The Protean Musician: the musician in future society

Good afternoon. My name is Bill Stevens. I am a New York based musician, composer and educator. I have recently retired from the New York City Department of Education where I was an Assistant Principal and the Director of Jazz Studies at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a school started by Tony Bennett in 2001.

I would like to thank the four Research Centres of the Norwegian Academy of Music for asking me to present today.

In my hand I am holding the April/May 2017 issue of JazzEd Magazine, distributed by the Jazz Education Network. In their editor’s letter entitled “Too Many Cooks” Russ Gershon of the Either/Orchestra is quoted as saying, “In a sense, Jazz musicians training people to play Jazz is training people for gigs that do not exist”. And then from Christian Wissmuller, “ With a dwindling amount of viable work available out there, are we, in fact, doing a disservice to those kids who put in hours upon hours of practice and who pay, or whose parents pay significant sums to attend respected schools and study with acclaimed educators”? And let me add that today, those acclaimed educators are also accomplished Jazz stars.

Throughout the history of Jazz, over the last century, musicians have always faced issues of inequality, lack of opportunities and exploitation. But in our current society, this situation is much more pronounced than ever. What makes the current climate different as we look to examine the musician in the 21st century? With the decline of cd sales and the rise of downloadable and streaming music, the many in-home devices that keep people entertained at home, the loss of arts funding and the removal of arts in the public schools in the United States have all resulted in a weakening of the market for future John Coltrane’s or Miles Davis’s. In thinking about these statements, I found the focus of my presentation today as an examination of the Jazz Performance major at Colleges and Conservatories in the United States based on these essential questions:

1. What are the artistic/professional career expectations/experiences for students today?2. How are Universities meeting these expectations/experiences for their students?3. How can University Music departments revise their curriculums to allow their graduates to be better able to adapt and change over time to be successful artists and to be self-sufficient as professional musicians?

Society needs fresh faces in the arts and we should not turn our backs, but look for the means to establish a strong cultural foundation. It is true that today musicians need competencies that are dynamic and adaptable. University music departments must understand that what students must do as musicians will change over time if they are to be successful as professionals. At the university level, what are schools of music doing to assist their students, to do more than continue the “perfectionist model” of instruction without taking into account the environment that exists today for professional Jazz musicians?

If today’s musicians must exhibit competencies that are dynamic and adaptable, what does this mean?

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In a conversation I had on this topic with saxophonist, writer, educator and NEA Jazz Master David Liebman on March 23rd, he stated to me that today, “dynamic means that if you are viewed as one of the top 3, let’s say sax players and let’s even limit it to the United States, then you have a chance at make a living as an artist in todays society/environment. The rest must become adaptable”.

Some truths are evident at the university level:

1. The perfectionist frame is still the primary model for most schools of music, specifically for performance majors, and has not dramatically changed over time, as I will demonstrate later in this presentation as we look at examples of Conservatory Jazz Performance curriculums.2. There appears to be no self-realization to this knowledge at the university level while the current environment has been largely ignored opting instead to “stay the course”.

Which asks the questions:

1. What are the needs of the university?

In general, the University must focus on recruitment to meet the numbers for tuition to meet the salary of teaching faculty if only to continue the status quo. They must present programs that are comparable with other schools of music that generate an excitement for the students by presenting as much performance opportunities as possible. I have been told many times that, “students want to be playing, not necessarily sitting in classes”.

If there is to be a change, then the first step has to be that the university must admit that there is a need for change and then to ask the question, how can the curriculum be adapted to address this changing environment for the success of our students?

2. What are the needs of the students?

How do students see themselves as musicians/artists? Are they aware of what their own needs will be once they have graduated in order to be successful in this changing environment? Universities are now in the position of creating “real world” experiences for their students; however most are not addressing the actual “real world” concerns that students will face upon graduating.

3. How can the needs of the university and the needs of the students be aligned? This is the essential question that I hope to address today.

Once again, David Liebman in our conversation told me that he sees a disconnect in how students are trained and what the realities are in the real world. For example, he states:

1. There are a greater number of students in college Jazz programs than ever before.2. The level of these students is at least “technically” at a higher level than at anytime in the history of Jazz over the last 100 years.

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3. In his opinion, he asks, “What skills are needed by the student beyond the music”?

Mr. Liebman goes on to say, Even students who fall in that top 3rd must move forward beyond a love of the music, understanding that it is first and foremost a business.Students will need multiple revenue streams to maintain any artistic goals.Students must learn to be self-starters to succeed in the Do It Yourself environment that exists today and they must exhibit the following skills…

They must become experts in goal setting. Which means writing it down and reviewing it often.They must be organized with a 1, 3, 5 year plan and they must continually ask themselves, “Where will I be in 10, 15, 20 years?”Additionally, they must know who they are, their strengths and limitations.

4. The mission of the university must assist the students in these skills through counseling and career management, but additionally, the university must have an understanding within it’s curriculum of what revenue sources exist for a musician. Mr. Liebman looked at the following revenue sources with me…

- Playing – playing today means all styles, genres and settings- Writing – composing across genres and styles (including for film, commercials, etc…), writing also means being an author, creating a blog, submitting articles - Being actively involved in collectives and music organizations such as the Jazz Education Network or the International Schools of Jazz Education.- Recording including engineering, producing, replication and distribution and today that also includes an understanding of streaming, downloading and having an Internet presence.- Education – having the ability to teach both privately and in a classroom setting, understanding technology to offer distance learning to offer lessons and to present clinics & master classes

In an ideal world, all of the above would already be a part of the curriculum. However, Mr. Liebman continued to say that universities must also prepare students for the future by assisting students to understand the following as part of their business model. Musicians need to understand and be their own…

- Financial Advisor- They must understand how to establish a Business Model and have a Business Plan that takes into account Merchandise, Press/Promotion/Marketing – website design and social media- They must have an understanding of contracts/invoices/copyright, the Harry Fox Agency/Publishing- They must know how to create performance opportunities by understanding venues both traditional and alternative performance spaces, club owners, patronage, touring including attending festivals- They must learn how to research and do Grant Writing- They must understand all aspects of Recording – both in studio and independent at home recording, advances, royalty, distribution, as well as streaming and downloading- The importance of Networking, of building relationships- And the necessary pros and cons of Union membership

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How can a Conservatory present this much material, as needed as it might be, to students in a curriculum and still make it attractive and manageable?

This may be a good point to look at the history of Jazz Education in the United States. Even today Jazz Education has many voices both pro and con. Let us look at a brief history of Jazz education over the past 100 years.

1. Beginning in the 1920’s – we see the mentor/apprenticeship model: Joe Oliver/Louis Armstrong and later between Charlie Parker/Miles Davis

2. 1930’s – 1940’s: Territory Bands existed throughout the United States, the most famous being Benny Moten’s band in Kansas City which became the Count Basie Orchestra through the mentor/apprenticeship model, including the Swing big bands of Ellington, Goodman and so many others

3. 1940’s – We see the first organized collegiate Jazz ensembles at North Texas State, Berklee

Lennie Tristano – Who many refer to as having the first organized method to teach Jazz improvisation out of his Manhattan and Queens studios.

4. 1960’s - a dozen or more colleges add a Jazz ensemble to their curriculum; however no organized, accredited Jazz studies program as of yet

5. 1970’s – The first accredited Jazz curriculums are introduced. They are performance oriented, as colleges are now the feeder to the last remaining big bands, i.e.:

North Texas State – Stan KentonEastman – Woody HermanBerklee – Buddy RichUniversity of Miami – Maynard Ferguson and commercial bands with horn sectionsSmaller programs like Fredonia State with only a student run program fed into Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Billy Eckstein’s bands.

Additionally, curriculums become more established at this time offering more uniform core courses in Jazz Studies

6. With loss of the big bands and established small groups, the colleges now become the training ground to the professional world

Additionally, we begin to see the start of professional Jazz players teaching at the college level

7. 1990’s – present: In the same issue of the JazzEd magazine that I quoted from at the beginning of this presentation they have printed a Jazz Resource Guide including a listing of over 100 colleges, universities and conservatories with Jazz degree programs in the United States. That isn’t even taking into account international Jazz studies programs and even with that list, I

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myself have found there to be schools with Jazz programs that did not make the list for whatever reason. What started as a handful of college level Jazz programs, there now exist, varying in size, in virtually every community college, school of music and Conservatory across the United States schools offering Jazz Performance majors at the undergraduate and graduate levels with literally every school boasting of a named player on their faculty roster. Some schools, like NYU or the New School in New York City, have an entire department of name players.

Many of these programs are highly successful. With success, there has been little reason to revise curriculums over the last 50+ years. The curriculums remain performance based, offering certificates or degrees in Jazz Performance. Some Business of Music classes are being revised to be more relevant for the 21st century. Pedagogy remains largely a non-existent part of the curriculum in most schools resulting in a continuation of the “perfectionist model” where students graduate with a high proficiency in their playing, but little or no knowledge in many of the areas we have previously addressed.

Let us look at some examples of Jazz Performance curriculums. I have selected two schools, Purchase and New York University.

Both Purchase and New York University offer virtually the same program of study:

Music Theory and Jazz Theory including ear trainingKeyboard StudiesEnsembles – small group, big band, studio Jazz orchestraJazz ImprovisationJazz Arranging and CompositionPrivate StudyRecital or Jazz Jury

Both programs are highly respected with excellent faculties full of professional Jazz musicians on staff. The student-body of both is highly accomplished even before they walk in the door. However, no courses are listed addressing the needs of students other than those that are performance based.

It is important to note the tuition comparison of these two schools. Purchase is part of the State University of New York, a public university. New York University is a private college located in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. The tuition cost at Purchase for an in-state student is around $19,000. New York University’s tuition cost is over $70,000.

Upon closer examination, I spoke with the former Administrative Assistant at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Dan Greenblatt. The program at the New School continues to emphasize the “perfectionist model” as Dan describes below…

The New School follows a concept of a community of students to learn from each other; as opposed to having elements within the curriculum through either stand alone classes or folded into already existing classes. The reasons Dan sites for not covering courses as previously described are related to cost, personnel (including understanding union rules) and a lack of

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student interest. According to Dan, New School graduates are using the skills they were taught through a study of Jazz to find employment by transferring these skills to other professions. Most of this employment is not high paying with any real future. It is a good “for the moment” necessity so that they can continue their art in the short term.

Concerning student interest, I asked Mr. Greenblatt, “How can you get students to understand that career training is essential to be successful post graduation”? His response was that students want to see a curriculum full of playing and lessons with top tier players. The New School did attempt to offer a Jazz Pedagogy class at one time. The feeling was that this is the one area that all students feel they can fall back on, but have little to no experience except to teach the way they were taught and to replicate that model with their own students. The pedagogy class at the New School was designed by Mr. Greenblatt to work on the craft of teaching private lessons, group lessons, ensembles, clinics and master classes; however, as of 2015, the Pedagogy class at the New School has been discontinued due to lack of interest by the students and administration.

So what are some possible outcomes moving forward? How do we convince students that there is a need to be better equipped to face their future as a musician/artist? There are schools of music that have begun to offer elective courses in Music Business and Music Entrepreneurship designed to help today’s student musicians hone skills required to craft sustainable careers. Some examples of these courses can be found, for example, at the Berklee College of Music with courses from their Music Business and Entrepreneurship Program:

1. Developing Technologies: Music + Health will have students explore music’s effect on health and brain functions.

2. Innovator’s DNA is designed to help students learn how to creatively solve business problems.

3. Entrepreneurial Practicum will offer students the real-life experience of working within a start-up environment.

4. Creativity and Entrepreneurship applies concepts from the creative and musical creation process as a means of guiding students through the concept of thinking like a start-up.

Some examples from The New England Conservatory of Music and their Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department

The Entrepreneurial Musician provides a strategic perspective of the skills, strategies and mind-set of self-sufficiency to help musicians create and develop resilient and successful careers in today’s music field.

Music Law – Even the most talented and advanced musicians need to think and operate like a business to remain successful in today’s music world.

Creating an Audience: Marketing Basics presents an overview of marketing strategies including basic tools, terminology and effective communication skills.

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Performance and Communication develops skills in stage presence and communication.

Finance: What Musicians Need to Know will provide the approach towards better understanding their control over their own finances to promote habits for long-term financial health.

Music and the Media will address what kinds of editorial decisions can be made regarding the placement of arts coverage and how musicians can effectively advocate for themselves in the press.

Another example is the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and their Arts Leadership Curriculum…

Advanced Guide to Digital Portfolio Creation looks at concepts for the student to implement self-promotion through web-site design and social media.

Balancing Act: Pursuing the Stability of a Blended Career explores how to create a balance where the student is able to grow artistically, pursue opportunities, create opportunities and take risks while maintaining their own stability.

Creating and Sustaining a Professional Ensemble will explore the student’s own vision for a potential ensemble and design programming ideas, write a business plan and produce a self-designed concert.

Entrepreneurial Thinking looks at understanding the nature of entrepreneurship and ways to manage the process, develop an appreciation for opportunity, how to recognize it, evaluate it and to have a familiarity with contracts, dealing with lawyers, branding, financial planning, basic accounting, balance sheets, cash flow management and taxes.

Grantseeking and Proposal Writing will teach the student how to research potential funding sources, how to assess prospective funders, how to author a funding request and to prepare a potential budget.

Intermediate Recording will help the student develop skills that can be applied to home recording and an understanding of the software resources available.

Speak for Yourself: Public Speaking for Musicians

Now, upon reviewing these course offerings, it is clear that these are the types of courses needed to benefit students in their preparation post graduation. However, students would need to take these stand-alone classes as electives. They are additional courses added to an already overcrowded curriculum.

As it is a positive sign that schools are beginning to see the need for change, two schools in particular are leading the field to developing their programming to meet the needs of musicians in the 21st century. These schools are the Manhattan School of Music and the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.

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Master teacher Justin DiCioccio, the recently retired Director of the Manhattan School of Music Jazz Studies program sat with me to explain his philosophy and why it has been successful at Manhattan and that it is easily transferrable and replicated to other schools of music and to their Jazz studies programs.

Justin began by saying that “being a craftsman is not enough anymore”. He refers to his method as, “The Complete Artist/Musician in the 21st Century”. It has three components:

Playing – Writing – Pedagogy with no separation among the three. Each is equal, however one may take precedent over the others at given times.

Playing includes all performing demands – clubs, festivals, touring, social events, pit orchestras, symphonic & concert bands, commercial bands, recording, etc…, but also presentation. How do you present yourself as a performer? Dressing accordingly for the gig and/or establishment, being courteous and professional, arriving ahead of schedule, adhering to the time schedule and how do you carry yourself off the bandstand. Justin goes on to say that personal promotion today has changed. Your business card is now your cd & website and social media is your connection to your fan-base. Today, students must consider the visual when promoting themselves and have video examples of everything on their website and on social media.

Writing includes not only composing and arranging for groups, big bands and professional ensembles, but also for film, commercials and freelance. As well as having knowledge and experience in midi and electronic music. Additionally it includes being a writer - writing articles, blogs, method books, etc…

Pedagogy includes an understanding of private lesson technique, group and school settings from early childhood through the Conservatory level, workshops, clinics and master classes. Today, the need to move to a place like New York City to be at the center of the music does not exist anymore and that makes distance learning so important. It gives a student the ability to practice, be involved in a recording, giving lessons, workshops or master classes, stream live concerts all from your own devices and from the location where you live in the world.

Two important underlying themes to Mr. DiCioccio are that music and life are all about call and response and that everything you do involves the craft of teaching. Whether you are having a conversation or playing in an ensemble everything involves a close personal interaction between you and others that requires listening and empathy.

So my question to Mr. DiCioccio was, “How do you to put this method and philosophy into practice at the Conservatory level?” His response was that it has to be an interdisciplinary approach in that all faculty must be aware of what is being taught/performed in all classes including classes in ear training, history and theory.

All areas of study must be taught in private instruction, in the combo(s)/big band/studio Jazz orchestra, in Improvisation classes, but also in history, theory and ear training classes. This is the means toward getting all needed components into the curriculum to meet the needs of the

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students post graduation without the burden of additional stand- alone classes that make the curriculum unmanageable for the students.

At the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, Dean Shelton G. “Shelly” Berg states, “As traditional pools of opportunity for musicians shrink, newer ponds of opportunity are appearing. With the proliferation of creative projects from video games to new media outlets calls for composers, performers and orchestrators who can synthesize and develop musical ideas in real time. So we need to develop internal musicians who can literally create music from the inside out, at the highest level, in every genre”. “The musician in future society must see themselves as a musician, period, capable of taking on any task placed before them”.

In 2011, the University of Miami created the Experimental Music Curriculum (EMC) where they moved students from large lectures into small ensembles. They asked the question, “How do you integrate these broad skills into the curriculum as a unified whole, not just items in the music degree shopping cart”? “And since students schedules are already overflowing with classes, practice and performance, how do we accomplish all of this without adding classes”? Like at the Manhattan School of Music, they developed an interdisciplinary approach that deepens the students’ mastery of their musical art while multiplying the skills needed to thrive in todays’ musical marketplace. This initiative became the acronym C.R.E.A.T.E – Artistic, technological and entrepreneurial skills to thrive in the 21st century.

Create - Music Literacy: Compose, Improvise, Arrange and KeyboardRelate – Context: Historical, Theoretical and CulturalEngage – Communication: Stage Presence, Speaking and WritingAnalyze – Critical Thinking: Understand, Evaluate and ApplyTeach – Pedagogy: Deepen Understanding for Self, Facilitate Understanding in OthersEmploy – Career Development: Technology, Entrepreneurship and Business Skills

The theme, “Embed It or Forget It” is a reminder for faculty to incorporate all of these themes over the course of each student’s experience. These elements include music literacy (arranging, composition and improvisation) along with skills such as marketing and entrepreneurship.

From John Daversa, chair of the Department of Studio Music and Jazz, “Today you really need to be able to promote yourself and with so many different types of music now merging and influencing each other, there is a need to understand how music was created in a deeper way. Engagement is vital to a musician in the 21st century”. “Additionally, ”todays musicians need to write clearly for grant applications, letters to donors and patrons. They must speak clearly to make strong connections with their audience to enhance their experience and understanding. So we coach students in how to talk about the music they are performing”.

While each C.R.E.A.T.E value is not explicitly discussed in every class, the program represents, in an interdisciplinary fashion, what students can expect from the schools offerings as a whole.

Musicians in future society may continue to face issues of inequality, lack of opportunities and exploitation, but with the models exhibited at the Manhattan School of Music in their Complete Artist/Musician in the 21st Century Program and the Experimental Music Curriculum and

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C.R.E.A.T.E. through lines at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami those same musicians will be better equipped for a career in the arts than at anytime in history.

Thank you.

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