Social Dissonance in Music Education

In the fifth or sixth grade, students that have shown interest in participating in beginning band classes walk into the band room and undergo the critical process of musical instrument selection. For most, the instrument chosen will remain at their side for the next seven to eight years and beyond. Parents and family members debate over the costliness of the brass instruments versus the woodwinds. Friends beg and pressure friends to choose the same instrument in order to preserve their proximity during school time. The director is nervous because two of his three tuba students are going to high school. Pre-service music educators are equipped with the knowledge necessary to determine which students have aptitude on specific instruments in terms of embouchure (mouth) shape and other physical and technical characteristics. However, directors old and new are not fully aware of the unconscious gender associations that influence the outcome of instrument selection. The girls of this new ban...

Throughout my career as a music education student at the University level, I have heard directors and professors often refer to the common or target audiences of concert performances as "the blue-haired ladies." This term is a stereotype that classifies the majority of audience members at concert performances of Western art music as rich, elderly women with hair that has been colored a light blue. Although in modern performance settings, the blue-hair description is not taken literally, it is still evident that performances of high art are dominated by the rich white elite, just as it was during the Baroque and Classical periods. When opera began in the early 1600s, it was an art form that was not meant for the general public. In Europe, crowds of the white rich elite entered newly constructed opera halls to hear the masterworks of the greatest white male composers: Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, etc. As a music educator, I am ashamed to say that I do not t...

What must be done in music classrooms in order for band directors to engage in the culturally relevant teaching that Ladson-Billings (2006) advocates? According to Mills (2011), although the traditions of several cultures have contributed to the development of a distinct American, music classrooms in our schools continue to reflect a white, Western, European image. What steps must be taken by teachers to ensure that students are receiving an equitable, socially just, and well-informed music education? In terms of repertoire, there are two tools that band directors can use in order to provide culturally relevant introduction: music from other cultures and music about other cultures. Generally, it is difficult within the time allotted between marching band competitions, district festivals, winter and spring concerts, parades, and football games to shy away from the band medium and explore mediums and traditions from other cultures (by other, I am referring to things that are not West...

In March, I was contracted to perform this summer with a performing arts group called the Louisiana Stars Drum and Bugle Corps. Louisiana Stars is a part of the Drum Corps International (DCI) organization. For numerous decades, Drum Corps International has been unrivaled as the highest level of performance opportunity for marching band musicians. Today, DCI serves as the elite performance organization for marching musicians between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two. Groups called "drum corps" are highly selective and recruit the most skilled auditionees to participate in the DCI activity, which considers itself "marching music's major league" (DCI, 2018). For young marching band musicians, including myself, DCI is seen as the ultimate opportunity for high performance and education. Despite the elite level of performance that surrounds DCI, it is fundamentally an organization focused on the music education of international youth. As the pinnacle of marc...