(Part 1)
It’s odd to me that this will be the most difficult post to write, but it is my account of a poor college education in music. As one heart-felt friend and Music Teacher put it (paraphrasing), “You required an education in the worse possible way, but you were given the worse possible education!” If it hadn’t have happened to me, I’m not even sure that even I would have believed the tale I am about to share… And, I don’t blame you. While I was ordering a new keyboard from Guitar Center in West Des Moines a few years ago the employee who was taking my order struck up a conversation and I told him some of the following experiences while the order processed and he gave me some serious “side-eye” as if he didn’t believe me; I don’t blame him. My account does sound almost too farcical to be true! Over the past few years I have recounted what I endured to several friends, many of whom have studied music in college with degrees for their effort, and they were flabbergasted that any accredited program would operate in this fashion.
First of all, High School had ill-prepared me for college (a common refrain I hear far too frequently); while it was successful in availing those who required the least assistance, most of us walked away knowing only what to think, and with those expectations firmly rooted in our minds afterward. College was a different animal altogether, but perhaps I should preface this by admitting that I was burned out after High School and desperately wanted to take a year off form schooling, but I was forced to attend in spite of my own anxiety after the fact. From my perspective, in college we were no longer taught WHAT to think; rather, we were expected to know HOW to think! (I will get back to citing specific examples of this in a moment.)
As a new Music Major at a 2-year community college I was shocked by every facet of my education because it didn’t seem to match my expectations of college that society had engrained into me, let alone my expectations of what High School had prepared me for. We were thrown into the shark tank–to sink or swim–on the very first day. When I arrived to meet with my academic advisor (whom I only had one appointment with in my whole three years in attendance!) just after filling out a card featuring the classes I wanted to take, I was told in no uncertain terms that I would be unable to cope with the demands of the Music Program as well as take any outside classes. In fact, as she drilled this fact home she came off as though she were shaming me as a mere “wanna-be” for even wanting to take any other courses! This theme would again crop up over and over again as the years progressed.
Later on in the day, because I had declared myself to be a “Vocal Major,” I was mandated to audition for a slot in one of several vocal jazz ensembles. Looking back on it the auditions were structured abysmally! They simply handed us all the same piece of 4-part sheet music and expected us to learn our own individual parts, despite the fact that many of us first years had never touched a piano before let alone had our first official piano lesson with our private teacher! I was thankful that one of the more advanced students kindly opened one of the rehearsal rooms rooms and played our individual parts for us so that we could have it “in ear” in order to sing the portion that was required of us. Unfortunately, in High School, I had been misclassified as a baritone, when I was actually a tenor!
As I became more acquainted with the program there appeared to be a lot that was lacking. For starters there were no textbooks that we were able to rely upon. Instead, we were required to buy “The Real Little Ultimate Jazz Fake Book” (we were never told why it was so-called nor did we use it during our studies), a Bach chorale, and a packet of staff paper! That. Was. All. This almost certainly compounded the struggle that every student enrolled in this program seemed to endure! After all, if we missed a class we had no way of knowing what lesson had been covered, and because we almost always had an assignment that was to be played at the piano on the alternating day (if our class met on Monday, than our assignment was due the forthcoming Wednesday, first thing in the morning!) if we were unprepared for our assignment we were given an automatic “F” (assignments were always pass-or-fail!) because we were not only prohibited from getting the lessons from our instructor, but assignments could never be made up for any reason (not even a funeral could be used as an excuse). Most students were so terrified of missing even a single music class that they were popping vit. C like PEZ! It was well-known, here, among the more advanced students that the letter grade of a solid “C” in this program would automatically equate to an “A”+ at any other school and University in the state, which I didn’t know until late in my first year! How, then, should we expect any transfer school to mentally–let alone seriously!–audit our GPA if we are applying to another school? Worse, which I did not learn until my second year, is that the program would not offer a degree in music; rather, they could only bestow students with a certificate of completion!
I do recall searching high and low for any text books on Music Theory in order to assist myself, but to no avail; so, it wasn’t for a lack of sincere effort on my behalf. I searched the shelves of the campus library and bookstore, the public library of the college town that the school was located in, Barnes and Noble as well as Borders Books, and even the local Rieman’s Music that catered to the music students who studied at this school. None of them sold any books on Music Theory during the mid-1990s that I could discover. As you can see there was very little support available, especially when the internet was in its infancy in those dial-up days. I have long-since become convinced that none of the faculty–save for the private instrument/ vocal teachers–had a degree in Music Education! For example, the Founder of the program–who had an Ego as big as all outdoors–was in charge of the Choir and we were expected to interpret his vague gestures, which honestly made him look like he was constipated! A friend of mine asked him if he had a degree in Choir Conduction and told her, point blankly, “No, but I have read several books on it!” What the?! Sadly, he had the bald-faced lie on his website that he did, indeed, have a degree in Choir Conduction from a prestigious University in Iowa! (If he did, which is dubious, it must only have been merely honorary!) This man had the audacity to give me grief for failing to live up to his impossible standards; such as publicly shaming me when my eyes briefly wandering off of him–not my head–during rehearsal as I was singing a song that I had memorized. I came from a multi-award winning High School Choir that won first place in every competition we ever entered, which proved to me how unprofessional his choir ultimately was. Yet, his claim to fame was that he had merely “read several books” on choir conduction?! But I digress…
Instead, I fervently believe that most of the faculty were mere Jazz Ingenues that wanted to set up a Music School in order to supplement their income when not gigging. Even as first year college students we were treated as if we ought to have no family, and were required to tour on the weekends with the choir to various shopping malls in the surrounding states; I have, since, never observed any college choirs singing at any shopping malls before nor since. However, we were expected to pay for our own food and lodging, which I could not afford, then. Many students didn’t eat during these weekend tours.