Educating professional musicians: lessons learned from school music

Abstract

Music in Canadian schools at one time focused on skills development. Building on talent, aptitude, prior learning and physical coordination, students would become better at singing or playing an instrument by studying it at school. Over time, new approaches to music teaching and learning opened the umbrella to a more comprehensive range of objectives. Human understanding, social relevance, the ability to work and play together, and many other outcomes are now typically expected of school music programmes. The present article sets this pedagogical model against the outcomes expected of university music programmes, especially in performance. While human understanding, social responsibility and the like may be acknowledged as desirable outcomes, most university performance programmes focus on developing human capital — on creating better musicians — who may or may not be better people for it. University performance programmes still intend a kind of learning that was long ago deemed limiting, restrictive and ultimately inappropriate for public school curricula. This investigation posits a new approach to music at the university level, with new pedagogical aims, that takes as its starting point innovative and challenging developments in school music education.