IN-Ovations VP’s Message Face the Music:
the emergence of new music styles - powerful recruiting tools
L
et’s face it, our students aren’t listening to concert band pieces, symphonies, or choral masterworks outside of our classrooms. At least not when they first walk into our ensembles.
We all hope that we can get our students to fall in love with great repertoire, but that takes time. Still, there is immense value in studying and incorporating contemporary styles in our classrooms. Additionally, there is a great deal of new music that lends itself to use in the classroom. New movements in funk, soul, R&B, and contemporary a cappella offer great potential for music educators to tap into. And our students ARE listening to those styles outside of the rehearsal room.
As technology surges forward, the music industry is ever changing as it responds to new software, music delivery systems, and more. More and more recorded music is produced in home studios on budgets a fraction of the size of what is needed to get into a professional recording studio. Streaming sites such as Spotify and Apple Music, in addition to YouTube and Facebook video, have completely changed the way we experience music. These changes in the industry have opened the door to numerous smaller or independent artists, who aren’t signed to huge corporate record labels, or don’t have the capital to invest in a pro recording studio. While the positive and negative impacts of this shift on artists, studios, and producers can certainly be argued, the good news for music teachers is that a great deal of the music our students are discovering is really interesting and sophisticated. While the big labels continue to churn out top 40 pop hits (which our students certainly also listen to), independent artists are re-visiting older styles and pumping out very hip funk, soul, R&B, and jazz influenced music.
Not only do these kind of neo-styles offer a great way to bring music our students are listening to into the classroom, they also provide us with another great tool – RECRUITING. The
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Brennan Baglio WMEA IN-Ovations Vice President
stylistic elements (groove, harmony, instrumentation) of this new music has much more in common with music we may program, particularly in jazz band, jazz choir, world music groups, and guitar ensembles. We can use these parallels to garner interest in our programs. For example, if you find many of your students are listening to neo-soul artists, program a piece in your jazz band that incorporates these elements. Then find a way to perform for the student body. Or record your band and get it played for your school. While these new styles may not be exactly the same as music we would typically program, the gap is small, easy to bridge, and worth the time.
Vocal music directors are offered a particular advantage in today’s musical climate. The incredible popularity of contemporary a cappella groups (Pentatonix, Home Free) is generating excitement about singing that is unparalleled in recent years. This has tremendous recruiting power. While you may not be a huge fan of contemporary a cappella, programming the occasional a cappella piece with your choir or jazz choir will pay huge dividends for your program. This is a great way to garner excitement about your
program, recruit new singers, and energize those already within your ranks. And the good news is – you don’t have to program music exactly like what Pentatonix or other groups are doing, but finding commonalities and highlighting these to your students and audiences will draw people in.
Aside from recruiting, the study of these styles can have a tremendous impact in our ability to teach fundamental music skills to our students. With the limited time that we see our students each day, week, or semester, one of the biggest ongoing struggles is balancing learning repertoire while finding time to
Wyoming Windsong
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