Has anyone read much about this? I’ve seen a couple of blog posts, (which if I understand correctly, can’t be posted here, or I’d link them.) I think I like it. I know S would love the kind of flexibility and individualized curriculum they are talking about.
I found this quote from an interview with director of undergraduate studies Anne Shreffler encouraging, and think it is a step in the right direction:
"We relied on students showing up on our doorstep having had piano lessons since the age of six, perhaps visiting one of the excellent precollege divisions in big cities around the country, and perhaps having theory courses there in addition to their instrumental training, orchestra training, chamber music training. And, in fact, we got such students. And we still have such students: Harvard has many such students. And they are welcome in our department, and they come and take our courses, and they can play in our orchestras, etc.
But there are many other students who did not have that kind of childhood. And our old curriculum was saying to those students, “You cannot major in music because your parents did not give you 12 years of this kind of education that we implicitly require.” Although it says nowhere on our website that that is required, that’s essentially what we’re requiring. We’ve gotten rid of this whole notion of this implicit – and it is, ultimately, a class-based implicit requirement. And students come with a variety of backgrounds and musical interests. For example, a highly skilled singer-songwriter can become a music concentrator."
What do you all think?
I’m going to qualify what I said above; I like it for a music department and BA programs. I think that conservatory programs or BMus programs should probably require full sequences, at least for performance or composition.
Hmmm…hard for me to comment as a parent of a vocalist that started “serious” vocal lessons as a sophomore with no piano lessons except from grandma.
So I’m more confused by the comment that every kid has such an “implicit” privileged background bc I don’t think that’s true at all music schools.
So…to attract under privileged students to music at Harvard dump theory study? Or is it not related to privilege and just an attempt to increase BAs? I’m wandering if that’s the goal? More BAs in Music…but then if you’re going further in music wouldn’t you need theory?
I’m so confused by it. Sorry to have not answered your question at all.
My S is similar to your daughter in that he didn’t start playing double bass until he was a sophomore, and had no piano at all, so doesn’t fit that implicit bias theory either. Lol…he didn’t apply at Harvard though! And he’s a jazz guy. I think that bias is probably pretty true for many classical instrumental programs, especially for strings and piano.
I don’t think Harvard is dumping theory/history all together, but is allowing more flexibility in that you don’t have to take the strict full sequences that were previously required. They took up so much time that students had almost no room for exploration. I think the goal is ultimately to diversify and better serve their students. To get more economic and cultural diversity in the program and provide more individualized paths to a career in music as opposed to just increasing the number of music students.
Some of the blogs about it are decrying the end of Western civilization and comparing it to encouraging illiteracy! I see the value in the tradition, but don’t see it as the end of the world as we know it that Harvard is making these changes.
They are not. And depending upon the track, some advanced courses still have these intro courses as prerequisites. What the music department is trying to do, IMO, is similar to what the English department did this year - allow options so that the entire field of study is not focused on dead white men. Now whether one can claim to have a solid base of knowledge in these fields without studying dead white men is another question entirely.
At the end of the day, the number of students this affects is infinitesimal; there are only about 15 concentrators each year. Even if the number now doubles, it’s really not making a huge impact.
Well, I know one music grad well and she thinks this is a great idea (and is in advanced study for music elsewhere not.)
She does not fit the profile of privilege and early start at conservatory prep, either.
I think this reflects Harvard’s overall push for diversity and socioeconomic equality. Sometimes they go too far with political correctness, but this does not seem to be the case here. Time will tell. Maybe there will be tweaking.
It should be noted that Harvard’s music major, while it has performance components, is of course a liberal arts degree. However, the number of course in the concentration, at least for honors, was 50% of classes over the 4 years (most BA’s are 1/4-1/3 music classes for the major). Add in gen eds and music students really had little flexibility in course choices. So subtracting requirements that had little relevance for someone, say, interested the sociology of jazz, or the music of Bali, this is probably a good thing.
For composers and those who want to study theory in grad school, of course the more traditional sequence for theory and history are needed and helpful.
In many areas of study, the canon is gone. I personally believe this is one factor in the apparent decline in the humanities. But it was a needed change from the study of “dead white men.” So when we talk about music history, which history, which music? It is extremely threatening for some to contemplate this descent into chaos, so I can understand the resistance, but the reality is many majors have adjusted their content- really since the 60’s- so as to avoid being elitist or exclusive in any way.
Some things are lost, some are gained.
ps I have a good article on these changes somewhere and will try to find it
came back to say one more thing, and saw the typo in first paragraph: it should be “now” not “not/”
So one other thing: students in colleges come from many backgrounds, ethnically and in terms of where their parents or grandparents or ancestors came from. This includes Asia, Africa, South America…When a curriculum includes, say, Indian music, as an interesting elective, it is still keeping Western music as the dominant one. It would appear that by eliminating Western music theory and history as a requirement, the dept. is also trying to deal with the issue of cultural dominance. That doesn’t mean, however, that a full curriculum based on that example, Indian music, has been created, as it once was for Western European music.
The elimination of the canon, as I wrote before, has been eliminated from other humanities, especially literature. I remember feeling uneducated because I had not yet read Canterbury Tales or Dante’s Inferno. That would not be true today!
As a parallel, I find that I react every time I go to Harvard’s Paine Hall and see the names of composers etched across the top of the walls…all men of course. And “the greats” were indeed, all men.
Without reading the full article from the snipped quote it is kind of hard to see what was going on at Harvard. Was it they were discouraging kids who didn’t have the background from applying to the program? Or are they saying music theory and music history courses that were required discouraged kids from studying music because without the background, it would be too daunting?
The problem with the whole “dead white men’s music” is that instead of saying there are different types of music out there and allowing for a wider range of courses (which again without reading a broader article about it I cannot say what Harvard is doing), it implies the answer is throwing around things like music theory and music history. For one thing, music theory and analysis can be applied to any form of music, the modes and forms of various kinds of music has specific patterns to it, and you would need to understand music theory to be able to gain understanding of any form of music. Nothing wrong with applying music analysis to other forms, that should be the point. Likewise music history can be about a lot more than the progression from plain song to melody and harmony to the baroque and classical and romantic and modern and post modern of western music, it can also apply to other forms as well.
From reading the piece, just in context of the little bit posted above, I think this more is about that the school looked at the kids with the music backgrounds, from places like Juilliard pre college (in my S’s graduating class there, the number of kids going to elite schools was staggering) that flood there school, and they felt like the departments were tracking those kids in and in effect screening out kids without that kind of background, whether by assuming the kids had exposure to a piano keyboard and/or theory and aural skills and having classes that assumed that. I don’t think they are going to change requirements for things like music theory or history, I suspect they are going to stop assuming kids coming in are advanced and having requirements that don’t assume that.
I think it is valuable to raise questions like this, with classical music performance for example it very much is the world of the haves and have nots, the amount of preparation it takes to get into a top level performance program, the amount of resources it requires, puts a lot of people at a severe disadvantage across the board and in many ways it is an elitist world, one that favors those with the resources (yes, people of modest backgrounds do make it into top level programs, but many of them have family or mentors who know how to navigate the system, we knew a family like that in NYC with their kids,family income was modest, but the mom knew how to navigate things). Personally I get a bit miffed about the ‘dead white men’ line, to me that is just as stupid as those who think music only revolves around the 3 B’s and the like, those dead white men created some incredible music and had ties to a lot of the history of western civ and yep, it influenced people not in the western world, the answer is not to throw out ‘dead white men’s music’ but increase the size of the buffet table:)
The music degree at Harvard is not performance-based, and Harvard does not admit by major, so I doubt that was a driver. (the Harvard/NEC dual-degree program is beyond the scope of this thread).
I think that was what was behind the decision.
" I don’t think they are going to change requirements for things like music theory or history…"
Yes, they are. Unless the student is a composer or wants to do grad work in theory or whatever.
I was also going to say that it is not a performance program: however, in recent years, Harvard has added credit for performance in ensembles, continues to give credit for lessons, and also includes some performance in classes.
With the caveat that most ensemble courses are graded SAT/UNSAT and therefore can only be applied twice to music concentration credit (or once if a Freshman Seminar is applied to the concentration)
Right, they are; that was the whole point of the thread, IMO. Music Theory is no longer required, although it may be required for some subspecialties. The current music history sequence will be toast. I imagine they will continue to offer it for another year or so to accommodate any current concentrators, but then it’s done.
Personally I think removing music theory and history entirely may be a mistake, that at least basic level courses would be valuable. Not an expert on academic music theory, but you don’t need to have come from Juilliard pre college or whatnot to be able to understand music theory, and hopefully they will at least encourage kids to take at least intro courses in these areas. Studying music without having a grounding in theory to me eliminates a tool that can give deeper understanding, and rather than eliminate it from some idea of unfairness or whatnot, maybe they could have it where the classes don’t assume prior knowledge. Not seeing they need to keep the whole track, but totally eliminating those as requirements to me is throwing the baby out with the bathwater
They are not eliminating theory and history offerings, and potential grad composers, theory and history students will certainly have to take those classes… The course sequence at Harvard has been very rigorous indeed and students do suffer a bit less if they have been going to conservatory prep, for sure. But the point seems to be to broaden and deepen classes that have been previously offered as interesting asides, into classes of substance and equal weight. In other words, gains not losses.