American Songs & Jazz

Should music educators be experts on jazz and American folk music?

In an effort to start discussion and truly examine my thoughts on the issue- I think I'm going to say no.

I suppose the best way to answer this question in detail is to step back and ask myself, "what should a music educator be an expert in?" It is quite easy to start answering "yes, of course" when asked about specific things, like the aforementioned jazz or folk music. Before long, this generates an exhaustive list that could never be accomplished.

A music educator should be an expert in music. That is, how music works. Functional harmony and rhythm, voicing and voice leading, arranging, improvisation. These are the elements that create music. These are the things that must be taught to music students. In the same way that an english teacher must be an expert in grammar, a music teacher must know these things. His or her job is impossible otherwise.

Moving on from there, there are honestly few other things that I consider an absolute necessity in order to teach music. I believe that music educators should have a solid understanding of the history, culture, and evolution of music- but I don't think they MUST be experts in any one particular area.

It is impossible for me to answer this question without talking about the idea of music history in general. When I hear the words "expert in jazz" I take it to mean an expert in the history and culture of the music, in addition to its musical elements. It is almost always assumed that a music teacher will teach the history and culture of music to his or her students- and many music classes deal almost exclusively in this material. (Think 7th grade Music Appreciation) But is this a good use of time? Aren't we putting the cart before the horse?

How much time is dedicated in math, from Kindergarten to 12th grade, on studying famous mathematicians? On studying the political sphere that surrounded their important discoveries and contributions? Certainly some time, and you probably learned a thing or two about Pythagoras at some point...but compare it to the amount of time spent studying composers and history in music class. Lesson after lesson, all to children who are not yet musicians. For a more apropos analogy, think of english and language arts. When you first learned about classic literature, and were first introduced to author study- how long had you been speaking? How long after you spoke english fluently did you start to study famous examples of the language? Even using the most conservative estimates, I'm willing to guess years.

Pictured: Mathematician, Cult Leader

Why do we do this? Is it because we don't truly believe that we can achieve the goal of making everyone a musician? Is that why we stop early and throw music potpourri in to elementary curriculums?

I say all of this to respond to the original question. Should music educators be experts in jazz, or American folk, or classical, or blues, or rock, any of the myriad of cultural musics around the world, or anything else? Maybe. Maybe not. What matters isn't how much they can tell the kids about any one style of music- its whether or not they can teach the kids music as a whole. It's whether or not they can make those kids musicians. We can argue until the end of time about whether or not to include romantic literature in the high school english curriculum- but we can all agree that every high school graduate should know how to speak, read, and write. And until every kid graduates high school able to play, write, and read music- I think that these discussions are a moot point.

What American songs should every student know?

This is an extremely difficult question to answer, because I could make a long list- but it doesn't mean that I think teachers should be working outside of core music instructional time to teach them. Basically, as stated above, I think that music teachers need to teach musical skills and content first. A great music teacher will do this through a healthy repertoire of classic, current, and culturally significant music. If you can't effectively use a particular song to communicate or practice musical skills or content, then it probably shouldn't be used. If you can, then you should use it!

That said- I don't want to completely dodge the question. I believe that teaching folk songs and patriotic songs that have a place in our country's history is important. There are many, many songs in this category, and I don't know how important one particular song is over another. If we think about our larger goals and aims as music educators, we strive for a world where people are musically literate and can share, play, and create music with one another throughout their lives. If this is the end goal, and we work toward it, I don't think we have to worry about whether or not we taught "America The Beautiful" to our classes. It will be far more important that they have the facility to learn it later from someone who knows it, and pass it on to others.