aug. 24, 2020). He believed it was extremely rewarding that he inspired many music
teachers to include popular music in their classrooms. He believed “it is a symbiotic
relationship… the people doing their training, they really connected it with their teaching, and
71
then teachers learn from those of us who can do those training” (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug.
24, 2020). Alternatively, he would learn many current practical issues about popular music
learning and teaching from the teachers; many of his research ideas came from there.
He has been engaging with in-service teachers since he worked in Montclair State
University because he insisted it was always important to stay connected to practicing teachers
and students. He was cooperating with music technology classes in local high schools in the New
Jersey area. He would like to connect with teachers after the pandemic. He would teach some
classes in local schools, work with teachers, work with other nonprofit organizations, and apply
grants to include music technology and popular music in classrooms.
RQ 4: What are the impacts on the higher education program in which they teach as a
result of the inclusion of popular music?
Dr. Powell felt lucky to be in the university for the support he acquired from his
colleagues. Many of his colleagues in the school of music wanted diverse students’ music
training experiences: “they are preaching inclusion, diversity, and access” (Powell, Zoom
interview, Aug. 24, 2020). The director of the school of music has always been supportive of
expanding the curriculum. The vocal faculty believed their students not just to be classically
trained, because diverse music training could also get a job in different areas, such as Broadway,
if the students wanted to work in musical theater. The traditional ensemble would play arranged
popular music songs in performances. “If I was the only one talking about social justice, if I was
the only one talking about expanding access to music by expanding the curriculum, I might feel
like I was screaming into the wind so to speak” (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug 24, 2020).
Although his music education colleagues were not in the popular music-related field, they would
discuss related topics with the students. He found the students were familiar with the ideas
72
related to popular music education, such as equity, access, and inclusion, because they had heard
those from their other professors.
Dr. Jill Reese
Dr. Reese is associate professor of music education at The State University of New York
at Fredonia. She teaches courses including early childhood music pedagogy and elementary and
secondary general music methods. She is the founder of Fredonia Ukulele and a YouTube
channel that provides play-along videos for ukulele.
RQ 1: What are their personal histories of developing interest in, researching, and
presenting and publishing on the topic of popular music in music education?
Dr. Reese was born and raised in a rural area of Michigan. She learned multiple musical
instruments during her years before going to college. She started formal piano lessons when she
was five years old, and she took piano lessons through her senior year of high school. She took
clarinet for half of a year in fourth grade at the Catholic school and felt bored very quickly, and
then she switched to trumpet for the rest of the year. In her fifth-grade year, she switched to flute
because her sister played it, then she switched to percussion in the sixth grade.
She had many band and choir music making experiences during junior high and high
school in the 1990s. She was a percussionist in a middle school band, but she quit soon because
the band director only asked her to play bells. Then she joined a choir. In high school, she joined
marching band, symphony orchestra, and jazz band as a percussionist and pianist. Besides, she
played in the Detroit Youth Symphony during her teenage years.
She had a musical family, and her music making experiences were impacted by them
deeply. She learned piano and flute because her sister learned it too. She and her family would
play music together: her father played accordion, her mother would sing, and she and her sisters
73
played piano or other instruments together. The family members would play music often by
using a recording player and sound unit.
Dr. Reese has listened to popular music and sang along quite frequently since a kid. She
would sometimes transcribe the tunes to piano and played piano accompaniment with her friend
in a talent show. Besides that, she had few experiences in popular music making in school music
because no such experiences were offered then.
Dr. Reese started her study at Michigan State University in 1996 as a percussion
performance major. However, she was not satisfied with her first-year experience as a percussion
performance major student. She was depressed because she had a lot of performance anxiety and
did not enjoy it. Meanwhile, she found that she wanted to be a general music teacher after she
observed her little sister’s music class:
She was in third grade at the time… I remember I had not had General music as an
elementary student, so I did not know what that was. And when I went to pick her up I
was early and she was still in music class. The principal said, why do not you go down
and observe her music class. So I thought it was great. So I went down and was watching
what the teacher was doing and I was amazed. As a percussion major to see all these tiny
xylophones and other percussion, like the Orff instruments, and then to see the children
moving so musically and singing so beautifully. I just thought, this is amazing that I
never even knew! And from that moment I thought that this is what I have got to do,
because it was amazing to me how musical they were and I realized that I could still be a
percussionist through it, this sort of all the same to fit for me. So that's when I decided to
switch to music education: when I actually saw Elementary General music and that's
what I wanted to do. (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020)
74
Then she changed to music education in the second year, then acquired her music education
bachelor’s degree in 2000. While working as an elementary general music teacher, she finished
her master's degree in music education at the University of Michigan in 2006 and her doctoral
degree in music education at Temple University in 2011.
Although she did not include popular music making in her early years of teaching, she
considered she loved popular music because she can participate in and be familiar with it. On the
other hand, she rarely listened to classical music, concert band music, or choir music because she
claimed that she did not enjoy it without participating by herself. Although she was a popular
music lover and listener, she rarely experienced popular music making in her colleges. She had
the opportunity to include popular music as part of a secondary general music methods course
with Dr. John Kratus, who was interested in non-traditional music. Dr. Reese believed he was a
non-traditional person who modeled that professors do not have to be classical musicians and do
not have to express themselves through classical music. They played the ukulele as a part of the
method course, which might be one of the inspirations for her to start the community ukulele
group.
She did not consider that she and her students made popular music literally in the
classroom in public schools necessarily. When she taught music class in elementary schools from
2000 to 2007, she brought popular songs to the classroom because she believed it was good
songs and she liked it, and just used it as the vehicle for movements and beat related activities.
She also used popular tunes in choirs and had many popular choir concerts. However, she
believed that popular music should be involved in all music classrooms because it was the music
students preferred and were familiar with, and making popular music in the classroom would be
75
attractive to students. Moreover, she believed popular music was “just as valuable as other kinds
of music, I think it is just as legitimate”(Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020).
She believed that popular music should be taught in an authentic oral way:
Just like you would teach world musics in an authentic way, the way that it is taught
within that culture, like some cultures do not have notation for their music, or it would be
good to teach in an oral fashion. So I think that teaching popular music in a way that is
similar to how popular musicians learn and create popular music would be an authentic
approach to teaching. So I think that a lot of the classical stuff is taught using notation,
but maybe an oral approach is more authentic to teaching popular music (Reese, Zoom
interview, Aug. 5, 2020).
She suggested that there were many ways to teach popular music, such as ask students to listen to
the music and identify the form and other types of musical characteristics. She also considered
students to create their popular music by performing covers or songwriting. Furthermore, she
enjoyed encouraging students to play rock band instruments.
Nevertheless, she mentioned teachers’ preparation would be a challenge to include
popular music in the classrooms. It was a fact many music teachers were not comfortable with or
familiar with the oral approach because they were trained as notation-based musicians when they
were in colleges, where classical music and conservatory approach were supported mostly. She
suggested that all preservice teachers need popular music making experiences themselves in
order for them to understand how to teach it.
She believed that the secondary general method course is a good place to include popular
music in preservice teacher education. It is simply because there is too much in the elementary
76
general music method course to include, and she felt there was more room, and that was more
important for the secondary General music methods course.
She also believed all preservice teachers needed to make popular music during college.
First, she wanted preservice teachers to see that popular music was not just owned by general
music teachers, but they can make popular music within various settings. Second, according to
her college students' feedback, popular music making brings enjoyment for themselves: “they
enjoy making music again” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug 5, 2020). As music majors, they might
forget the joy of music making by self or with others because music becomes the job with
pressure to be perfect. She found that the students came alive when they were playing ukulele
along with pop tunes in a way that she did not typically see. Many students brought themselves a
ukulele after attending her ukulele session with community members. Third, it prepares future
teachers for their success in their teaching. As future music teachers in school music, college
students need popular music making experience at the college level in order for them to
understand how to teach it and understand the experiences of their students when their students
are learning popular music. Experienced in popular music making could help them feel
comfortable including popular music in their future teaching.
RQ 2: How have they implemented their ideas about popular music education and the
ideas of others within pre-service music education settings?
Dr. Reese was the founder of Fredonia Ukulele, which was a community ukulele group.
The group meets every week: the jam session meets on Fridays for a couple of years in a local
restaurant. In addition to that, there was a B-Side Jam session, which was more advanced than
the jam session. The B-Side Jam sessions were on Saturdays. There are also the second Saturday
Jam sessions happening in alternating months with the B-Side Jam. The Saturday jams had an
77
open mic so the people can perform, but the rest of them are more just participatory engagement.
Usually, there are around 30 participants in every meeting.
She was also a founder of a YouTube channel that provides play-along videos for ukulele.
Initially, she made the videos for the community group on purpose.
We don’t use the traditional notation, we use like pictures of the chord that sort of like
karaoke for ukulele, so they're the words and the authentic background track with original
musicians performing the tune, and there’s a picture of the chords, I will point it go along,
because most of the people, many of the people in the community group do not know
how to read traditional music, so that’s one way of how to support their engagement.
(Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020)
She started running a community ukulele session group in 2015 when she applied for a
grant for buying ukuleles for the secondary general music courses. She used a part of the grant to
start the community session group, which was a part of the grant requirement. Before the first
session, she put an advertisement in the local newspaper saying, “Fredonia ukulele group
meeting at Casa Cafe on this date, be there or be square, as if it was something that had always
been going on” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020). Because she had never run a community
ukulele meeting and had never seen one run before, “I did not know what to do and I did not
know what people were expecting” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020). The sessions started
in a traditional way: no backing track when playing, but just sheets of the tunes with the chords'
names above. After the first several sessions, she realized people could not follow due to lack of
basic knowledge of music, such as forming the chord. As a result, she started increasing the
number of learning supports there to help them participate. She tried to use a laser pointer but
found out it was not helpful as she imagined:
78
I started thinking like, what can I do, like they did not know when the chords were
changing and so I had to use a laser pointer like the entire evening, and so if I was
pointing with the laser pointer, then I was not playing. And my selfish reason for starting
the group was so that I could play with other people. So if I'm doing laser pointer, I felt
more like a teacher than someone who is enjoying a community music experience, and I
thought I do not want to teach more, I'm so tired of teaching by the end of the week.
(Reese, Zoom interview, Aug 5, 2020)
Then she came out with the idea by using backtrack music when people are playing, which was
inspired by karaoke:
I got just recordings of tunes, and I thought, okay we will try that. So next meeting we
tried kind of playing along with recordings of tunes, and I was still pointing and people
still could not tell when to change chords and everything in it. So that was better but not
as good. Then I started creating a play along videos and that seemed to work really well.
And so does it have the sound and so people did not feel exposed, and it had the pointer
so I can play alone cuz I wasn't pointing anymore, and so that really helped. It felt like
everybody was contributing and felt comfortable and could just enjoy themselves, and I
could play and I could sing as loud as I wanted to because the recording was going and
no one can hear me but I can still participate. (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020)
Dr. Reese found out that people enjoyed participating in the group, and she believed that
it was not only because of the success that they acquired in the jam sessions but also because of
the music they played. Many people in the community were amateur musicians, or elderly, thus
they play many old popular tunes in the meeting: “we are using the music that is popular to the
group, is also extremely engaging into the group, that is another reason that they enjoy it”
79
(Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 5, 2020). Upon the request of members, she would also include
songs she did not know. It was a challenge and exercise initially, but she experienced flow when
she got to know and became familiar with them.
Dr. Reese and the group would play ukulele together outside of the jam session setting.
They played at retirement homes and rehabilitation facilities around Christmas time or other
holidays. They might play some holiday Carols without practice, or sometimes they might
practice one or two run-throughs of the tunes before the performance. She explained the reason
was that: “the goal is not perfection, the goal is maximum participation from us and from the
people at the centers, so we will play Jingle Bells somethings like that with words in it, so people
there can participate, too” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 12, 2020). It was quite similar to the
goal of the community group: maximizing participation, enjoyment, success, and involving
everybody to sing along and playing alone.
Besides the ukulele community group, she tried to include popular music in the music
education program. In her secondary general method course, she began to include popular music
through the use of iPads. The students had options in the class, they could either compose an
original tune or cover a popular song.
Of course, she included ukulele playing in her secondary general method course. The
students played a couple of folk songs, but she gravitated to pop music because it seemed more
relevant to the middle school students. During her observation of student teaching, she found that
the college students and the students they were teaching automatically started to sing along, too.
She was surprised by this: “I mean try to get a middle schooler to sing, especially if it is like a
rinky-dink folk song is impossible, but they just automatically start singing” (Reese, Zoom
interview, Aug. 12, 2020).
80
She invited her students to participate in the ukulele community group, with extra credit
as rewards. She believed it was beneficial for the students to see adult amateur musicians
continuing to make music. It was a fact that the majority of the student in the elementary music
class would not become professional musicians: many of them will not continue in music after it
was required, and they would not participate in band or choir, those traditional programs, through
high school. However, Dr. Reese believed that they can participate in community music making
groups after they graduated: “I wanted my students to see that these people can still be
meaningful engaged in making music without knowing how to read music, and that is something
that challenges their understanding of what it is to be musical” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 12,
2020). She believed this experience could reshape those preservice teachers’ perception of what
it means to be musical.
RQ 3: What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during their
explorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal, from
school, community, curricular standards in higher education?
Dr. Reese published many research articles concerning music education in books and
journals. Her research focused on technology, improvisation, early childhood music
development, professional development communities, and ukulele. She published two articles
about implementing iPad in music classes in 2015 and 2016. One is about pre-service teachers
using iPads with middle schoolers to create (Verrico & Reese, 2016); the other one was
University students using iPads in performing situations (Reese, Bicheler, & Robinson, 2015).
Although popular music repertoires were included in the class and performances by iPad, she did
not consider the popular music making played an essential part of the findings.
81
However, Dr. Reese published an article about ukulele learning and teaching in 2019
related to popular music. It was a phenomenological case study to describe adults' lived
experiences participating in the community ukulele group she founded. She found playing the
music which connected to formative years and the lives of the members in the ukulele group was
important for them. She gave an example:
When I think back to that band, the swing sets, like I really did enjoy Cat Stevens and
other music that we played, but it wasn't, how this connects to me. But when I'm playing
the ukulele group now, even though the two maybe weren't familiar to me before, I can
come to really enjoy a piece of music. So something that was important was popular
music connection to a period of time in their lives. (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug 12,
2020)
In the article, she mentioned the importance of familiarity with music playing. She found
that when the ukulele members were familiar with the music, it was easier for them to play along
with; otherwise, when they did not know what to expect, it created some frustration. She found
herself experienced flow when she was familiar with a song:
when someone requests a song but I don't know, I will include it… And at first it's like a
challenge and exercise, until I actually get to know and I become familiar with it. Once I
become familiar with it, I can begin to experience flow because I can put certain things
on autopilot and not necessarily work on technique or whatever, so I can focus on that. So
much of familiarity contributed to their experiences with flow and their enjoyment.
(Reese, Zoom interview, Aug 12, 2020)
The other important finding she mentioned in the article was that the playing along
experience had provided the community members the opportunity to transform to be a musician
82
temporarily. She explained it as: “Within the moment, they felt like they became a member of
Santana, or a member of Blues Traveler, or whatever bands they were playing along with, just
within that moment” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 12, 2020). She interviewed the members in
small groups after they played along. She chose music pieces that get members singing and
participating a lot. In the small group interviews, the members reported that they felt energetic
and excited, and they felt they were members of the band, like a musician. However, the
transformation was temporary. These community members did not believe that they were
musicians, but they temporarily felt like musicians when they played along during the jam
sessions, then the transformation would go away. To sum up, she was surprised that the
community members could feel transformed, but she was also disappointed that it could not be a
lasting transformation in their musician identity.
Dr. Reese had many ukulele workshops with local music teachers. The first half of the
workshop is quite similar to the community playing along jam sessions: they started with the C
chord, and then the F chord and the G7 chord, one of the sessions that introduced ukulele. She
played with teachers for a little bit and then stopped. In the second half, she would introduce
some of the pedagogical strategies that help their students engage successfully, such as the sort of
format, which helps a variety of learners and helps scaffold the students' learning.
She received many positive comments about the ukulele workshops from 2016. The
teachers reported that they are so much fun to do, and they seemed very grateful. Besides, The
teachers feel energized after playing popular music, and they seem reengaged as musicians.
Furthermore, because the ukulele is an entry instrument, the teachers seem to enjoy themselves,
and they feel capable and successful pretty quickly. Dr. Reese believed that “ukulele is a gateway
drug to other instruments” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 12, 2020). Unlike guitar, which is much
83
more complicated and frustrating if people are just beginners, the ukulele is beginner-friendly,
which people could feel successful right away. She believed the workshops were all about
accessibility and making music and less about archiving specific musical skills:
It's sort of like, I try to tell the teachers like, if students can do the basic level that’s
amazing, but then also have other levels that they can take step up to. Again it’s more
about inclusion, just making music and less about perfecting certain skills. (Reese, Zoom
interview, Aug. 12, 2020)
RQ 4: What are the impacts on the higher education program in which they teach as a
result of the inclusion of popular music?
Dr. Reese pointed out that her colleagues had different attitudes towards popular music
learning and teaching in college music and music education programs. On the one hand, she
acquired support from some of her music colleagues. A music theory professor would love to
teach rock band class because he used to play electric guitar in a rock band. He showed a
positive attitude when Dr. Reese proposed expanding the curriculum by rock band and modern
band.
On the other hand, Dr. Reese did not get much support from her other colleagues when
she came up with incorporating popular music into the music program. For instance, one of the
classical guitar professors, who showed a negative attitude towards ukulele as an instrument,
who believed “it's, are quotes, ‘cute’, that I'm doing ukulele” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug 12,
2020). He also did not understand why she organized concerts for children from birth through
five years old because he refused to believe that the students can get anything out of it.
Dr. Reese believed her music education colleagues “are cool with it, they are glad, but I
do not think they would necessarily teach it in their classroom” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug.
84
12, 2020). The professor who teaches the secondary general methods course took the weekend
for Little Kids Rock training but did not apply it in teaching, although the college offered funds
and bought many popular music instruments. “What's interesting is, everybody is good about it.
They are good about it as long as it does not interfere with their teaching” (Reese, Zoom
interview, Aug. 12, 2020). She claimed it was a big missed opportunity. Moreover, she did not
see that popular music was included in the courses it could be, such as instrument methods
courses. She believed it is a limitation of the music education program of the college where she
is working.
85
Analysis and Conclusion
RQ 1: What are Their Personal Histories of Developing Interest in, Researching, and
Presenting and Publishing on the Topic of Popular Music in Music Education?
Why came to popular music education?
Dr. Cutietta claimed his music making history was “all in Rock and Roll” (Cutietta,
Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020). Before he dove into it, he learned accordion in 4th grade
because of his parents’ requirements, but he soon quit it. He learned bass guitar from his peers,
and then started to play gigs in bars in seventh grade, and then he played professionally in bars
since high school. He would like to study as a bass guitar performance major, but it was not
available at that time. Thus, he majored in music theory then transferred to music education a
couple of years later.
He is still playing bass guitar at bars at leisure time until today. Because of his passion for
popular music, he has published articles advocating popular music in college and K12 schools
since 1988. He rarely applied his idea to this teaching before he came to the USC, because he
claimed that those colleges were too traditional to popular music, and he did not own the
authority to make a change. He started a music program reformation in 2002
Dr. Woody started playing trumpet as a child with his father at home, and he participated
in concert band and jazz band in schools. He is a popular music lover, but he claimed that he
rarely experienced music making as a student because the music programs were pretty
traditional. Dr. Woody taught in a public middle school in Havana, Florida in 1994 to 1996,
where more than 90% of the students were African American. He realized he had to adapt his
teaching to meet the students' needs, thus learned culturally responsive music, such as gospel,
from the students. This experience informed his perspective on music teaching and inspired his
86
interest in bringing more popular music making into school music and college music programs
later on.
He was also inspired by a popular music making experience with non-music major
students when he worked in college. He was impressed by the experience because it opened up a
part of his musicianship that he had never explored before. Furthermore, he realized the
disconnection between the music in school and the music outside school after reading Lucy
Green’s book. He felt pity that he did not have the chance to participate in popular music making
as a student. He decided not to limit his students’ music making experience because of his own
limitations.
Dr. Powell learned trombone as a kid, and he participated in many traditional ensembles
in school. Popular music has always been his favorite. However, there was no such program
offered at schools. He learned guitar by himself, and he played with his friend from time to time.
He taught in a public school in New York City from 2003 to 2008. At the beginning of his
teaching years, he did not consider including popular music in this teaching because he had no
idea how it should look.
He taught popular music in K12 unintentionally. Because most of the school students
came from minority groups, he started with including culturally responsive music and then was
impressed by the engagement of the students and their parents. As a result, he invited the
students to bring in their own music to the classroom, and it turned out many students also
brought popular music. At the same time, he recognized that the students were not interested in
traditional music when directing an after-class ensemble. Consequently, he started to teach
guitar, and he added popular music repertoires in the ensemble. Because there was no teaching
87
resources and model, he started all the things by himself: such as figuring chord progressions,
writing out the chord diagrams, and pointing to the chords when students were playing.
Dr. Reese learned piano since her childhood, and she participated in many ensembles in
her student-years. Although she was a popular lover, barely popular music making experiences
she acquired in those school music programs. She taught in kindergarten and elementary school
in Michigan from 2000 to 2007, where she did not teach popular music specifically but
incorporated popular music repertoires as vehicles for activities and movements.
When she studied in college, she learned to play in a secondary general music methods
course with Dr. John Kratus. Then she played the ukulele with her students when she taught
secondary general music methods courses. She applied for a grant to buy ukuleles for the
secondary general music courses. Because of the grant required related community service, she
started running the community ukulele group in 2015.
Why include popular music in K12?
They believed popular music should be included in K12 music programs because it was
students’ native music, and it was students’ musical identity. Dr. Woody believed students could
learn better if they were learning music that is native to them because they are embraced,
welcomed, and accepted. On the contrary, it hurt students’ learning when students were learning
in a foreign environment or cannot feel related. He believed popular music making experience,
especially songwriting and performing, offered students an opportunity to be personally creative
in a more wholly, expressive way. Students can express themselves and be more creative through
a music style that was native and familiar to them, better than the music which was unfamiliar to
them. Dr. Powell also believed that popular music could validate the musical identities of the
students in the classroom.
88
Dr. Reese believed that including popular music in the classroom will gain students
engagement. It was the music that they connected and familiar with that students would be more
interested and more engaging than the music they were not familiar with. Similarly, Dr. Powell
believed students want to play music that was familiar to them, such as the music they heard
from radio, and it would bridge the gap between music in school and music in their daily lives.
Moreover, He found that the students of color and the students below the poverty line would like
to participate in popular music making more than the traditional music making. He also
considered unattractive music programs would keep students away from music classes, and it
might lead music programs closed. Popular music, on the other hand, is a way to keep students
staying in music classes.
Dr. Reese and Dr. Woody believed that including popular music in the classroom would
expand music curricula in K12. She believed it was legitimate because popular music is valuable
as other music styles. Dr. Woody believed that popular music shares equal status as other music
styles. He used students' activities in general music class as an example: if music teachers use
classical and jazz in an activity that can be done with any style of music, that popular music
should be included, because popular music is a part of the human musical world, especially an
important part of students’ life.
All of them considered the benefits of popular music learning and teaching in school
music. However, Dr. Cutietta believed popular music programs are more suitable for schools
with the tradition of popular music making. He believed the content of music class should meet
the needs of the local community.
89
How to teach popular music in K12?
In terms of popular music pedagogy, all of them articulated that popular music should be
learned authentically. First, students should learn to make popular music by the oral approach:
learn by ears rather than notation. When students try to make a cover, they should figure out the
tunes, chords, instrumentations, and all other musical elements by listening to the music
themselves, rather than just copying and playing by the direction of music scores. Second,
authentic music instrumentation is the other essence of authenticity. For example, Western
classical instruments' covering popular songs cannot be considered an authentic popular music
making experience. Thirdly, music teachers should help students write their own song rather than
only reproducing popular tunes.
Besides the agreement of authenticity, they offered additional suggestions for popular
music learning teaching. Dr. Cutietta suggested that the pedagogy is regional and should be
based on local culture: “it could be very different in Nashville and in New York City, and It could
be very different in France than it is in the United States” (Cutietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14,
2020). Dr. Woody believed that popular music can be involved in both vocal and instrumental
instruction, that each student can sing and play not only one instrument in music class. In
addition, he believed the authentic music making process more than authentic music productions.
Although he believed that appropriate instrumentation is the key to the authenticity of popular
music, covering pop tunes is acceptable if students learned it by ear, and focused on music
expressive rather than all about proper techniques, because it was “better than no popular music
at all” (Woody, Zoom interview, Sep. 4, 2020). Dr. Reese suggested analyzing popular music and
learning popular music history could be a way to learn. Dr. Powell believed students’ authority is
the starting point of learning, that students have the right to choose the music meaningful to
90
them. Furthermore, he mentioned that authentic popular music making experiences helped
students express themselves through music, and dialogue with them about what they think is
important. Students are the people who take ownership of some of the rehearsal process and the
music selection, and they are engaged in music making a way that they would not be if they just
showed up and the teacher handed them a piece of sheet music and asked them to play.
Major challenges
There were four major challenges that music teachers faced when including popular
music in the classroom: (a) teacher preparation; (b) authenticity; (c) resource; and (d) lyrics. The
first and the most important challenge was music teachers' lack of preparation to teach popular
music. Similarly, Dr. Reese mentioned that currently, most of the music teacher programs in
colleges were in a western conservatory approach. Most music teachers rarely had popular music
making experience in colleges, which made them feel uncomfortable to include popular music
when they were teaching. For example, they did not know how to play popular music
instruments and facilities, and they were not familiar with the oral approach because they were
notation-based musicians. The second challenge is the authenticity of popular music. Many
music teachers taught popular music in a traditional way, such as using popular music as a tool to
teach music elements rather than actually making popular music. In addition, many music
teachers taught popular music in an inauthentic way. Music teachers might cover popular tunes
by classical ensemble or traditional western choir and teach the tunes by printed notation, but
they claimed that they included popular music in classrooms. The third challenge was lacking
resources and budget. Many teachers need extra financial support to purchase popular music
related facilities: instruments, amplifiers, mixers, and many other related technology software or
applications. Fourth, the problematic lyrics could be a challenge. What can teachers do if the
91
students want to play a music piece with problematic lyrics? Dr. Powell suggested that using
songwriting as a major part of students’ music making experience, which made lyrics under the
control.
In terms of budget, Dr. Cutietta mentioned the importance of technology and online
education because it offers free resources to all teachers and students. Dr. Powell mentioned that
many popular music instruments are not as expensive as traditional ensemble instruments, such
as guitar. The costs in a rock band can be lower than a traditional ensemble. In terms of lyrics,
Dr. Powell pointed out that it is still a problem nowadays. He suggested teachers focus on
students’ own songwriting could be a solution.
The biggest problem was the teacher's preparation. Dr. Cutietta suggested that the starting
point of in-service teachers is to “start first and do not worry about teaching... They should
expose themselves to popular music culture” (Cutietta, Zoom interview, Spe. 15, 20202).
Acquiring popular music making experience is essential to them, and related knowledge can be
learned online. Similarly, Dr. Reese suggested music teachers can start in-field popular music
practice. Dr. Powell suggested that professional development could be helpful to those in-service
teachers.
They all suggested it is essential that popular music experience should be included in
collegiate music education programs. First, it would help those preservice teachers succeed in
their future careers in the rapidly changing world. Second, it motivated and attracted preservice
teachers, and it broadened their music making experience and gained students’ musicianship.
Third, popular music making experience brings enjoyment to the preservice teachers.
They all called for changes in music teachers education programs. Dr. Powell suggested
exposure for those students to understand what popular music making looks like, and the
92
possibilities. Moreover, changing students’ mindset in a popular music pedagogy course is
necessary to help students feel comfortable to include popular music in the future. Music
teachers are not the expert, but a facilitator in the classroom. The changing of mindset could gain
students confidence in their teaching.
Conclusion
All interviewees have participated in music making since their childhood, and they
participate in school music programs as students. Although they were popular music lovers, few
experienced popular music making in their public school and college music programs. Besides
Dr. Cutietta, who identified himself as a popular musician since childhood, others came to
popular music education unintentionally, such as inspired by their students or because of the
requirement of funds.
They realized the importance of popular music education when they taught in public K12
schools because they believed it is students’ native music and musical identity. They believed
including popular music in the classroom increased students’ engagement. They also believed
including popular music could expand the curriculum in K12 because they considered the value
of popular music.
They believed learning popular music in the authentic approach was the key to success: it
should be learned in an orally rather than the traditional notation approach. Appropriate
instrumentation is also important, as well as creation and songwriting. They also mentioned
some other perspectives they believed, such as (a) the authorities of repertoire choosing, (b)
localization of the popular music program, (c) application in multiple music programs, and (d)
focus of the music making process.
93
They mentioned the major challenges of including popular music in the K12 setting. The
lack of teacher preparation and the inauthentic practice are the biggest challenges to all in-service
and preservice teachers. They suggested that teacher education programs include popular music
making experiences and popular music pedagogy courses in the program. They also suggested
the in-service teachers who would like to include popular music to start their own related music
making experiences, which can be acquired online and additional professional training.
RQ 2: How have they implemented their ideas about popular music education and the
ideas of others within pre-service music education settings?
Courses
The interviewees contributed to popular music education, but in different ways: Dr.
Cutietta started a new popular music program in college; Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell started and
instructed popular music making courses in collegiate teacher education programs; Dr. Reese
founded a popular music making group in the local community.
In 2008, Dr. Cutietta started a four-year popular music program in the USC, mainly
focusing on popular music performance and songwriting. In the first two years, the students learn
to reproduce a popular style they chose authentically, then they will be evaluated by infield
professional musicians at the end. In the last two years, the students create their original songs.
Around 2010, inspired by non-music major students, Dr. Woody started a popular music
making course for senior music education majors: Popular Musicianship. In the class, Dr. Woody
helped the students to organize themselves into rock bands. He rarely taught music instruments
playing techniques in the class but introduced the keys of authentic popular music making
process: listening to music, figuring musical stuff out, and using the internet to resources. He
would also ask the student to discuss and share popular music making experiences with each
94
other. Most of the practice and rehearsal happened outside the classroom. All students in the
class were asked to perform at least one cover and one original song at the end of the semester.
Dr. Powell has taught several courses related to popular music since 2018. The main
courses for popular music pedagogy are Popular Music Techniques for undergraduates and the
Teaching Popular Music for graduates are the main courses for popular music pedagogy. The
undergraduate course included four topics: (a) popular music making techniques, such as
keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, full band experiences, songwriting, music technology, and
hip-hop; (b) pedagogical strategies, such as power chord, improvisation, scaffolding, soloing; (c)
Guest speakers, such as in-field popular musicians and popular music professors, will be invited
to share their experiences; (d) live performance or a showcase would be hold at the end of
semester at a local bar, that the students will gig and experience an authentic popular music
performance. The graduate course Teaching Popular Music was similar to the undergraduate
course, but more focus on research. The graduate students would read journals and conduct a
research project, or interview in field music makers.
Dr. Reese founded a community ukulele jam group in 2015. The group meets every week
in a local restaurant. Usually there are around 30 participants in every meeting. She was inspired
by karaoke, that she did not use the traditional notation, but pictures of the chord, lyrics, and the
authentic background track with original musicians performing the tune. She created all the
play-along videos by herself, and she uploaded all videos to a YouTube channel. She organized
many playing-along sessions in local retirement homes and rehabilitation facilities.
Differences and similarities
The major participants of the courses and the program are different, which made the goals
of the courses or programs varied. On the one hand, as an administrator, Dr. Cutietta did not
95
teach any specific course by himself but proposed a new construction of the school of music. The
goal of the program was to help the students to make authentic popular music and help the
students to be able to be professional popular musicians when they graduated. As a community
music group founder, the goal of Dr. Reese was to maximize the enjoyment, success, and
participation of the group members.
On the other hand, Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell instructed popular music courses to
preservice music teachers. Similarly, those courses were elective for the music education majors,
and around 15 to 20 students are participating each semester. The goal of Dr. Woody’s course
was to expand students’ music making experience. Dr. Powell had specific goals for the courses:
helping the students be facilitators in the music classroom and preparing them for successful
careers as music educators via teaching the students about the pedagogy of popular music.
However, those two courses evaluate similarly: students’ participation and the final performance.
The final performances of Dr. Powell’s courses are usually held in a local bar for the purpose of
an authentic popular music performance experience. The final performances of Dr. Woody’s
courses are in the recital hall on the campus, with inviting juniors and sophomores of music
education as audiences to inspire their performance and participation in the future.
Compared to Dr. Woody, Dr. Powell’s course spent most of its time on popular music
performance techniques, such as instruments playing, popular music theory, and pedagogical
strategies (See Appendix G). Dr. Woody focused on strategy sharing, in-class performance, and
song creation (See Appendix H), which may require more extra time for the students to practice
out of class. Although they had different teaching content and teaching style, they received
similar positive feedback from the students, and both of the courses were popular with the
students.
96
Challenges and solutions
They all had a hard time at the beginning. Dr. Cutietta mentioned that “everything is the
roadblocks” (Cutietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020) at the beginning: the music building was
made for acoustic music making; all existing music courses contributed western classical music,
none of the faculty had the expertise to teach popular music; Dr. Woody mentioned that he had
no idea what to expect from the students, and lacking of appropriate facilities to support the
course; Dr. Reese said “I did not know what to do and I did not know what people were
expecting” (Reese, Zoom interview, Aug. 12, 2020), because she had never run a community
ukulele meeting before, and had never seen one run before. Lacking facilities, resources, and
successful models were the challenges for them.
Although their positions and courses varied, they met similar challenges in teaching
popular music in colleges and universities. They all met resistance from traditional music
programs. Dr. Woody mentioned the resistance from the people whose livelihood and music
identity are wrapped up in classical music because they were threatened by popular music. They
believed that including popular music threatened the popularity of classical music among the
students. Dr. Powell mentioned that traditional audition requirements, which intended to keep up
with the excellence of their future students, could be a challenge, that music programs in colleges
might not accept the students if they are talented and experienced in popular music making rather
than western classical music. Furthermore, people may be threatened by the possible replacement
of traditional routines. Dr. Woody suggested that one of the possible solutions is asking the
popular music educator do not overtly threaten the other types of music and hold back the idea to
be a competitor to other styles of music, such as avoiding time conflict with other rehearsals. Dr.
Powell suggested that more successful examples in the field would help the change. Those
97
examples could be a diversification of music education programs in universities and K12
schools, as well as publications in the field.
Another challenge mentioned by Dr. Cutietta was the lack of popular music education
faculty in the field. He created a one-year certification program for popular music teaching.
However, it stopped twice and has not yet been resumed, because the music education faculty
were trained in the traditional routines but the popular music pedagogy “really is a whole
different pedagogy” (Cutietta, Zoom interview, Sep. 14, 2020). A successful popular music
education faculty should learn music orally, be experienced in music creating, and be authentic to
popular music.
Conclusion
Those interviewees contributed to popular music education in different ways: Dr. Cutietta
started a new popular music program in college, intending to prepare popular musicians in-field.
Students would learn to reproduce music authentically and create their own music. Dr. Reese
founded a local community popular music making group. Participants in the group are amateur
musicians. She made play-along videos for the group sessions: none of the traditional notation
applied, but pictures of the chord, lyrics, and the authentic background track. Her goal was to
maximize the participation and success of the group members.
Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell established popular music courses for music education majors
in colleges. These elective methods courses were popular in the music education majors. Those
courses were taught in different ways: Dr. Powell’s course focused on instruments techniques,
while Dr. Woody focused on in-class performance and song creations. Both the courses were
assessed by students’ participation and the final performance.
98
As pioneers of popular music educators, they met similar challenges at the starting point.
They started all things with confusion and without clear expectations for their students. There
was no successful sample for them; Lack of resources, facilities, equipment are the challenges
they have met. Furthermore, they all met resistance from traditional music programs. They
suggested avoiding potential conflicts with others, and successful samples would help the future
development of popular music education in colleges.
RQ 3: What are the perceived benefits and challenges they have endured during their
explorations (including research and publications) and implementation (personal), from
school, community, curricular standards in higher education?
Publications and contributions
Most of Cutietta's publications focused on advocacy, which was more than the inclusion
of popular music and the diversification of music programs in K12 public schools and colleges.
He found that music programs of collegiate schools and most high schools all looked the same
around the country and believed it stifled the profession. He criticized existing music programs,
and he believed it was outdated, because of the disconnection between school music and local
community culture. For instance, he doubted teaching wind ensembles in almost all schools in
the country because it was the army's culture rather than the local community's culture. On the
contrary, he suggested that music programs in each school or college should have their own
characteristic, such as popular music for Los Angeles and country music for Nashville. He
suggested that there is more than one way to teach music, and there is more than one type of
music teachers can teach.
Dr. Woody started his research interests in popular music making by the inspiration of
Lucy Green's work (2002). His first publication related to popular music making was a review
99
(Woody, 2002/2003) of Green’s book. Furthermore, he was one of the pioneers who explored
playing by ear in quantitative empirical research studies. He found popular music making
contributes to musicianship of other music genres: people who have a good ear, which was
typically acquired from popular musicianship, are good in all styles of music. Thus, if students
could make popular music from their early years, they would need less time on ear training when
they become music makers. Based on the finding, he believed that schools should incorporate
popular music into the music programs in public schools because it builds young musicians' ears.
Moreover, he discussed improving people’s ear playing, and he found people’s ear playing can
be improved if their attention has been directed to chord structure. The other contribution he had
made was the discovery of playing by ear from a psychological standpoint, and how popular
musicianship affects students’ music learning. He also explored the cognitive processes when
students are making popular music.
Almost all writings of Dr. Powell were concerned with popular music making and music
technology. His writing included topics such as equity, inclusion, and diversity in popular music
education. For instance, he discovered marginalized populations' experience in popular music
ensembles, such as female guitar players. He also found popular music ensembles expanded the
diversity of students’ participation by engaging the students who were not engaged previously,
such as the Low SES students. Furthermore, he explored teachers’ experiences of teaching and
learning popular music. He found regular music teachers could incorporate popular music and
achieve success by applying online resources for music making in the classroom. Moreover, he
published many articles regarding how Modern Band, a popular music ensemble, fits in the K12
program. Besides the research articles, he wrote practical papers to discuss the assessment of
popular music education. He is currently working on a popular music pedagogy book.
100
He also contributed to the profession of popular music research. He was the founder and
editor of the Journal of Popular Music Education. He is also serving for many popular music
education organizations. He was the executive director of the Association for Popular Music
Education, which was a special research interest group for the NAfME. The goal of the APME
was to engage popular music educators all together through annual conferences and resource
buildings.
Dr. Reese published an article about the adult musicians' experience in the ukulele
community group she founded. She learned how meaningful the music making experiences were
for some members. She also mentioned the importance of familiarity to music playing, that it
was easier for the members to play along and experienced flow with the songs they were familiar
with. Moreover, she found that the playing along experience contributed to a temporary
transformation of the members’ musical identity. The members believed that they were
musicians during jam sessions. However, their musical identity transformation is temporary,
which cannot be lasting for a long time.
Engagement with Teachers
Dr. Woody, Dr. Powell, and Dr. Reese engaged with local in-service teachers by inviting
them to workshops considering popular music learning and teaching in K12. The main topic of
Dr. Woody’s workshop was ear playing, where he and the teachers shared ear-based activities
with each other. Dr. Reese had many ukulele workshops with local music teachers, including
playing along jam sessions and the pedagogical strategies sharing. She believed the workshops
focused on accessibility and music making, rather than musical skills training. She received
positive feedback from the teachers, who felt energized and enjoyed it.
101
Dr. Powell was extremely experienced in engagement with in-service teachers. Before he
worked at Montclair State University, he was the director of higher education of Little Kids
Rock, which was a non-governmental organization that provides popular music education for
students and music teachers. He conducted hundreds of workshops around the country to
introduce music Modern Band pedagogy for music educators. He had many music workshops
with local teachers since he joined Montclair State University, concentrating on music
technology and Modern Band. He believed it was important to stay connected with in-service
teachers to keep up with current practical issues.
Roadblocks and Response
Some of them were challenged when advocating, publishing, or implementing their
thoughts on popular music learning and teaching in schools. Most of the resistance came from
other music educators who believed popular music should not be included in schools. When Dr.
Cutietta started the popular music program in USC, he received hate mail from a high school
music teacher who claimed the popular music program would ruin music education.
Furthermore, he received complaints when he published a popular music pedagogy article in a
practitioner journal. The complainer claimed his career would be ruined by popular music
because it would decrease students’ participation in traditional ensembles. He mentioned that he
had been told to stop his presentation in a professional conference because his advocacy would
hurt traditional music education's consistency. Similarly, Dr. Woody received complaints from
music teachers when he published an article about popular music education. The complainers
claimed their careers would be undermined and destroyed by the inclusion of popular music.
The responses from Dr. Cutietta and Dr. Woody to those complaints were quite similar.
They realized their advocacy threatened people whose livelihood had been dedicated to
102
traditional ensembles. Those people believed that the inclusion of popular music would decrease
students’ participation in traditional ensembles, because they would prefer to participate in
popular music ensembles rather than the traditional ensemble. Dr. Woody considered the
complainers’ thought was a low regard for traditional music because it would survive on its own
merits. He and Dr. Cutietta believed they were not suggesting replacing traditional ensembles
with popular ensembles but to expand the program and offering diverse music making
experiences to students. They all believed that expanding music programs would encourage the
students to participate in school of music without decreasing the number of students participating
in traditional ensembles.
Dr. Woody mentioned the other debate in his article, which was a letter disagreeing with
his idea because many popular songs were not sophisticated enough to be taught in music
classrooms. He admitted not all popular music songs are sophisticated, but it is still worthwhile
to teach because the quality of the songs is good: the purpose of music is expression, not the
techniques. Thus, the songs that move people can be considered the music to be included in the
classroom.
Conclusion
They published many writings advocating and improving popular music education. Dr.
Cutietta advocated for the diversification of music programs in K12 public schools and colleges;
Dr. Woody’s publication focused on quantitative empirical research in ear playing. Dr. Powell’s
writing included various perspectives of popular music education: equity, inclusion, and diversity
in popular music education; music technology in education; history of popular music education;
Modern Band; and pedagogy and assessment of popular music education. Dr. Powell also
contributed to the profession of popular music research. He is the founder and editor of the
103
Journal of Popular Music Education. He is the co-founder and the executive director of the
Association for Popular Music Education. Dr. Reese’s article explored the adult members'
experience in the ukulele community group, especially the temporary transformation of musical
identity they experienced.
They engaged closely with in-service music teachers concerning popular music teaching
in K12 according to organizing workshops. Dr. Woody’s workshop concerning ear-based
activities sharing with teachers. Dr. Reese had many ukulele workshops with local music
teachers, including playing along jam sessions and the pedagogical strategies.
Dr. Powell had a significant number of workshops with in-service teachers. He conducted
hundreds of workshops throughout the country to introduce Modern Band, a popular music
pedagogy, for music educators. He also had many music workshops with local teachers
concentrating on music technology and Modern Band.
They met roadblocks when they were advocating their thoughts on popular music
learning and teaching in schools. The major resistance came from the music educators with less
faith in popular music education. They received hate mail, complaints, and warnings. Dr. Woody
and Dr. Cutietta realized their advocacy threatened people whose livelihood was dedicated to
traditional music, and who believed popular music ensembles would decrease participants in the
traditional ensembles. As a response, they suggested that expanding music programs would
encourage the students to participate in school of music rather than take them away from
traditional ensembles. Other doubts concerning the value of including popular music in the
classrooms. Dr. Woody, however, believed the value of popular music was in the expression.
Thus the songs that move people are appropriate to be included in the classroom.
104
RQ 4: How has the implementation of their ideas fit within preexisting curricular
structures?
As an administrator, Dr. Cutietta played a different role from the other three interviewees.
He called for a change in music education, and suggested the starting point of which should be
the dean of the music school. He focused on five issues of starting a new program at the school
of music: (a) convincing colleagues; (b) keeping the balance of finance; (c) discussion of the
legitimacy; (d) management of popular music faculty; and (e) changing the process of audition.
First, he received support from faculty, who were majorly traditional trained musicians, by
multiple conversations of their concerns. He promised that the new music program would not
negatively affect the school of music's reputation and budget. Second, he kept the finance of the
school of music balanced by the success of the new program and the growing number of
students. Third, the legitimacy of the popular music program has been supported by the USC,
because of the financial success. Fourth, he reformed the popular music faculties' recruitment
and promotion system by offering a recurring contrast but kept the promotion system, lowering
the requirement of their academic degree, and inviting more in-field popular musicians as artists
in residence. Fifth, he changed the audition requirement by requesting additional evidence of the
students’ popular music making and leadership. He believed all his efforts worked: the new
program gained the reputation of the school of music, and the number of applicants increased
every year.
What were the thoughts and feedback of their colleagues in their programs?
Some of their colleagues showed a supportive attitude to their work. Dr. Woody received
help from one of his music education colleagues, who was experienced in popular music making,
to start the popular musicianship course. Similarly, Dr. Powell received support from the director
105
of the school of music to expand the curriculum. Many other music faculties agreed that students
could not be limited in making western classical music exclusively, which made him feel
inspired. His music education colleagues would discuss popular music related topics in their
classroom, that made the students familiar with the ideas related to popular music education,
such as equity, access, and inclusion. Dr. Reese received support from her music colleagues by
supporting her idea of expanding the curriculum.
On the other hand, many of their colleagues considered popular music education was
irrelevant to their own teaching. Dr. Reese noticed many of her music education colleagues
would not necessarily consider including popular music in their teaching, although they
participated in related professional development. She believed that they were fine with popular
music education as long as it would not interfere with their own teaching. She received some
negative feedback from her colleagues about the content she taught. For instance, one of the
classical guitar professors barely considered the ukulele as an instrument. Dr. Woody believed
his colleagues in the school of music had no attitude to the popular music teaching, and it was
because he was careful to avoid any potential conflict with others’ courses.
What are their current practices and how that compare to where their thinking began,
including the impact on culture?
Dr. Woody: popular musicianship: facilities, goal, expectation of performance
The beginning years of the popular musicianship course was hard for Dr. Woody: there were no
popular music instruments available. He either borrowed instruments from other programs in the
school of music, or asked the students to borrow instruments from their friends. Later on,
because of the success of the recital of the course, he received financial support from the School
106
of Music, to purchase popular music instruments for the courses. Now there are many
instruments and equipment available for the students in the course, including two electric guitars,
a bass guitar, an electronic drum set, a keyboard, a synthesizer, a monitor, a mixing board, and
many amplifiers.
As a classically trained musician, Dr. Woody had no idea where to start and what to
expect from the first-year experiment. The first-year course was less-organized. At the beginning
of the semester, he just told the students there would be a performance at the end of the semester,
and it was also the most important goal of the course. He just asked students to form rock bands
and required each band to cover one song they chose at the final performance. One band
performed an additional original song in the final performance of the final performance, thus in
the second year, he required one cover and one original song for each group. Now he expects
three songs for each group: one cover song, an original song, and a third song, which could be
either another original song or cover song. He also expects the student to write an individual
song on their own. Now, he can communicate his expectations clearly with students. He also
noticed that the students can always exceed the expectation.
Dr. Powell: K12 and now: figure out by self (not cool) vs more resources online
It was a difficult time for Dr. Powell to teach popular music in K12 public schools
initially. He did not consider himself as a popular music educator because he had no related
teaching experience and had no idea where to start. He started it by figuring out all things by
himself: the chord progressions, the assessment, the curriculum, and how to select repertoires.
He started teaching popular music in a traditional formal way, that he wrote down the chord
diagrams before class and pointed to the chords when the students were playing.
107
Dr. Powell believed that the most significant difference between his popular music
teaching initially and now was the richness of the course. When he taught in public K12 schools,
he just included guitar, which was the only popular music instrument he was able to play in the
ensemble. Now because there were more and more resources online, he learned many other
popular musical instruments and included those in his teaching in college. He also incorporated
songwriting, rap, and music technology into teaching in college. In addition, he offered a
hands-on experience to students now, rather than teaching the students chord by chord.
Dr. Reese: Ukulele community session: traditional pedagogy vs karaoke
Dr. Reese also had a hard time at the beginning of the ukulele community group: she had
no idea what to do, and she did not know what the community members were expecting. In the
beginning, she taught ukulele playing in the same way as teaching other instruments in schools.
She taught songs by using printed notations and PowerPoint, and she pointed to the PowerPoint
and a laser pointer when the members were playing. Soon she found the participants were not
engaged as she expected because they could not read music notations, and they felt
uncomfortable to sing out.
Then she was inspired by karaoke, and she came out with the idea by using backtrack
music when people are playing and singing, which was inspired by karaoke. She created play
alone videos that she did not have to point. She replaced the traditional music notation with the
pictures of the chord and lyrics, and she added the original background music track. Compared to
the teaching initially, the community members were more engaged, and she could also
participate in the music making.
108
Conclusion
They received different feedback from their colleagues when applying popular music to
music teacher education programs. Some of the colleagues showed positive attitudes, and they
would love to offer support or had included popular music in their own courses. While others,
however, showed no attitudes because they believed popular music is irrelevant to their teaching.
Some of the interviewees reported low regard from their colleagues.
As an administrator, Dr. Cutietta played a different role from the other three interviewees.
To establish a popular music performance program as the dean, he convinced the colleagues and
acquired legitimacy by keeping reputation and balancing the budget. He innovated a new human
resource system to recruit professional popular musicians. He also reformed the audition
requirements to evaluate students’ potential of popular music making. His efforts worked: the
school's reputation has kept, and the number of applicants increased every year.
Their teaching practice evolved compared to their initial thoughts. Dr. Woody had no
clear goal and expectation for his students when he was teaching the course for the first time,
while lack of facilities was also a problem. In the beginning, he asked students to form rock
bands and cover one song they chose at the final performance. Now he expects three songs for
each group: one cover, one original song, and a third song, which could be either original or
cover song. Because of the success of the course, he received financial support from the School
of Music, that facility is no longer an issue for the course.
When Dr. Powell started to teach popular music in K12 public schools, he had no related
teaching experience and had no idea where to start. He spent plenty of time figuring the chord
progressions, assessment, curriculum, and repertoires selection. He taught popular music
109
formally by writing down the chord diagrams before class and pointing to the chords when the
students were playing. And guitar was the only popular music instrument he included.
Nowadays, there were more popular music making resources online, which saved him
much time on preparation. He also learned many other popular music instruments online and
then included them in his teaching in college. His teaching also expanded to songwriting, rap,
and music technology. He offered a hands-on experience to students now, rather than teaching in
the traditional formal way.
Dr. Reese taught ukulele playing in a traditional formal way. She taught songs by using
printed notations and PowerPoint while pointing to the PowerPoint along when the members
were playing. Now she created many playing alone videos, that the traditional music notation
had been replaced by the pictures of the chord and lyrics, and original background music track
included. The playing alone videos freed her hand when people were playing and singing, and
she found the community members were more engaged than the traditional formal approach she
applied for the first time.
110
Discussion
Brief Summary of the Findings
All the higher education experts considered themselves popular music lovers. However,
they had few chances to participate in popular music making in the music programs in schools
and colleges. Although the extrinsic stimulus was the initial reason they started teaching popular
music, they now consider the importance and benefits of including popular music education in
public K12 schools because of the benefits it could bring, such as increasing students’
engagement and expanding curriculum. They believed popular music should be learned in an
authentic approach. They mentioned the major challenges, including lack of teacher preparation.
Thus they suggested popular music making experiences in teacher education programs for
preservice teachers, and they encouraged online resources, and additional professional training to
help in-service teachers.
They had contributed to popular music education in different ways, including starting a
new popular music program in college, organizing a local community popular music making
group, and instructing popular music courses for music education majors in colleges. As pioneers
of popular music educators, they met similar challenges at the starting point because of the lack
of related experience, models, and necessary resources and facilities. The resistance from
traditional music programs was another challenge, which they suggested avoiding potential
conflicts with others and calling for successful models.
They all contributed to popular music in academic and practical ways. They had
published many writings advocating and improving popular music education, including the topic
of the diversification of music programs in K12 public schools and colleges, quantitative
empirical research in ear playing, equity, inclusion, and diversity in popular music education;
111
music technology in education, history of popular music education, and pedagogy and
assessment of popular music education, and popular music making experience of the amateur
musicians. Dr. Powell also contributed to the development of the profession of popular music
research. They engaged closely with in-service music teachers concerning popular music
teaching in K12 according to organizing workshops, including ear-based activities sharing, play
along ukulele, popular music pedagogy, and music technology. They met roadblocks when they
advocated their thoughts from the traditional music educators, who believed including popular
music in the classroom would decrease students’ participation in traditional ensembles.
However, they believed they were advocating for expanding music programs rather than take
students away from traditional ensembles.
They received different feedback from their colleagues when applying popular music to
music teacher education programs. Some of the colleagues showed positive attitudes, while
others showed no attitudes because they believed popular music is irrelevant to their teaching.
Some of the interviewees reported low regard from their colleagues. To establish a popular music
performance program as the dean, Dr. Cutietta convinced the colleagues and acquired legitimacy
by keeping reputation and balancing the budget. He innovated a new human resource system for
professional popular musicians, and additional audition requirements for students. Their teaching
practice evolved compared to their initial thoughts. They were confused at the beginning by
lacking clear goals and expectations. Some of them taught popular music by using a traditional
approach. Now their pedagogies have been changed because of their better understanding of the
students’ abilities, and the help from online resources and technology.
112
Discussion
Although traditional western ensembles and choir stayed mainstream in the K12 music
program, young people prefer popular music most (Hargreaves, Comber, & Colley, 1995; Hui,
2009; Law & Ho, 2015; Leblanc, 1979;). Their popular music making activities, including
listening, singing, instruments playing, happened outside of their classroom (Green, 2002).
Similarly, all those four interviewees reported their popular music making experiences were
outside of their classrooms, and they were disappointed by the limited options that the music
programs offered. If we, as music educators, want to meet students’ needs, it is essential to build
a better understanding of the students’ music making practice both inside and outside music
education programs.
Tanglewood Declaration stated to include popular music in the K12 music program in
1968. Some experiments of implication of popular music in the classroom since then (Cutietta,
1985; Cuttita & Brennan, 1991; Sarig, 1969; Thompson, 1979; Wagner & Brick, 1993). Those
four experts finished their K12 education at different times (1971, 1986, 1997, and 1998) as well
as in different states (Ohio, Nebraska, Michigan, and California), they reported popular music
making had not been largely found in the K12 public schools in the United States after thirty
years of the declaration. Based on their experiences, the music programs in the K12 school
remained in traditions, and western ensembles and choir remained a staple in their times. While
educators call for a change to expand the curriculum, some issues are worth discussing.
In K12
The first issue is the discrepancy of keeping tradition and developing popular music
practice in the music classroom. Many music educators argued that including popular music in
the curriculum would threaten students’ participation in traditional ensembles. Dr. Woody
113
mentioned the worries of traditional music educators: would students choose to be in a concert
band if they have a choice of being in a concert band or a rock band? They believed all the
students were going to choose rock bands over concert bands, thus, bringing popular music will
threaten the popularity of classical music, concert band, concert choir, and orchestra among the
students. Similarly, Dr. Cutietta believed including popular music in the classroom is the least
news that high school band directors wanted to hear: because they know it will be more popular
than what they are doing if a high school had a big wind ensemble and a whole bunch of small
rock bands, where the students are going to participate?
Music educators are calling for a change to expand music programs. The purpose of
including popular music practice in the classroom is to expand the music programs rather than
replace traditional ensembles by rock bands. As a popular music educator, I believe traditional
music has its own value as any other music genre and worthy of teaching, I believe the music
will survive on its own merits. Popular rock bands would replace the thoughts of traditional
ensembles that underestimated the value of traditional music.
Authenticity is an essential topic in popular music education. What is authentic popular
music making experience? As I show in Figure 1, the four interviewees mentioned the four most
important characteristics of authentic popular music making: (a) learning by oral approach; (b)
authentic music instrumentation; (c) original songwriting; and (d) students’ authorities of
repertoire choice.
Figure 1: Four Important Characteristics of Authentic Popular Music Making
114
Many music educators claimed that they had included popular music in their teaching:
they handed musical scores to students and invited them to play popular music tunes using their
traditional band instruments. However, it cannot be considered as an authentic popular music
making experience. From the music making process aspect, playing popular tunes in traditional
ensembles by notation did not fit any criteria of the authenticity of popular music making.
Students are still learning in a notation-based system with inauthentic music instruments, none of
the repertoire choice offered, as well as creativity. From the music production aspects, such
performances have not come from the popular music cultures: people barely hear it in real-life
circumstances. It is not the music young people listen to on radio, television, or playlists in real
life. Authentic music production and authentic music making are the key to integral authenticity.
Dr. Woody argued that it is acceptable to have students play popular tunes by traditional music if
they practice in an authentic music making process. However, it can hardly be considered
authentically. However, he argued, it is better than no popular music at all, if it is what students’
choice.
115
When educators try to include popular music in their teaching, many other challenges
they face besides the pedagogy issues. One of the challenges could be a lack of facilities,
instrumentation, funding, space, and community support. It was a fact that expanding music
programs needed extra funding, and popular music making practice needed new instruments to
achieve authenticity. Where does the money come from? Furthermore, if we agree that the
purpose of including popular music is to expand music programs and offer more options to
students, that extra space is needed. Community support is another issue. How can music
educators acquire community support?
My suggestion is, first and foremost, to build a communication with the school
administrators for legitimacy. Then apply funding from outside of the school if it is not available
inside. Some NGOs offer funding and/or equipment for educational purposes, for example, Little
Kids Rock offers free popular music instruments and teacher training programs. LKR also offers
performance opportunities for students, which is the key to achieving general community
support. Dr. Woody mentioned that the success of the students’ performances attracted more
participants to his class, and Dr. Cutietta mentioned the excellent reputation of the popular music
performance program that attracted more applications each year. Thus, can we assume that the
success of students’ performances, and as a result, good reputation and more students'
participation, can achieve more community support and more administrative support?
According to the interviewees, one of the most important reasons to include popular
music in the classroom is to meet students’ needs because it is the native music to students, and it
is a musical identity to students. However, popular music is a big name, which can be
categorized into many styles. In addition, popular music changes rapidly, new music styles come
116
out every couple of years. Students’ musical identity can also be various in one classroom. How
can we, as music educators, meet all students’ needs?
Compared to traditional large ensembles, the size of authentic popular music ensembles is
smaller. Thus, it would have multiple bands in one classroom: normally, if there are 20 students
in one class, there are three to seven bands. Unlike the traditional large ensembles that play three
or four repertoires required by the band director per semester, students themselves are the subject
of the popular ensembles, they have the authority to form their own ensembles with peers who
share similar interests, and they have the authority to choose what music piece they are going to
play upon the agreement with peers. Compared to traditional ensembles, popular bands practice
more songs every semester, which diversify their repertoire selections. Thus there is a potential
that such smaller ensembles meet everyone’s needs.
Moreover, in the popular music classrooms, teachers are no longer the experts in the
music classrooms, who believe they know everything about music and teach the students, who
know nothing about music. Dr. Powell mentioned that students are the experts in the classroom
because they “know a lot about music, they have listened to music in their whole lives, they
know what music they like, and what music they do not like, they know how music functions in
their life” (Powell, Zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020). However, the teachers’ role is a facilitator,
who facilitates students’ meaningful music making experience. Dr. Powell mentioned many band
directors could also be good music teachers without knowing to play all instruments in a band,
and he suggested “it is OK if your students can do [the instrument] better than you” (Powell,
Zoom interview, Aug. 17, 2020), and teachers can still teach guitar when they are not guitar
experts. The job of a facilitator is to offer the help that students need. If there is information that
students need, but the teacher does not know, online resources could help.
117
Due to the lack of popular music training in most music education programs, many
in-service music teachers might have a hard time beginning: they want to include popular music,
but they do not know where to start. The interviewees faced similar problems at the beginning, as
well. They suggested online resources and additional professional development would be
helpful. Moreover, Dr. Powell suggested that a popular music community would be helpful, and
it could be found in multiple social media.
Popular Music in Music Teacher Program
Again, many music teachers agreed with the benefits of popular music practice, they felt
hesitant to include popular music in their own teaching because of lack of training in college
(Allsup, 2011; Leung and Hung, 2008; Springer, 2015; Wang & Humphreys, 2009). While some
music teacher education programs started to include popular music making experience as part of
their traditional pre-service teacher training programs in the past decade (Powell, Krikun &
Pignato, 2015), there are still many issues that need to be addressed.
The first issue is the overloaded music education programs. Many research articles
indicated that current music teacher training programs in the United States are overloaded
(Bartolome, 2013; Conway, Eros, Pellegrino, & West, 2010; Hickey & Rees, 2002). Besides the
general courses required by the colleges, music education students are required to take music
performance courses, attend rehearsals, and prepare recitals. Teaching method courses are
required, too. Most music teacher education programs maintained compartmentalized and
specialized courses intended to develop future teachers' expertise in general music, band, chorus
(Hickey & Rees, 2002). Music education students often minimize their eating, sleeping, or
socializing time to accommodate their overloaded schedules (Conway, Eros, Pellegrino, & West,
118
2010). If we want to add popular music making experience in the overloaded curriculum, is it
achievable? Will it be a burden to the students who are taking overloaded courses?
We might need successful samples to answer the question. Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell
introduced their experience of including popular music making courses. Both of the courses are
elective. Montclair State University offered ten techniques courses, including brass techniques,
woodwind techniques, and percussion techniques, as well as popular music techniques, so that
students could choose one of the courses they wanted. For example, students might choose
popular music techniques rather than brass techniques if they are a trombone or a tuba player.
Another example is the Popular Musicianship at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr.
Woody mentioned that the vast majority of the music education seniors are elected to attend the
course because they were very much impressed with the performance they saw when they were
juniors. Dr. Woody mentioned most of the popular music practices happened outside of the
classroom. Although the seniors are busy on their senior recital and are the premier performers in
the wind ensemble, the orchestra, or the large choral ensemble, they can still find time to devote
to the popular music experience. To sum up, adding popular music making experience is an
achievable goal, that students are able to find time to devote with their initiative into full play.
The second issue is the conflict of students’ musical values. Preservice music teachers
value their traditional instruments and/or choir making experiences. Many studies showed
participation in school or community ensembles and musical activities, including private lessons
and music camps, influence in-service and preservice music teachers’ career choice (Henry,
2015; Rickels et al, 2010; Thornton, 2015). Thornton (2015) found love of music and in-school
music experiences were the major reasons music teachers devoted themselves to music
education. These findings are similar to the preservice music teachers (Henry, 2015; Rickels et
119
al, 2010). There was no doubt most of their in-school music experiences concerned traditional
instruments ensembles and/or choir, and they believed that traditional ensembles experience are
meaningful to them. As popular music educators, how can we expand the idea of what music
education programs can be when addressing those for whom traditional music education was
deeply meaningful?
The major goal of expanding music education programs is preparing students’ future
success as a music teacher. Rickels et al (2010) found 85% of the preservice teacher imagined
their future teaching occupations. However, it was cruel that many of them could not find a
satisfying occupation in the first several teaching years. For example, it was possible that a
student who wanted to be a high school band director when he was studying in college but ended
up teaching general music in elementary school. In addition, Kimpton (2005) found that there
was a trend that many music education students had never set foot in a classroom or left the
professions after their first five years of teaching because they were dissatisfied with the teaching
location: “everyone wants the same jobs, in affluent and stable medium-sized towns, small cities
or affluent suburban districts with motivated students and good budgets, close to their friends
and Pottery Barn… When beginning teachers can’t get one of those jobs, they choose not to
teach” (pp. 11-12). Dr. Powell stated the release of music teachers because “it’s just not what
they thought it will gonna be” (Powell, Zoom interview, Sep. 24, 2020). Novice music teachers
might face many challenges, and the higher education community would like to offer expanded
experience to help them be well-rounded music teachers for their success in their unknown music
teaching career. Traditional music making might be a meaningful experience to the preservice
teachers, but popular music is meaningful to the students in the K12 music classroom. Thus,
including popular music in music teacher programs is a way to prepare the preservice music
120
teachers and help them be comfortable enough to facilitate opportunities for the students they are
going to engage with and make a meaningful music experience for their future students.
If we agree it is necessary to include popular music courses in the music education
program, the third issue comes out: who can teach the course? Dr. Cutitta tried to create a
one-year intensive certification program for the popular music performance program students
and become teachers after graduation. Without copying the success of the popular music
performance program, the popular music teaching program closed twice. Unable to find a
proficient faculty of popular music education is one reason for the closure: all music educators in
higher education are trained in a traditional route, and few can teach popular music pedagogy. He
was looking for a music educator who is experienced in authentic popular music making. He
stated three major characteristics of a successful popular pedagogy faculty that he is looking for.
First, the faculty should learn music orally before diving into notation or written music. Second,
the faculty should be experienced in songwriting in popular music style. Third, the faculty should
make popular music authentically in the first place.
As traditionally trained musicians and barely experienced authentic popular music
making before they dove into the popular music education, Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell instructed
popular music courses in music education programs successfully. Dr. Powell suggested the role
of popular music teachers are facilitators rather than experts: “you do not have to be a guitar
expert to teach guitar” (Powell, zoom communication, Sep. 24, 2020). Dr. Woody did not teach
specific popular music instruments in his class. The strategies sharing and in-class performance
occupied most of the class time, and most of the students' popular music practices happened
outside of the classroom.
121
As an administrator and an experienced popular musician, Dr. Cutietta expects a popular
music education faculty who is experienced in popular music making . On the other hand, the
traditionally trained musicians, such as Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell, achieved great success in
their popular music making courses as I mentioned above. Thus, here is an unsolved question:
what are the criteria for popular music education faculty?
It is easy to understand the suggestion from Dr. Cutietta, that an ideal popular music
education faculty should be fluent in popular music making himself. However, it was a fact that
almost all music education faculty members experienced traditional music making exclusively
during their college or within their entire lives. Thus, if we believe that only experienced popular
music makers are eligible to teach popular music education, we might never find a popular music
education faculty forever. It would be an endless loop: there is no popular music making
experience in the music teachers training programs because there is no eligible faculty, then the
students in the program might become a music education faculty someday, who still cannot offer
such experience for their future students. If we consider the importance of popular music in the
classroom, and if we want to stop the endless loop, we should start it by inviting and supporting
music education faculty members who would like to include the authentic popular music making
experience in their classrooms, although they might not be experienced by themselves. The
samples of Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell showed that traditionally trained musicians are able to
achieve great success in popular music making courses. Again, it is an achievable goal that
successful popular music making courses are instructed by traditionally trained musicians, as
long as the popular music making experience they offered is authentic.
The fourth issue is the popular music pedagogy in teacher education. What do successful
popular music education courses look like, and what are the practices that pioneers in this area
122
have used to create new opportunities? As I mentioned above, both Dr. Woody and Dr. Powell
instructed popular music courses in music education programs. The courses are elective for the
music education majors, and the number of participants is about 15 to 20. Their courses have
different concerns: Dr. Powell’s course spent most of time on popular music performance
techniques, such as instruments playing, popular music theory, and pedagogical strategies (See
Appendix G). Dr. Woody focused on strategies sharing, in-class performance, and song creation
(See Appendix H), and required more extra time to practice out of class. Although the focuses
are different, they received similar positive feedback from the students. Furthermore, they are
facilitating the popular music experiences in an authentic way. It suggested that no one model of
popular music courses fits all programs, but it would work if the courses are dedicated to
authentic popular music making.
Furthermore, Dr. Reese founded a ukulele community group. She achieved great success
in the local community by applying the play-alone activities: she replaced traditional notation
with pictures of the chord, lyrics, and the original background track with original musicians
performing the tune. She applied her play-alone activities in the secondary general method
course and received positive feedback from the students.
Dr. Cutietta contributed to the popular music performance in colleges by inventing a new
model of the program. The students focused on reproducing popular music styles authentically
and creating original popular music. It is the first specialized popular music performance
program offered in a conservatory in the United States.
The fifth issue concerns faculties' attitude. The voices of their colleagues in the school of
music concerning their work to popular music education are different. Some of their colleagues
showed a supportive attitude to their work: they are interested in this topic and would like to
123
teach it. Some of them introduced essential background information in their classes, and some
involved popular music reporters in their recital. While others reported irrelevant or no attitude:
they are not unsupportive as long as the expansion would not affect their teaching. Some of them
attended popular music workshops but have not yet applied it to their teaching because of the
limited time and intensive course loads. Dr. Woody believed music faculties would not show an
unsupportive attitude if there is neither time conflict or competition between the traditional
music courses and popular music courses. Dr. Cutietta mentioned his colleagues are supportive,
as long as the popular music program did not hurt schools’ reputation and budget.
Community cultures of the schools of music and music making experiences of the
colleagues were the main reason their attitude varied. Dr. Cutitta and Dr. Powell believed the
local community culture is one of the main reasons that their attitude varied: the colleges they are
working in are located in or near metropolitan areas, where the popular music culture plays an
essential role in the community culture. Thus their colleagues are more open to the popular
music courses and the program than others living and working in rural areas. Besides, Dr.
Woody, Dr. Reese, and Dr. Woody mentioned that the faculty's past music experiences are vital:
those faculty who experienced popular music making would be open and supportive to the
expansion.
The sixth issue is the potential challenges that higher music educators would meet when
trying to include popular music in the music education program. They all had a hard time
initially, with the lack of popular music teaching experience, successful models, and resources
and facilities. The resistance from traditional music programs was another challenge, which they
suggested avoiding potential conflicts and competitions with others and calling for successful
models. In addition, they believed that expanding music programs would encourage the students
124
to participate in school of music without decreasing the number of students participating in
traditional ensembles.
Support from the administrator of schools of music is essential. As a dean himself, Dr.
Cutietta suggested that changes should start with the collegiate level; more specifically, it should
start by the dean of the school of music: “there is only one fulcrum within the cycle and it is the
administrator in charge of the school of music” (Cutietta, 2017, p. 263). Dr. Woody mentioned
that he received financial support from the director of the School of Music based on his success
of first year teaching of Popular Musicianship course. Dr. Powell also mentioned the support he
received from the administrator for expanding the music education program.
Future Research
This study raises several questions that merit further study. First, during the interviews,
all four interviewees spent much time discussing the importance of authenticity in popular music
making experiences in the classroom. The origin of authentic popular music learning and making
was concluded by Lucy Green (2002). She interviewed many in-field popular musicians to
explore how they learn. She found almost all of the musicians learned popular music by
themselves, and few of them received much help from their school of music learning
experiences. In other words, those musicians practiced mainly outside of the classroom setting. If
we, music educators, would like to practice such an outside-classroom experience into our
classroom, can the authenticity be kept? If not, what adjustments should we make to keep the
authenticity?
The second question concerns the audition requirement of schools of music. It is a fact
that most music education programs require proficiency in traditional instruments and music
literacy. However, many experienced popular musicians may have limited experience and
125
knowledge in traditional instrument performance and music literacy. Are we still going to keep
them outside of the music education program? If not, how are we going to change the audition
requirement? If we are becoming more inclusive and accepting popular musicians who lack
knowledge of traditional music literacy, how can we bring them alone?
Third, this article explored the experiences of four music education experts who applied
popular music making in their teaching and research. More samples are needed: what are the
experiences of other music education faculties who apply popular music making experiences in
the music education programs? What are their courses or programs looking like? What
suggestions would they like to share? Additionally, it should be noted that all four interviewees
in this dissertation are white, future research could discuss the popular music education
experiences of the experts who came from underrepresented populations.
Fourth, this article explored the experiences and thoughts of music education experts in
higher institutions. Future research could explore students in the music teacher programs, what
are the thoughts, concerns, and experiences of the students in popular music making courses?
What are the concerns of the students in music education programs without such experiences?
126
References
Adams, M. C. (2016). Educating the music learner. Music Educators Journal, 103(1), 64-69.
doi:10.1177/0027432116651117
Allsup, R. E., Westerlund, H., & Shieh, E. (2012). Youth culture and secondary education. In G.
McPherson & G. Welch (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music education (Vol. 1, pp.
460–475). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Allsup, R. E. (2011). Popular music and classical musicians: Strategies and perspectives. Music
Educators Journal, 97(3), 30-34. doi:10.1177/0027432110391810
Bartolome, S. J. (2013). Growing Through Service: Exploring the Impact of a Service-Learning
Experience on Preservice Educators. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 23(1), 79–91.
Bowman, W. D. (1998). Philosophical perspectives on music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burstein, S., & Powell, B. (2019). Approximation and scaffolding in Modern Band. Music
Educators Journal, 106(1), 39-47.
Campbell, P. S., Connell, C., & Beegle, A. (2007). Adolescents’ expressed meanings of music in
and out of school. Journal of Research in Music Education, 55(3), 220–236
Choate, R. (Ed.). (1968). Documentary report of the Tanglewood Symposium.Washington, DC:
Music Educators National Conference.
Child Trends Databank. (2015). Participation in school music or other performing arts.
Retrieved from
http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=participation-in-school-music-or-other-performin
g-arts
127
Colquhoun, S. (2018). Popular Music Genres, Music Producers, and Song Creation in the
General Music Classroom. General Music Today, 31(2), 17–20.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1048371317710311
Conway, C., Eros, J., Pellegrino, K., & West, C. (2010). Instrumental music education students’
perceptions of tensions experienced during their undergraduate degree. Journal of
Research in Music Education, 58(3), 260–275.
Cremata, R., & Powell, B. (2017). Online music collaboration project: Digitally mediated,
deterritorialized music education. International Journal of Music Education, 35(2),
302–315.
Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among
five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Cutietta, R. A. (1985). Using rock videos to your advantage. Music Educators Journal, 71(6),
47-49.
Cutietta, R. A. , & Brennan, T. (1991). Coaching a pop/rock ensemble. Music Educators Journal,
77(8), 40-45.
Cutietta, R. A. (2017). K-16 music education in a democratic society. In P. Schmidt & R. Colwell
(Eds.), Politics and political life of music education (pp. 253-266). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Doyle, J. L. (2014). Cultural relevance in urban music education: A synthesis of the literature.
Update: Applications of Research In Music Education, 32(2), 44-51.
doi:10.1177/8755123314521037
128
Droe, K. (2006). Music preference and music education: A review of literature. Update:
Applications of Research in Music Education, 24(2), 23-32.
doi:10.1177/87551233060240020103
Fung, C. V. (1995). Rationales for teaching world musics. Music Educators Journal, 82(1),
36-40. doi:10.2307/3398884
Gammond, P. (1991). The Oxford companion to popular music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Green, L. (2002). How popular musicians learn: A way ahead for music education. Burlington,
VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Green, L. (2008). Music, informal learning and the school: A new classroom pedagogy.
Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Green, L. (2010). Research in the sociology of music education: Some introductory concepts. In
R. Wright (Ed.), Sociology and music education (pp. 21-34). Burlington, VT: Ashgate
Publishing Company.
Greenwald, D. (2013). USC Music School Teaches the Art of Making a Pop Hit. Retrieved from
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/usc-music-school-teaches-the-art-ofmaking-a-p
op-hit-20130708.
Greher, G. R. (2008). Response to panel: Dimensions and tensions of disconnect in music
teacher preparation. [Special edition: Beyond Lucy Green]. Visions of Research in Music
Education, 12(1), 1–3. Retrieved from http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme/v12n1/vision/
5%20AERA%20-%20Greher.pdf
Hallam, S., Creech, A., & McQueen, H. (2016). The perceptions of non music staff and senior
management of the impact of the implementation of the musical futures approach on the
129
whole school. British Journal of Music Education, 33(2), 133-157.
doi:10.1017/S0265051716000139
Hargreaves, D. J., Comber, C., & Colley, A. (1995). Effects of age, gender, and training on
musical preferences of British secondary school students. Journal of Research in Music
Education, 43(3), 242-250. doi:10.2307/3345639
Henry, M. L. (2015). The Musical Experiences, Career Aspirations, and Attitudes Toward the
Music Education Profession of All-State Musicians. Journal of Music Teacher Education,
24(2), 40–53.
Hebert, D. G. (2011). Originality and institutionalization: Factors engendering resistance to
popular music pedagogy in the U.S.A. Music Education Research International, 5, 12–
21.
Hickey, M., & Rees, F. (2002). Developing a model for change in music teacher education.
Journal of Music Teacher Education, 12(1), e7–e11.
Hui, V. F. (2009). Music listening preference of Macau students. Music Education Research,
11(4), 485-500. doi:10.1080/14613800903391749
Isbell, D. (2007). Popular music and the public school music curriculum. Update: Applications
of Research in Music Education, 26(1), 53-63. doi: 10.1177/87551233070260010106
Kimpton, J. (2005). What to do about music teacher education: Our profession at a crossroads.
Journal of Music Teacher Education, 14(2), 8–21.
Kondracka-Szala, M., & Michalak, M. (2019). Popular music in the educational space of polish
preschools – the teacher’s perspective. International Journal of Music Education, 37(1),
22-42. doi:10.1177/0255761418789969
130
Koops, L. H., Hankins, E. A., Scalise, D., & Schatt, M. D. (2014). Rock orchestra alumni
reflections on the impact of participation in "the lakewood project". Research Studies in
Music Education, 36(2), 147.
Krukun, A. (2010). Mixing Memphis soul into the community college curriculum stew. Journal
of Popular Music Studies 21(1), 76-89.
Law, W. W., & Ho, W. C. (2015). Popular music and school music education: Chinese students’
preferences and dilemmas in Shanghai, China. International Journal of Music Education,
33(3), 304-324. doi:10.1177/0255761415569115
Leblanc, A. (1979). Generic style music preferences of fifth-grade students. Journal of Research
in Music Education, 27(4), 255-270. doi:10.2307/3344712
Leung, C. C., & Hung, C. C. (2008). The enjoyment of popular music as a valuable experience in
music learning. In C. C. Leung, L. C. R. Yip & T. Imada (Eds.), Music education policy
and implementation: International perspectives (pp. 182–194). Hirosaki, Japan: Hirosaki
University Press.
Leonhard, C., & House, R. (1959). Foundations and principles of music education. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book.
Little Kids Rock. (2021). www.littlekidsrock.org
Mauch, M., MacCallum, R. M., Levy, M., & Leroi, A. M. (2015). The evolution of popular
music: USA 1960–2010. Royal Society Open Science, 2(5), 1-10.
Mark, M. (Ed.). (2013). Music education: source reading from Ancient Greece to today. (4th
ed.). New York: Routledge.
Mark, M., & Gary, C. L. (2007). A history of American music. (3rd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield Education.
131
Mills, S. W. (2000). Recognizing middle school students’ taste for popular music. General Music
Today, 13(3), 3-6. doi:10.1177/104837130001300302
Moyer. J. (1999). Step-by-step guide to oral history. Retrieved from
https://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/links/pdf/chapter6/6.3.pdf
Ng, H. H. (2018). Enabling popular music teaching in the secondary classroom – singapore
teachers' perspectives. British Journal of Music Education, 35(3), 301-319.
doi:10.1017/S0265051717000274
Oral History Association, (2009). Principles and best practices. Retrieved from
https://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices-revised-2009/
Pembrooke, R. G. (1991). Exploring the musical side of pop. Music Educators Journal,
77(8),30-34. doi:10.2307/3398150
Plummer, K. (1983). Documents of life: An introduction to the problems and literature of a
humanistic method. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Powell, B. (2011). Popular music ensembles in post-secondary contexts: A case study of two
college music programs (Doctoral dissertation). Boston: Boston University, Boston, MA.
Powell, B., Krikun, A., & Pignato, J. (2015). “Something’s happening here!”: Popular music
education in the United States. IASPM Journal, 5(1). 4-22
Powell, B. (2019a). Breaking down barriers to participation: Perspectives of female musicians in
popular music ensembles. In Z. Moir, B. Powell, & G. D. Smith (Eds.), Bloomsbury
handbook of popular music education (pp. 337-350). New York: Bloomsbury.
Powell, B. (2019b). A zero-sum game? Modern Band’s impact on traditional music ensembles.
School Music NEWS: The Official Publication of the New York State School Music
Association, 86(2), 20-23.
132
Powell, B. (2019c). The integration of music technology into popular music ensembles:
Perspectives of modern band teachers. Journal of Music, Technology, and Education,
12(3), 297-310.
Powell, B. (in press). Modern band: A review of literature, UPDATE: Applications of Research
in Music Education.
Powell, B., & Smith, G. D. (2019). Philosophy of assessment in popular music education. In D.
J. Elliott, M. Silverman, & G. E. McPherson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of
Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education (pp. 347.). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Reese, J., Bicheler, R., & Robinson, C. (2015). Field experiences using iPads: Impact of
experience on preservice teachers’ beliefs. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 26(1),
96-111. doi:10.1177/1057083715616441
Reese, J. A. (2019). Uke, flow and Rock ’n’ Roll. International Journal of Community Music,
12(2), 203-223. doi:10.1386/ijcm.12.2.203_1
Rickels, D. A., Councill, K. H., Fredrickson, W. E., Hairston, M. J., Porter, A. M., & Schmidt,
M. (2010). Influences on career choice among music education audition candidates: A
pilot study. Journal of Research in Music Education, 57(4), 292-307.
Sarig, E. R. (1969). Ignoring rock won't make it go away. Music Educators Journal, 56(3),
46-48.
Shuker, R. (2016). Understanding popular music culture. New York: Routledge.
Springer, D. G. (2015). Teaching popular music: Investigating music educators’ perception and
preparation. International Journal of Music Education, 34(4), 403-415.
doi:10.1177/0255761415619068
133
Starr, L., & Waterman (2007). American popular music: From Minstrelsy to MP3. (2nd. Ed.).
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Thornton, L. C. (2015). Important others: Music teachers’ perceived roles in music teacher
recruitment. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 24(3), 97–107.
Tobias, E. S. (2015). From musical detective to DJs. General Music Today, 28(3), 23-27.
doi:10.1177/1048371314558293
Toynbee, J. (2000). Making popular music: Musicians, creativity and institutions. London:
Arnold.
Thompson, D. (1979). Plugging into pop at the junior high level. Music Educators Journal,
66(4), 54–58.
University Library of UC Santa Cruz, (2020). Oral history research and resources. Retrieved
from https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/oralhist/about-oral-history
Vasil, M. (2015). Integrating popular music and informal music learning practices: A multiple
case study of secondary school music teachers enacting change in music education
(Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7909&context=etd
Vasil, M. (2019). Integrating popular music and informal music learning practices: A multiple
case study of secondary school music teachers enacting change in music education.
International Journal of Music Education, 37(2), 298-310.
doi:10.1177/0255761419827367
Vasil, M., Weiss, L., & Powell, B. (2018). Popular music pedagogies: An approach to teaching
21st century skills. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 28(3), 85-95.
134
Verrico, K., & Reese, J. (2016). Musicians’ experiences in an iPad ensemble. Journal of Music,
Technology & Education, 9(3), 315–328. doi:10.1386/jmte.9.3.315_1
Wagner, M. J. , & Brick, J. S. (1993). Using karaoke in the classroom. Music Educators Journal,
79, (7), 44–46.
Wang, J., & Humphreys, J. T. (2009). Multicultural and popular music content in an American
music teacher education program. International Journal of Music Education, 27(1),
19-36. doi:10.1177/0255761408099062
Wish, D., Heimbauer, G., Speicher. C., Flora, J., DiMasso, A., Zellner, R., & Danielsson, S.
(2020). Music as a Second Language and Modern Band Movement. Retrieved from
https://mk0jamzonelittlgp1k9.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TeacherManua
lv42_Sept2020.pdf
Woody, R. H. (2003/2004). Review of the book How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead
for Music Education. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 155,
81-85.
Woody, R. H. (2007a). Popular music in school: Remixing the issues. Music Educators Journal,
93(4), 32-37.
Woody, R. H. (2007b). Author’s response (to letter to the editor): Popular music. Music
Educators Journal, 93(5), 7.
Woody, R. H., & Lehmann, A. C. (2010). Student musicians’ ear playing ability as a function of
vernacular music experiences. Journal of Research in Music Education, 58(2), 101-115.
Woody, R. H. (2012). Playing by ear: Foundation or frill? Music Educators Journal, 99(2),
82-88.
135
Woody, R. H. (2019). Musicians’ use of harmonic cognitive strategies when playing by ear.
Psychology of Music. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/0305735618816365.
Wright, R. (2016). Informal learning in general music education. In C. R. Abril & B. M. Gault
(Eds.), Teaching general music: Approaches, issues, and viewpoints (pp. 209-240). New
York: Oxford University Press.
136
Appendix A: Email to Potential Participants
Dear Dr. XXX
My name is Yunshu Tan and I am a doctoral candidate at Penn State University. I ambeginning work on my dissertation on the theme of popular music learning and teaching inteacher education. Your name has come to my attention as a potential participant.
I have read your research in this area and I would like to invite you to be a primarysource of information for this study. The project is a qualitative oral history that focuses on thethoughts and opinions of music education faculty who have completed pioneering work in thisfield.
I am hoping that you will allow me to interview you twice for 45 minutes each via theapplication Zoom or by phone. These interviews will be recorded and transcribed. You will beable to access the transcripts after the interviews are transcribed and coded. At Penn StateUniversity, oral history projects do not require IRB approval, but I would hope that you mightallow me to keep recorded materials for potential future presentations.
Additionally, I would appreciate receiving a copy of your CV and guidance towards anyother materials (research or pedagogy-based) that you feel I should review to better understandyour work and experiences. Due to the current world Covid-19 pandemic, I will be completingmy research completely online and with digital materials. If you have media, such as movies oraudio, that is available digitally, I would love to know where I might access them.
Thank you very much for your consideration of this invitation. If you have any questions,I am very happy to speak with you via Zoom or phone (646-853-5980). You are also welcome tospeak with my dissertation adviser, Dr. Ann Clements (814-933-8144).
Sincerely,Yunshu Tan
137
Appendix B: Interview Protocol
Project: Popular Music Learning and Teaching in Teacher Education: An Oral History
Time of Interview:Date:Place: zoomInterviewer: YunshuInterviewee: Dr. XXX
Questions will be draw from the following list:
1. What are the thoughts, stories, and experiences of music education researchers regardingpopular music teaching and learning, who published on this topic from the 1980sforward?a. What are their personal histories of developing interest in, researching, and
presenting and publishing on the topic of popular music in music education?i. “what music making experience did you engage in before college (in your
youth and in high school)”1. Experience of music making before college2. Experience of popular music making before college3. Thoughts of these experiences?4. What/who impacts the music making experiences?5. Why major in music (edu)?
ii. Music-making in college (and young adulthood)1. Experience of music making in college2. Experience of popular music making in college3. Thoughts of these experiences?4. What/who impacts the music making experiences?5. Any related in-field practice or research?
iii. Popular Music-making after college1. First job?2. Experience of popular music making in teaching
a. What/when/whereb. Why do you value popular music?
i. Why is the area of importance to you?ii. What do you think it does for college-level music student’s thinking and
doing in music?iii. What do you think it does (what are its benefits) in K-12 education?iv. Do you think all K-12 programs should include popular music?
1. If so, in what forms?
138
v. What are the challenges facing the inclusion of popular music incollege-level courses?
1. In k-12 classes?vi. What does it take to overcome these challenges?
1. How have you overcome these challenges?vii. What made you start interested in popular music education?
1. What made you start interested in popular music making?2. What made you start your first research in popular music
education?3. Have you presented your popular music education research in any
conference or academic gatethering?
2. How have you implemented your ideas about popular music education and the ideas of otherswithin pre-service music education settings?
a. Have you taught popular music education courses in any pre-service setting?i. If so, what’s the name of the course?
ii. What does the course look like? (any syllabus?)iii. What is the goal for the class?iv. How many students?v. How many years?
b. If not, have you ever included popular music in any of your classes?i. What courses?
ii. What is the goal for the class?iii. How many students?iv. How many years?v. What does the course look like?
c. Reflections of the coursesi. Have you achieved the goal of the class?
ii. Students’ reflection?iii. What do they feel was the impact of the class? (Do they have any evidence to
support that.)
3. What are the perceived strengths and challenges you have endured during their explorations(including research and publications) and implementation (personal, from school, community,curricular standards) in higher education?
a. Do you feel as though your work in this topic area has been supported?i. Have you hit any road blocks because it has historically been a different kind of
topic (beyond band, choir, and orchestra)?ii. Whose work (research) has influenced you?
b. Have you been supported in the writings or presentations you have done on this topic?
139
i. Have there been any challenges because of the topic area?ii. Have you had any challenges publishing in this area?
iii. Did you have any perceived rejections because of the topic area?iv. Have your writings in this area been given full credit for promotion and tenure?v. Has your work been accepted for presentation throughout your career or has the
topic been a challenge for gaining conference acceptance?c. Engagement with practicing teachers
i. Workshops, teacher inservices, visits with school districts.. What have you done?Why do you think you were invited? Were all the teachers equally interested inthis topic? What do you feel was the impact? Has this impact changed over time?
d. What do you feel has been your biggest contribution or contributions to this area in termsof writings, presentations, or workshops?
i. Can you list a few publications/writings or presentations you have about popularmusic education that you are particularly proud of?
1. Why? Was this impact of the field, on teachers, or a research community?e. Based on your publications and presentations, what do you believe are the biggest
challenges of implementing popular music into higher education, including teachereducation and beyond?
i. Based upon your publications and presentations, what do you believe are thebiggest successes of implementation popular music in higher education hasexperienced thus far?
f. How has the implementation of their ideas fit within preexisting curricular structures?i. What were the thoughts and feedback of your colleagues in their programs?
1. What thoughts do your colleagues have about your popular music courseor the course relates to popular music?
2. Have you received any help from your colleagues?3. Have you cooperated the popular music (or related) course with any of
your colleagues?ii. What are your current practices and how does that compare to where their
thinking began, including the impact on culture?1. The original idea
a. What is the goal of the course?b. What were your original thoughts on the course?
2. Nowa. Have you achieved the goal of the class?b. What challenges have you met when you have the class?c. What adaptation did you have?
140
Appendix C: Resume of Dr. Robert Cutietta
Robert Alan Cutietta (C.V. current as of April, 2018)
Education
Certificate in People Management, The Disney Institute, 2000D. Ed. in Music Education, Pennsylvania State University, 1982
Master of Music, Cleveland State University, 1978Bachelor of Arts in Music Education, Cleveland State University, 1975
Professional Experience
The University of Southern CaliforniaDean: The Glorya Kaufman School of Dance 2012--PresentDean: The Thornton School of Music 2002-PresentProfessor of Music (Tenured) 2002-Present(Renewed as dean for fourth five-year term in July, 2016)
The University of ArizonaDirector of The School of Music and Dance 1999-2002Associate Director of School of Music and Dance 1996-1999Coordinator of Music Education 1994-1996Professor of Music Education 1994-2002 (Tenured)
Kent State UniversityAssociate Professor of Music Education 1990-1994 (Tenured)Coordinator of Music Education, 1989-1994Assistant Professor of Music Education, 1985-1990
Montana State UniversityAssistant Professor of Music Education, 1981-1985Coordinator of Music Education, 1981-1985Coordinator of Graduate Studies in Music, 1983-1985
The Pennsylvania State UniversityMusic Instructor, Department of Parks and Recreation, 1980-1981Graduate Assistant, 1979-1981
The Cleveland State UniversityInstructor in Music Education, 1979Graduate Assistant, 1978
Lakewood (Ohio) Public SchoolsGeneral Music and Choral Music Teacher, Grades 6-12, 1976-79.
Brunswick (Ohio) Public SchoolsGeneral Music and Choral Music Teacher, Grades 6-8, 1975-1976
141
A Selection of Scholarly Publications on Popular Music
Books
Robert Cutietta (ed.) Specialized Ensembles in the Secondary School Music Program. Music EducatorsNational Conference, 1999.
Chapters in Books
Robert Cutietta, K-16 Music Education in a Democratic Society. The Oxford Handbook on Arts Policy.Oxford University Press, In press.
Robert Cutietta. “Pondering the Great Experiment in Public Music Education. The Third Handbook ofResearch on Music Teaching and Learning. Oxford University Press, 2011.
Robert Cutietta. “When we question popular music in education, what is the question?” In CarlosXavier Rodriquez (ed) Bridging the Gap: Popular music and Music Education. NationalAssociation for Music Educaiton. 2004
Robert Cutietta, "The Measurement of Attitudes and Preferences in Music Education," in Handbook ofResearch in Music Education, Richard Colwell (editor), Schirmer Books, pp. 451-497, 1992.
Robert Cutietta "The Transfer of Rock Videos to General Music Videos" in Music in the HighSchool William Hughes and Timothy Gerber, (eds.) Reston: MENC Publications.
Articles
Content for music teacher education in this century. Arts Policy Review. 108.6 (July August2007).
Robert Cutietta, "Coaching the Pop/Rock Ensemble," The Music Educators Journal, 77:8 (April,1991) pp. 40-45
Robert Cutietta, "Update: Using Rock Videos in the Classroom," General Music Today 2:1 (Fall, 1988)
Robert Cutietta, "Rock Music Gets a Label," Music Educators Journal, 72:8 (April, 1986) pp. 36-38
Robert Cutietta, "Using Rock Videos to Your Advantage," Music Educator Journal 71:6 (February,1985) pp. 47-49
Robert Cutietta, "The Synthetic Guitar: How Does It Shape Up?" The School Musician 54:6(February, 1983) pp. 4-6
142
A Selection of Scholarly Presentations on Popular Music
What happens to a School of Music when you add a popular music program? (Keynote address:Western Regional Meeting of the College Music Society, Malibu, CA, Feburary, 2011)
Music Videos and the Music Teacher: Marriage or Divorce?", presented at the National Assembly ofthe Music Educators National Conference, New Orleans (April, 1992)
Videos: They Aren't Just for MTV Anymore, presented at The Annual Mid-Winter Conference onMusic and the Related Arts, the University of Maine, Orono (January, 1987)
The Transfer from Rock Videos to General Music Videos, presented at The National Conference onMusic/Arts for the High School General Student, Orlando, Florida (June, 1986)
Non-Academic Professional Experience
Professional musician for over 40 years performing from nightclubs to performance halls torecording studios. Most recently as a member of a jazz trio with USC President Steve Sampleand jazz faculty member Shelly Berg.
Minister of Music in the Methodist church for 30 years (1972-2002) conducting adult,children’s, and bell choirs, contemporary bands, and planning worship.
143
Appendix D: Resume of Dr. Robert Woody
ROBERT H. WOODY
Education – Degrees1998 Ph.D. in Music Education, Florida State University1998 Master of Science in Educational Research, Florida State University 1993Master of Music Education, Florida State University
1990 Bachelor of Music, University of Nebraska − Lincoln
Current Position2001-present Professor of Music Education, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NebraskaUndergraduate courses taught: General Music Methods, Music Learning and Development,Psychology of Music (Honors Seminar), Music and Sports: Performance and Perception,Popular Musicianship, Psychology of Music (online)Graduate courses taught: Psychology and Sociology of Music, Music in the Lives of People,Music Education Doctoral Seminar, Music in Early Childhood, Current Approaches inElementary Music Education,Other responsibilities: Chair of Undergraduate Music Education, Chief Advisor forBachelor of Music Education Degree, Academic Recovery Guide for BME Students onAcademic Probation, Supervision of Music Student Teachers and Practicum Students,Advisement of Graduate Research, Coordinator of Post Baccalaureate Teacher Certificationin Music
Previous Positions1999-2001 Assistant Professor of Music Education
Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana1998-1999 Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Education
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland1996-1998 Instructor/Teaching Assistant, Music Education Department
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida1994-1996 Music Teacher – General Music, Band, and Chorus
Havana Middle School, Gadsden County Public Schools, Havana, Florida
A Selection of Scholarly Publications on Popular MusicBooks/Monographs and ChaptersWoody, R. H, & Adams, M. C. (2019). Vernacular and Popular Music. In C. Conway, K.
Pellegrino, A. M. Stanley, & C. West (Eds.) Oxford handbook of preservice musicteacher education in the United States (pp. 893-902). New York: Oxford
144
University Press.
Woody, R. H. (in press). Vernacular musicianship: Moving beyond teenage popular music. InE. Costa-Giomi & S. J. Morrison (Eds.), Research perspectives on the nationalstandards. National Association for Music Education.
Lehmann, A. C., Sloboda, J. A., & Woody, R. H. (2007). Psychology formusicians: Understanding and acquiring the skills. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.
Articles
Woody, R. H., & Lehmann, A. C. (2010). Student musicians’ ear playing ability as a functionof vernacular music experiences. Journal of Research in Music Education, 58(2),101-115.
Woody, R. H. (2003/2004). Review of the book How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Aheadfor Music Education. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, no.155, 81-85.
Woody, R. H. (2012). Playing by ear: Foundation or frill? Music Educators Journal, 99(2),82-88.
Woody, R. H. (2011). Willing and able: Equipping music educators to teach with popularmusic. The Orff Echo, 43(4), 14-17.
Woody, R. H. (2007). Popular music in school: Remixing the issues. Music EducatorsJournal, 93(4), 32-37.
Woody, R. H. (2004). Reality-based music listening in the classroom: Considering students’natural responses to music. General Music Today, 17(2), 32-39.
Woody, R. H., Lehmann, A. C., & Karas, J. B. (2006). A comparison of Western classical andvernacular musicians’ ear playing abilities. In M. Baroni, A. R. Addessi, R. Caterina,M. Costa (Eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference for MusicPerception and Cognition (pp. 418-419). Bologna, Italy: University of Bologna.
Woody, R. H. (2007). Author’s response (to letter to the editor): Popular music. MusicEducators Journal, 93(5), 7.
A Selection of Scholarly Presentations on Popular MusicMusic Students’ Cognitive Strategies When Playing By Ear. Research poster presentation at
the Biennial Conference of the National Association for Music Education, St. Louis,MO, March, 2012.
Preparing Future Music Teachers to Teach Through Popular Music (with Dale E. Bazan).Research poster presentation at the Society for Music Teacher EducationSymposium, Greensboro, NC, September, 2009.
Broadening Expertise: A Panel Discussion on Informal and Vernacular Musicianship inMusic Teacher Education (with Dale E. Bazan, Sharon G. Davis, and Julie D.
145
Kastner). Presentation at the Symposium on Music Teacher Education, Greensboro,North Carolina, September, 2013.
Challenging Young Adults to Integrate Music-Making into Their Out-of-School Lives andIdentities (with Elizabeth C. Parker). Research presentation at the 30th WorldConference of the International Society for Music Education, Thessaloniki,Greece, July, 2012.
Exploring the Cognitive Components of Vernacular Musicianship. Presentation at theSuncoast Music Education Research Symposium, Tampa, FL, February, 2011.
Student Musicians' Ear-Playing Ability as a Function of Vernacular Music Experiences(with Andreas C. Lehmann). Research paper presentation at the Annual Meetingof the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA, April, 2009.
Discovering the Known: Formal Musicians Go from Popular Music Consumers toPerformers. Presentation at the 28th World Conference of the International Societyfor Music Education, Bologna, Italy, July, 2008.
A Comparison of Western Classical and Vernacular Musicans’ Ear Playing Abilities (withAndreas C. Lehmann & James B. Karas). Research paper presentation at the 9thInternational Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Bologna, Italy, August,2006.
Vernacular Music in the Training of Teachers: Staving Off the Marginalization of MusicEducation. Presentation at the 27th World Conference of the International Societyfor Music Education, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July, 2006.
Invited Presentations and In-Service Teacher Workshops
Vernacular Musicianship: A Key to Lifelong Engagement? Presentation at theNational Convention of the American Guild of Organists, Kansas City, MO,July 2018.
Making School Music Real Music for Your Students. In-service teacher workshop,Nebraska Educational Service Unit #6, Exeter, NE, January, 2017.
Playing it By Ear: Learning from the Vernaculars. Clinic session at the ProfessionalDevelopment Conference of the Ohio Music Educators Association, Cleveland,OH, February, 2015.
The Skills of Popular Music Can Help Develop All Musicianship. Clinic session at theState Convention of the Nebraska Music Educators Association, Lincoln, NE,November, 2013.
Research to Practice: Bring Vernacular Musicianship into Your Classroom. Clinic session atthe Professional Development Conference of the Ohio Music Educators Association,Columbus, OH, February, 2012.
Popular Music in Music Education. Presentation to the music education students in theCollege of Music, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, October, 2011.
Contemporary Popular Music in the Classroom (with Randall Allsup, Jere Humphreys,William R. Lee). Panel presentation at the Music Education Week Professional
146
Development Academies, MENC: The National Association for Music Education,Washington, DC, July 2009.
Why Include Popular Music in Schools? (with Dale E. Bazan). Keynote address at the 2009Pop Music in Education Symposium, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, June2009.
147
Appendix E: Resume of Dr. Bryan Powell
HIGHER EDUCATION DEGREES
Institution Dates Attended Degree and Major DateConferred
Boston University 2006-2011 Doctor of Musical Arts May, 2011
Chapman University 2002-2006 Master of Arts- Teaching October, 2011
Pepperdine University 1998-2002 Bachelor of Arts- Music April, 2002
Title of Dissertation“Popular Music Ensembles in Post-Secondary Contexts: A Case Study of Two College MusicPrograms”
TEACHING CAREER OUTSIDE MONTCLAIR STATE (listed in reverse chronologicalorder)
Institution Department Rank Dates
Ithaca College Music Education Adjunct Instructor 2016-2018Slippery Rock University Music Education Adjunct Instructor 2016-2018Indiana Univ. of Penn. Music Education Adjunct Instructor 2016-2018Bergen Community College Music Education Adjunct Instructor 2012-2018Lebanon Valley College Music Education Adjunct Instructor 2017-2018New York University Music Education Adjunct Instructor 2017
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
A. TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Courses Taught-
Brass Techniques I MUED 305 Fall, 2018Rap and Rock as Cultural Phenomena MUGE 120 MultipleTimesTeaching Popular Music MUED 561 MultipleTimesBrass Techniques II MUED 306 Spring 2019Intro to Music Technology MUTC 101 Multiple
148
TimesPopular Music Techniques MUED 309 Spring 2020Seminar in Music Education MUED 603 Fall 2019Field Project in Music Education MUED 695 Spring 2020Independent Study in Music Performance MUPR 599 Fall 2020
Courses Developed-
Teaching Popular Music MUED 561 Spring 2019Popular Music Techniques MUED 309 Spring 2020
B. OTHER EXPERIENCE/EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE MONTCLAIR STATE(Please provide a brief personal background narrative. List all experience which is/wasnot teaching-related. Provide inclusive dates for each function and/or period ofemployment.)
Director of Programs- Amp Up NYC
Director of Higher Education – for Little Kids Rock - March 2014-September 2018
Executive Director- Association for Popular Music Education- 2013-Present
Music Teacher, grades K-8th , P.S./I.S. 171- New York, NY 2003 – 2008
A Selection of Scholarly Publications on Popular Music
Powell, B., Hewitt, D., Smith, G. D., Olesko, B., & Davis, V. (2020). Curricular change incollegiate programs: Toward a more inclusive music education. (R) Visions of Researchin Music Education, 35(1).
Powell, B. (2020) Online resources for modern band, School, Band, and Orchestra, May 2020
Powell, B. (2019). The integration of music technology into popular music ensembles:Perspectives of modern band teachers. (R) Journal of Music, Technology &Education, 12(3), 297-310.
Powell, B., & Smith, G. D. (2019). Philosophy of Assessment in Popular MusicEducation. (chapter) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessmentin Music Education, 347.
Burstein, S., & Powell, B. (2019). Approximation and Scaffolding in Modern Band. (R) MusicEducators Journal, 106(1), 39-47.
149
Powell, B., Smith, G. D., West, C., & Kratus, J. (2019). Popular Music Education: A Call toAction. Music Educators Journal, 106(1), 39-47.
Burstein, S., & Powell, B. (2019). Approximation and Scaffolding in Modern Band. (R) MusicEducators Journal, 106(1), 39-47.
Powell, B., & Smith, G. D. (2019). Philosophy of Assessment in Popular MusicEducation. (chapter). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative
Assessment in Music Education, p. 347.
Smith, G. D., Powell, B., Fish, D. L., Kornfeld, I., & Reinhert, K. (2018). Popular musiceducation: A white paper by the Association for Popular Music Education. Journal ofPopular Music Education, 2(3), 289-298.
Vasil, M., Weiss, L., & Powell, B. (2018). Popular Music Pedagogies: An Approach to Teaching21st-Century Skills. (R) Journal of Music Teacher Education, 1057083718814454.
Powell, B. (2019) Breaking Down Barriers to Participation: Perspectives of Female Musicians inPopular Music Ensembles. (chapter) Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Education.
Moir, Z., Powell, B. and Smith, G. D. (Eds) Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Education:Perspectives and Practices. Bloomsbury.
Weiss, L., Abeles, H., & Powell, B. (2017) Integrating popular music into urban schools:Examining students’ outcomes of participation in the Amp Up New York Citymusic initiative. Journal of Popular Music Education 1(3).
Cremata, R. & Powell, B. (2016) Digitally mediated keyboard learning: Speed of mastery, levelof retention and student perspectives. Journal of Music, Technology, and Education, 9(2)
Powell, B., Krikun, A., and Pignato, J. (2015). Something’s happening here: Popular musiceducation in the United States. IASPM@Journal, vol.5 no.1 (2015). Journal ofthe International Association for the Study of Popular MusicISSN 2079-3871 |DOI 10.5429/2079-3871(2015)v5i1.2en
Powell, B., & Burstein, S. (2017). Popular music and modern band principles. The RoutledgeResearch Companion to Popular Music Education, 243, 243-54.
Cremata, R., Pignato, J., Powell, B, & Smith, G.D. (2017) Music Learning Profiles Project: Let’stake this outside. New Directions in Music Education- Routledge FOCUS Series inMusic Education
A Selection of Scholarly Presentations on Popular Music
-Florida Music Educators Association Conference, Using Ukulele in the General MusicClassroom. Tampa, FL, January 8-11, 2020
150
-Texas Music Educators Association Conference- iPads as Instruments in the Music Classroom.February 14, 2020
-New Jersey Music Educators Association Conference – Guitar and Popular Music Education,Atlantic City, NJ, February 21-22, 2020
-Iowa Music Educators Association conference- Keynote Speaker. Culturally Relevant Teachingand Popular Music Pedagogies through Modern Band. Ames, IA. November 22-24
-Northwest Arkansas Teach Music Conference- April 12-13, 2019. Fayetteville, AR- KeynotePresentation- Popular Music Education- Modern Band in the Classroom
- Enacting Curricular Change in Music Education through Vernacular Music Conference- CaseWestern Reserve University, New Trick and New Licks: Perspectives of Modern Band FellowshipParticipants
- Incorporating Technology and Popular Music to Engage Brass Musicians. New Jersey MusicEducators Association Conference- February 21-23, 2019
- Informal Learning and Non-Formal Teaching in the Music Classroom. Minnesota MusicEducators Association Conference- January 13-14, 2019
- Negotiated Assessment in Popular Music Education. Suncoast Music Education ResearchSymposium, January 7-8, 2019
- Innovative Teaching in Traditional Ensembles, Take a Stand: Supporting Social Changethrough Music, LA Philharmonic, June 13, 2018
- Breaking Down Barriers to Participation: Perspective of Female Musicians in ModernBands, Modern Band Colloquium, Colorado State University, June 9, 2018
- Modern Band Fellowship- Perspectives and Practices, Association for Popular MusicEducation Conference, Middle Tennessee State University, June 26, 2018
- Preparing Students to Teach Rock Music: Influences of Context, NAfME Music Researchand Teacher Education National Conference, Atlanta, GA. March 22, 2018
- Engaging your Brass through Popular Music Education. 2017 NAfME National In-ServiceConference, Grapevine, TX. November 12-15, 2017
- Multiple Definitions of “Music Technology”: Teacher Perspectives from the Integration ofTechnology in Popular Music-Based Programs, at the CMS / ATMI 2016 National Conference,Santa Fe, NM, October 27, 2016
- Musical Futures and Contemporary Pedagogies in Music Education, Keynote presentation at
151
the Berklee College of Music’s 2016 Contemporary Pedagogies in Music Education symposium,October 24, 2016
- Introducing the Journal of Popular Music Education, with Gareth Dylan Smith (Institute ofContemporary Music Performance) at the International Association for the Study of PopularMusic (IASPM-UK and Ireland) conference- Brighton, England, September 8-10, 2016
- Student-Centred Popular Music Pedagogy in Schools in the UK, Australia and the US, withAbigail D’Amore and Gareth Dylan Smith (ICMP), at the International Society for MusicEducation (ISME), Glasgow, Scotland July 23-28, 2016
- Rethinking Music Teacher Education Through Popular Music Education, with Scott Burstein(Little Kids Rock), at the International Society for Music Education (ISME), Glasgow, ScotlandJuly 23-28, 2016
- Integrating popular music into urban schools: Examining students’ outcomes of participationin the Amp Up New York City Music Program with Hal Abeles and Lindsay Weiss (TeachersCollege, Columbia University) at the International Society for Music Education (ISME),Glasgow, Scotland July 23-28, 2016
152
Appendix F: Resume of Dr. Jill Reese
Education
Temple University – Doctorate in Music Education (2011) – Graduate FellowDissertation topic: “Adult Identification of Meaningful and Intentional MusicBehaviors Demonstrated by Young Children”
Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Alison Reynolds
University of Michigan – Masters in Music Education (2006)Masters Thesis: “Definitions of Improvisation: Perspectives of Three Elementary General MusicTeachers”Thesis Advisor: Dr. Colleen Conway
Michigan State University – Bachelors of Music in Music Education (2000)
Major - Vocal/General Music EducationMinor - Music Theory
Public School Teaching Experience
8/01- 6/07 Elementary General Music, Elementary Choral MusicEast Lansing Public Schools, East Lansing, MI
6/00- 8/01 Elementary General Music, High School Choral DirectorLaingsburg Community Schools, Laingsburg, MI
Early Childhood Music Teaching Experience
2/07-5/11 Early Childhood Music TeacherTemple University Music Prep Program, Philadelphia, PA
9/06- 5/07 Early Childhood Music TeacherMSU Community Music School, East Lansing, MI
9/98- 5/00 Early Childhood Music TeacherMSU Community Music School, East Lansing, MI
A Selection of Scholarly Publications on Popular Music
Reese, J. A. (2019). Uke, flow and Rock ’n’ Roll. International Journal of Community Music, 12(2), 203-223.doi:10.1386/ijcm.12.2.203_1
Verrico, K., & Reese, J. (2016). Musicians’ experiences in an iPad ensemble. Journal of Music, Technology & Education,9(3), 315–328. doi:10.1386/jmte.9.3.315_1
153
Reese, J., Bicheler, R., & Robinson, C. (2015). Field experiences using iPads: Impact of experience onpreservice teachers’ beliefs. Journal of Music Teacher Education. doi10.1177/1057083715616441
A Selection of Scholarly Presentations on Popular Music
Reese, J. (2018, May). Uke, flow, and rock ‘n’ roll: Communitas in a community ukulele group. Presentation conducted
at the Breaking Boundaries: Community Music Research Symposium at Columbia University, New York, NY.
Anderson, L., & Reese, J. (2018, May). Facilitating community ukulele groups: A collaborative autophenomenography.
Presentation conducted at the Breaking Boundaries: Community Music Research Symposium at Columbia University,
New York, NY.
Reese, J. (2017, February). Communitas: Ukulele and collective joy. In V. Fung (Chair), Suncoast Music Education
Research Symposium XI. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Center for Music Education Research, Tampa,
FL.
Reese, J., & Verrico, K. (2014, March). iPad ensemble: Innovate, perform, and discover. In J. Kratus (Chair), New
Directions in Music Education: Teaching Composition, Improvisation, and the New Musicianship. Paper presented at
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
Reese, J., Bicheler, R., Verrico, K., & Robinson, C. (2014, March). Preservice teachers' perceptions of iPad use in
secondary general music. In J. Kratus (Chair), New Directions in Music Education: Teaching Composition,
Improvisation, and the New Musicianship. Paper presented at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
Community Service
• Founder and coordinator of Fredonia Ukulele Group and Monthly Jam Sessions – 2015
154
Appendix G: Syllabus of Popular Music Techniques
Popular Music Pedagogies: Modern Band in the ClassroomMontclair State University
Tuesdays 6-8:30 p.m.
Bryan Powell, DMA
Course DescriptionThis comprehensive instructional course provides participants withproven methods to implement a popular music ensemble thatincorporates performance, composition, improvisation, informallearning, and Music as a Second Language. Through participationin this 15-week course, teachers will be given the tools to create aModern Band music program that focuses on teaching students toplay the music that they know and love on Modern Bandinstruments including guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals, andtechnolgy. By focusing on genres of music such as rock, reggae,country, pop and hip hop, Modern Band helps get students engagedin making music quickly and easily. As a part of the trainingprocess, this course will provide teacher training, classroominstruction, and state-of-the-art online technology that teachers canuse in their classrooms.
Course content is based on best-practice research from the field oflanguage acquisition and music learning with approaches insociocultural and constructivist arts learning that focus on instantstudent success through student centered, culturally relevantapproaches to music.
PrerequisitesNo prior experience playing Modern Band instruments isnecessary to successfully participate in this course!
Course FormatThis course will discuss Modern Band and popular musicpedagogies and curriculum, starting with the key tenets ofInformal Learning, Composition, Improvisation, Approximation,Scaffolding, and Creating a Safe Space. These will bedemonstrated through interactive lecture, performance, andgroup interaction on guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, technology,and vocals.
155
Course MaterialsMaterials from this course will include a mix of scholarly andpractical articles and book chapters, in addition to curricularresources created by Little Kids Rock. In addition, the class willcover basics of different rock instruments, including guitar,keyboard, bass, anda drum set being provided for class study. All course materials,including instruments, will be provided for the students. It is notnecessary to own a guitar to participate in this course.
Course Objectives and Student OutcomesAt the end of the course, students will be able to:
1. Understand the key components of popular music pedagogy2. Demonstrate familiarity with popular music education
theories such as formal and informal learning styles,learning through familiar material, and the value of allmusic.
3. Demonstrate some proficiency on a variety of ModernBand instruments and styles
4. Demonstrate a well grounded knowledge of educational concepts andpreparation in order to implement different teaching styles in the classroom
5. Demonstrate comfort teaching improvisation, composition, and groupparticipation in a rock band setting.
6. Explain the utilization and importance of popular musiceducation in a school setting.
GradingMyStory Project = 10%Weekly Response Journals = 50%,Lesson Plan Submission = 10%Participation =15%App share = 5%Popular Music Listening Map = 5%
Course OutlineSeptember 12
Topics:Review Syllabus including midterm performance and finalpresentation dates and requirements.Intro to Popular Music Pedagogy
• Introduce students to Modern Band
• Core values with emphasis on safe space
• Beginning and opening jams: immediate music making
156
Beginner Guitar• Simple and necessary techniques: holding the guitar/using a pick
• Understanding frets and strings Introduce reading chord charts
• Easy one finger chord charts
• Composing and performing one finger songs as a class
ReadingModern Band. (2014). Little Kids Rock website. Retrieved from:http://www.littlekidsrock.org/thehang/teacher-resources/
Journal Entries Review
September 19Getting Started on Keyboard
• Keyboard chords (one shape system)
• Using jam cards to play scales and progressions
• Composing simple chord progressions
• Understanding short hand finger patterns
Rhythm Section: Bass and Drums• Drumming anywhere: playing the backbeat• Introducing the electric bass: History and function• Jamming along with bass “grooves”
The Full Band Experience• Putting together the pieces of the Modern Band using simple charts• Rotating instruments between students• Sound checking and balancing• Setting up the modern band in a classroom
ReadingKratus, J. (2016) Songwriting: A New Direction forSecondary Music Education. Music Educators Journal.March, 2016
September 26Songwriting
• Understanding the process of writing a song• Ways to make composition approachable for students
157
• Compose a song as a class• Work in individual groups to compose original song
Suggested ReadingMusic Education at the Tipping Point
October 3• My Story
• Introducing My Story- Reviewing Assignment
• Review of Garage Band and Audacity
• Integrating other instruments in Modern Band
• Radiohead- No Alarms
October 10• Sharing My Story Projects
Assignment- Bring in an App to share for October 17 th class
October 17
Technology in the Modern Band Classroom• Technology as instrument (e.g. iPad in performance)
• Technology as a teaching tool- Review of apps (4Chords,Wurrly, ThumbJam, etc.) and review of hardware (e.g.JamHub)
• Technology for recording audio and video (review of apps and software)
ReadingGreen, L. (2006). Popular music education in and for itself, and for
"other" music: Current research in the classroom.International Journal of Music Education, 24, 101-118
October 24
Guest Lecture- Gareth Dylan Smith, PhD
Informal Learning and Non-Formal Teaching
• Aspects of informal learning and non-formal teaching
158
• Application in the classroom
• Review of Musical Futures
Identity
Advanced Drums• Adding drum fills
• Using the hi-hat pedal
Suggested Reading
October 31Power chords (two-note and three-note)
• Power chord application to composition and performance
• Power chord performance (Smells Like Teen Spirit)
Improvisation• The famous two note solos• Introducing the pentatonic shape on guitar• Connecting the pentatonics to the keyboards
Scaffolded instruction in the Modern Band classroom• Building a band and scaffolding parts
• Approximating riffs
• Accommodations and adaptations for learners of all abilities
Soloing• Connecting four-note solo to pentatonic scale
• Two scales for the price of one! (A minor and C Major)
• Introducing the Blues scale
Advanced Guitar Techniques• Moveable chord shapes: barre chords
• Articulation on guitar: slides, bends, pull-offs and hammer-ons
• The history of guitar notation and the power of tablature
• Designing your tone: demystifying the endless options on guitar amplifiers
159
Advanced Bass• Walking bass
• Fret intervals- (4ths, 5ths, and Octaves)
November 7• Ukulele in Modern Band
• Lesson Planning for Modern Band
Reading:• Music as a Second Language
November 14
Guest Lecture- David Wish, Founder of Little Kids Rock• Music as a Second Language
Suggested ReadingKruse, A. J. (2016). Featherless dinosaurs and the hip-hopsimulacrum: Reconsidering hip-hop's appropriateness for the musicclassroom. Music Educators Journal, 102(4), 13-21. doi:10.1177/0027432116638904
November 21Introduction to Hip-Hop in the Classroom
• Rap Talk and Talking to the Beat
• Cyphers and Freestyling
• Songwriting in hip-hop (Hip-Hop Hamburger activity)
Popular Music Listening Maps• Examples and descriptions
Suggested Reading
November 28• Sharing Popular Music Listening Maps
160
Project Work Time• Students will be given the class time to work on their final
presentation. This presentation will include: summary ofModern Band music pedagogies,
demonstrating knowledge of content and pedagogy,demonstrating knowledge of resources, and designingstudent assessments
December 5
Arranging for Modern BandIn groups, choose a song from the Song Pack and rehearse song.These songs will be performed on the last day of class. Eachsong should include:
• Solos on two different instruments
• Comping patterns in the keyboard
• Drum fills
• Use of technology as an instrument
• Crowd participation
Time to rehearse in bands
December 12Arranging for Modern BandIn groups, choose a song from the Song Pack and rehearse song.These songs will be performed on the last day of class. Eachsong should include:
• Solos on two different instruments
• Comping patterns in the keyboard
• Drum fills
• Use of technology as an instrument
• Crowd participation
December 19Final Performances
• Reflections on the course
161
Reading List
While there is no required text for this course, there are requiredreadings that will be assigned for specific classes.
Bowman, W. (2004). “Pop” goes…? Taking popular music seriously.In C.X. Rodriguez, (Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular musicand music education, (pp. 29-49). Reston, VA: MENC- TheNational Association for Music Education.
Green, L. (2006). Popular music education in and for itself, and for"other" music: Current research in the classroom.International Journal of Music Education, 24, 1 01-118
Jaffurs, S. (2004b). The impact of informal music learning practicesin the classroom, or how I learned how to teach from agarage band. International Journal of Music Education, 22,189–200. doi:10.1177/0255761404047401
Kratus, J. (2016) Songwriting: A New Direction for SecondaryMusic Education. Music Educators Journal. March, 2016
Kruse, A. J. (2016). Featherless dinosaurs and the hip-hopsimulacrum: Reconsidering hip-hop's appropriateness forthe music classroom. Music Educators Journal,102(4), 13-21. doi: 10.1177/0027432116638904
Lebler, D. (2007). Student-as-master? Reflections on a learninginnovation in popular music pedagogy. International Journalof Music Education, 25, 205–221.doi:10.1177/0255761407083575
Powell, B. & Burstein, S. (2017). The modern bandmovement and popular music education. Ashgate Research
Companion to Popular Music Education
Powell, B., Krikun, A., and Pignato, J. (2015). Something’shappening here: Popular music education in the UnitedStates. IASPM@Journal, vol.5 no.1 (2015). Journal of theInternational Association for the Study of Popular MusicISSN 2079-3871 |DOI 10.5429/2079-3871(2015)v5i1.2en
Seifried, S. (2006). Exploring the outcomes of rock and popularmusic instruction in high school guitar class: A case study.International Journal of Music Education, 24, 168–177.
162
Westerlund, H. (2006). Garage rock bands: A future model fordeveloping musical expertise? International Journal of Music
Education, 24, 119–125.doi:10.1177/0255761406065472
163
Appendix H: Syllabus of Popular Musicianship
Glenn Korff School of Music
MUED 401P
Advanced Methods: Popular Musicianship
Course Syllabus
Fall 2019
Course and Instructor Information
Credit Hours: 1 credit hour
Schedule: Monday, 11:30-12:20
Instructors: Dr. Robert Woody
Description
Introduction to elements of vernacular musicianship, including “rock band” instruments,
ear-based performance, peer collaboration, and beginning songwriting.
Prerequisites
MUED 343, MUED 344, MUED 345, and MUED 346; or permission of instructor.
Required Materials
There is no required textbook for this course. Readings from journal articles may be made available on
the course Canvas site. The following is recommended:
Braheny, J. (1995). Craft and business of songwriting (3rd ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books.
Course Objectives
In completion of this course, students will:
1. demonstrate excellence as a professional educator through class attendance, conduct, and
consistent preparation and participation;
2. explain, from the perspective of a songwriter, the characteristics (e.g., structure of lyrics, form,
melody, harmony, and rhythm) that make for an effective song;
3. perform vernacular music (e.g., pop, rock, country, R & B, blues) in an authentic context; and
4. write an original song (music and lyrics) and create a recording of it, applying principles of
164
vernacular music making in a personally meaningful way.
Grading Procedures
Attainment of the objectives will be assessed through the following grading components: Points
1. Professionalism 20 2. Song share 10 3. Group performance (40 total points):
a. in-class checkpoint performance #1
b. in-class checkpoint performance #2
c. in-class checkpoint performance #3
d out-of-class final performance
4. Original song creation (30 total points):
a. initial sketch
b. draft
c. final recording
Professionalism
5
10
10
15
5
10
15
Total: 100
Students are to demonstrate the professionalism expected of practicing music educators. Basic elements of
professionalism include (1) consistent and punctual attendance, (2) professional conduct, communication,
and presence, (3) proper and timely completion of assignments, and (4) active involvement in music
education professional organizations. Assessment of professionalism will rely on students providing
indicators of their understanding and valuing these elements:
1. Records for class meetings and practicum appointments will indicate students’ appreciation
of consistent and punctual attendance.
2. Observations of in-class and out-of-class interactions with students and professors (e.g., email)
will indicate students’ development of professional conduct and communication skills.
3. Records of submitted materials will indicate students’ proper completion of assignments. 4. A
membership roster of UNL’s Collegiate NAfME (formerly MENC) chapter will indicate students’
involvement in a professional organization.
NAfME Membership: Students must join NAfME through UNL chapter’s fall membership drive
(i.e., not online through NAfME’s website). Membership is accomplished by submitting a
completed application form (to be provided) and cash/check payment of the membership fee to
the NAfME faculty advisor or student chapter treasurer (checks made payable to “UNL
Collegiate Music Educators”). The deadline for submitting these materials is OCTOBER 1.
Alternative Assignment: Students who are not members of NAfME must complete an alternative
assignment to indicate his or her understanding of the importance of involvement in the organized
music education profession. This assignment requires students to write monthly reviews of the
NAfME’s publications the Music Educators Journal and Teaching Music. The assignment
specifications are available upon request. All article reviews are due by the last day of classes for
the semester.
Assignments. Due dates for course assignments are listed on the course calendar, however, dates are
subject to change. Due dates will be verified during class. Assignments are due at the beginning of the
165
class period in which the assignment is due. Assignments submitted within 48 hours of the deadline will be
accepted as late. Assignments will not be accepted after 48 hours. Late and unsubmitted assignments will
result in a 2-point deduction from the Professionalism grade. No incompletes will be given except as
provided for in the UNL catalog.
Unless otherwise noted by the instructor, all written assignments are to be word-processed and submitted
through the Assignments section of the course Canvas site; hard copies or emailed copies of assignments
will not be accepted. Instructions for this procedure will be given during the first week of class. For
problems with the electronic submission of assignments through Canvas, first contact the UNL Help Desk
at 402.472.3970 (or if outside of Lincoln, toll free at 866.472.3970) or via email at [email protected]. A link
to the help desk is available through the course Canvas site. If the Help Desk is unable to resolve the
problem, then contact the instructor.
Attendance. Students are to notify the instructor of an absence prior to the beginning of class, or as soon
as foreseen if known earlier. For unforeseen absences, such as sudden illness or car troubles, students will
call Dr. Woody’s office at 402.472.6231. These calls must be made at least 30 minutes prior to the start of
class. For planned absences (i.e., those known about two or more days in advance), students may email
Dr. Woody at [email protected]. Dr. Woody will provide confirmation of the planned absence through an
email response. If that email confirmation has not been received by the morning of the absence, students
should place a phone call (as with unforeseen absences) to be certain advanced notice has been provided.
Any absence from class without this prior notification is an unexcused absence. Each unexcused absence
will result in a deduction of 10 points from the Professionalism grade. Note: This means after only two
unexcused absences, the best class grade possible is a C. Tardiness may also affect the Professionalism
grade. Students may be required to provide documentation of absences or tardiness.
Special Needs
The University strives to make all learning experiences as accessible as possible. If you anticipate or
experience barriers based on your disability (including mental health, chronic or temporary medical
conditions), please let me know immediately so that we can discuss options privately. To establish
reasonable accommodations, I may request that you register with Services for Students with Disabilities
(SSD). If you are eligible for services and register with their office, make arrangements with me as soon as
possible to discuss your accommodations so they can be implemented in a timely manner. SSD contact
information: 232 Canfield Admin. Bldg.; 402-472-3787
Course Schedule
Week Date Topic/Activities
1 8/26 Intro to course; Song Share assignment given; student groups created 2 9/2 NO
CLASS – LABOR DAY
3 9/9 Rock instruments; due: links to online recording of Song Share song 4 9/16 Song
Share presentations
5 9/23 Song Share presentations
6 9/30 Audio equipment
7 10/7 In-class checkpoint performance #1
8 10/14 Songwriting techniques
9 10/21 NO CLASS – FALL BREAK
166
10 10/28 Songwriting techniques; due: first sketch of original song
11 11/4 In-class checkpoint performance #2
12 11/11 Songwriters circles
13 11/18 Songwriters circles; due: draft of original song
14 11/25 In-class checkpoint performance #3
15 12/2 Strategies for teaching with popular music; original song sharing 16 12/9
Original song sharing; due: original song recording; course eva
Vita
Yunshu Tan
Education
Pennsylvania State University - Doctorates in Music Education (2021)
The State University of New York at Fredonia - Masters in Music Education (2017)
University of Southampton - Masters in Musicology (2012)
Macau Polytechnic Institute - Bachelors in Music Education (2011)
Book Chapter Publication
Tan, Y. (2014). Multiculturalism and School Music Education in Macau. In B. Dai (Ed.), The 3rdMusic Education Forum of Greater China School Music Education in the Era ofMultimedia (pp. 156-166). Guangzhou: Jinan University Press.
Journal Publication
Tan, Y., & Conti, L. (2019). Effects of Chinese Popular Music Familiarity on Preference forTraditional Chinese music: Research and Applications. Journal of Popular MusicEducation, 3(2), 329-358. doi:10.1386/jpme.3.2.329_1
Tan, Y. (2017). Effects of Chinese popular music familiarity and preference for its traditionalversion. School Music News: NYSSMA Journal, 81(1), 18-23.
Tan, Y. (2012). The artistic temperament of Chinese piano music Education and the application ofcross-cultural music education. Journal of Educational Science of Hunan NormalUniversity, 11(4), 93-95.