comprehensive musicianship through performance


CMP: Wisconsin’s Gift to Music Education Randal Swiggum, CMP Committee Member


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The story has already become something of a legend. (At least a music education legend.)


In 1977, a group of visionary teachers came together and created something both intuitive and revolutionary. It wasn’t a methodology, like Kodály or Orff. There weren’t “levels” and you couldn’t get cer- tified in it. In fact, it didn’t even prescribe repertoire – it left that to the teacher. The creators called it simply a “model for planning.”


It was, of course, what is now known as CMP: Comprehensive Musicianship Through Performance. Forty years later, the CMP model (known widely now as the “Wisconsin project”) has spread past the borders of our state and is doing what its founders intended: inspiring teachers with a picture of music education that is both practical and idealistic.


What inspired this project in the first place and why has it thrived for so long? A look at its beginnings reveals some reasons for its durability.


The Influence of One


Although the 1960s had seen an explosion of interest in the idea of comprehensive musicianship, the Wisconsin project was strongly influenced by a single study by researcher Charles Benner in 1972. Titled “Teaching Performing Groups,” the paper covered a wide range of ideas, but two were particularly striking to the Wisconsin teachers.


First was the insight that, in spite of our commitment to “general music”, Ameri- can music education was fundamentally about performing groups. Benner wrote: “Performing groups have become the visible representation of what the public often believes is a major purpose of music education in the schools – eventual, if not immediate, participation in a performing group.” (Benner, p.7).


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The second big idea taken from Benner’s research was a somewhat discouraging one: “It can be inferred that performing group participation has little effect on musical behavior other than the acquisition of per- formance skills, unless there is a planned effort by the teacher to enrich the perform- ing experience with additional kinds of musical understanding.” (Benner, p.10).


This belief had been, of course, the impetus for nearly all the previous com- prehensive musicianship initiatives – the idea that music education should be more than mere skill development and should include a knowledge component (what has traditionally been known as history and theory), which could be taught in the performance ensemble. This was still a somewhat radical idea but becoming more widely accepted. What the Wisconsin teachers saw, however, were the possi- bilities in Benner’s two words “planned effort.”


Good teachers have always taken op- portunities to toss out tidbits of musical knowledge to their students in rehearsal – composer trivia, the music theory fac- toid, or random historical anecdote. But the Wisconsin teachers noticed that in musical ensembles where the students actually could demonstrate deeper knowl- edge of the music they were performing, the teacher was intentional with teaching this understanding, carefully planning a series of strategies to ensure that learning actually happened.


In other words, it wasn’t just what hap- pened in rehearsal that made for a rich learning environment – it was the inten- tional planning before the rehearsal, on the part of the teacher. How did these teachers do it?


A Model Emerges It was, in fact, watching “best practice”


teachers and noticing this kind of inten- tionality in their preparation that gave birth to the CMP model – which was really just a template to show what great music teach- ers have always done. The model had five points, all equal in importance, and a five- point star became a handy visual tool.


What did all these master teachers all have in common?


Music Select ion – they all made an intentional commit- ment to the best pos- sible repertoire.


COMPREHENSIVE MUSICIANSHIP THROUGH


PERFORMANCE


Analysis – they stud- ied the music care- fully, not just so they could rehearse it effectively, but also for what the music could teach, in addition to skills.


Outcomes – they recognized the impor- tance of actually naming their learning goals, and being certain to include, in addition to the usual skill outcomes, also knowledge and affective outcomes.


Strategies – they resisted the traditional “maestro-centered” approach to rehearsal and intentionally used a variety of strate- gies, both student-centered and with varied learning styles


Assessment – they took seriously the importance of regular assessment, beyond merely a grade for “participation” or “at- titude.”


Why Does It Last?


It has become a wry joke that in “education years,” the CMP model is about a millen- nium old, since education initiatives tend to appear suddenly, flash brightly, and burn out quickly. What are the reasons for the Wisconsin CMP project’s dura- bility, when even other comprehensive musicianship initiatives have not lasted? Here are a few:


September 2016


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