Stefan Gies, AEC former Executive Director and AEC Advisor, wrote a review of the book “Music, Higher Education, and Society – Leading Change through Music’s Essential Goodness”.
This volume asserts that institutional teaching, study, administration, and performance of music should derive from essential goodness: the transcendent value embodied in meaning-making that is manifest through holistic cognitive, creative, kinesthetic, productive, and expressive reality.
Contextualizing music higher education within wider ecosystems of teaching and practice, this book shows how leaders can embrace strategic change as a positive opportunity and offers new models for addressing contemporary challenges in a mission-driven way.
The Review
About ten years ago, David E. Myers attracted some publicity and attention as co-author and mastermind of groundbreaking publications critically investigating the Higher Music Education system (e.g. Campbell/Myers/Sarath, 2014; Sarath/Myers/Campbell, 2017) that sparked heated debates not only in the USA, but also beyond. In the meantime retired, Myers has now published a book of just over 100 pages that takes up, updates and further develops the core ideas of his lifelong interest in and research on the topic. This recently issued volume entitled ‘Music, Higher Education and Society: Leading Change through Music’s Essential Goodness‘ was once more produced and edited with support of The College Music Society and released by Routledge.
Myer’s book is aimed primarily at people who are interested in the future and further development of the classical music sector in general and the Higher Music Education Institutions (HMEI) in particular. Or, in the words of the author: ‘The purpose of this volume is to encourage deep reflection about the work of higher music education.’ (p. 3)
The author unfolds his ideas on two levels that are continuously interwoven. On the one hand, he provides a crystal-clear and razor-sharp analysis of the current state of HMEIs. On the other hand, he presents a catalogue of tips, advice and best-practice examples designed to help improve the situation. In doing so, he is guided by a few premises or assumptions that readers should first adopt in a quasi-heuristic manner in order to follow the author’s thoughts profitably. That much can already be said: it is worth doing so.
Some Premises and Assumptions
– David Myers strongly believes in the power and value of classical music; however, he also believes that its inherent potential can only be realised in the long term if it ceases to present itself as something special or privileged in comparison to other types of music. (p. 12)
– To achieve this goal, he considers it essential to make classical music welcoming to those unfamiliar with classical music conventions by creating diverse, tailor-made settings that enable people to experience co-creative, holistic sonic encounters with classical music, in a way that suits each individual’s unique needs and habits. (see pp. 22,42-43, 88)
– The author is among others, inspired by American scholarly research from the 1990s, by music researchers such as Christopher Small and David E. Elliott, and by cultural anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake. They have all contributed significantly to the shift in understanding a concert situation no longer as the performance of a work of art in a one-way sender-receiver constellation, but as a shared social experience and co-creative act of meaning-making to which both performers and listeners contribute. (see pp. 8, 11, 24, 37, 53, 90)
– Myers acknowledges the many well-intentioned efforts to make classical music accessible to new audiences and to create new presentation formats. However, he considers these efforts to be cosmetic changes made for tactical reasons, which are not suitable for bringing about the urgently needed systemic change. He points out that conventional audience development formats tend to be patronising rather than welcoming, and thus contribute to reinforcing and perpetuating the deplorable status quo rather than overcoming it. (see pp. 13, 42, 57)
– The same applies to many of the conventional arguments used to legitimise the special value of classical music, which supposedly arises from the artistic quality of music as a product and its technically perfect presentation. Myers summarises such patterns of argumentation, characterised by an ‘art-as-product mentality’ (p. 90), with sarcastic precision under the term ‘salvationist advocacy’ (p. 12).
– HMEI leaders are identified as key figures who can bring about the necessary change. However, he envisions a different type of leader and leadership approach than those currently found. For up to now, even leaders who are convinced of the need for continuous and proactive development of the sector are in the author’s opinion ‘following rather than leading ecosystem change’ (p. 19). He points to the unique, but so far untapped potential of HMEIs to act as incubators for young professionals, preparing them not only to be fit for the music world of the future, but also to pro-actively shape and to a certain extent even steer this future. That’s why leaders must be given a clear mandate to act as managers of change rather than facilitators of the status quo. (see pp. 50-51)
– The key concept from which everything derives and to which everything refers, is the idea of ‘essential goodness: the transcendent value embodied in meaning-making that is manifest through holistic cognitive, creative, kinesthetic, productive, and expressive reality.’ (quotation from the book’s back cover). ‘This goodness is more profound than the frequently stated meanings that fall somewhere on a continuum between the values of purely artistic and strictly utilitarian’ (p. 10). Even though Myers, in the book’s final part, quasi in retrospect, once again explicitly makes a link between his concept of ‘essential goodness’ and Christopher Small’s concept of ‘musicking‘ by pointing out that both (the concept of ‘musicking’ and the concept of ‘essential goodness’) are based on the idea that music has to be understood as ‘a co-creative process that is manifested in sonic experience moving through time’ (p. 90), the term ‘essential goodness’, which runs like a thread through the entire text, remains strangely vague and undefined. But more on that later. Let’s now turn to Myer’s analysis of the current state of the HME sector.
About the HME sector’s resistance to systemic change and innovation
Although he describes the HME sector as a whole as rather resistant to change, Myers acknowledges that most HMEIs are making efforts to innovate, which at least shows that the problem is being recognised. These efforts are, however, far too hesitant to actually ensure the survival of the higher music education institutions, because the professional music world (and by this he means not only the HMEIs, but also the concert business, musical life, etc.) remains stuck in the usual deeply rooted assumptions, traditions and practices that are becoming increasingly irrelevant, thus widening the gap between the institutions of musical life and real practice. (pp. 35-38)
At the end of the day, according to Myers, classical music organisations and institutions, including HMEIs, are unable to innovate for systemic reasons. He attributes this to the isolated role of classical music in society and the resulting ‘insular perspective’ of the classical music ecosystem, which would at best allow ‘to apply novel tactics limited to its current practice but fail to innovate systematically’ (p. 13). This problem can only be solved ‘through creative leadership and societal commitment’ (p. 15) which he considers as preconditions to initiate a change in mentality and thus to overcome the ‘old assumptions’ about the role, meaning and significance of (classical) music. Only in this way can the inherent value of classical music for society be revealed. Because as for all music, it also applies to classical music that ‘its value arises from the shared, social sonic creation and expression that typifies the innate human desire for and participation in music making’ (p. 23). David Myers therefore concludes that service to the art and service to the community are just two sides of the same coin (p. 3)
Chapter 2 starts with a plea not to subject the ‘non-profit sector of non-commercial music’ to the rules of neoliberalism and to recognise the contribution this sector makes to creating quality of life (p. 30). At the same time, however, it is also noted that the classical music ecosystem, with its deep-rooted traditions and conventions, is not sufficiently ‘fluid and adaptable’ to respond to ‘continuous societal change’ (p. 31). Another problem the author points to, is that the standards for accrediting study programmes and institutions ‘portray only minimal evidence of change and progress’ (p. 33).
The role of teachers
Myers identifies teachers as one of the main factors hindering change. According to his observations, most teaching staff members celebrate the preservation of the status quo as the raison d’être for the classical music ecosystems (p. 35). Part of the problem is the lack of spirit in understanding their role as teachers in the classical music sector as part of a ‘cohesive and collaborative’ working team (p. 36).
The topic is revisited in the fourth chapter of the book, but there it is problematised from a different angle. While the second chapter identifies the mentality of individual members of the teaching staff as the root of the problem, the fourth chapter deals with the systemic resistance that results from the rules of academic administrative autonomy. Originally introduced with the good intention of ensuring the freedom of research and teaching, the system of academic autonomy (referred to by Myers as ‘shared governance’) has led to a system merely reproducing itself. There is indeed little doubt that members of recruitment committees tend to hire colleagues who think and act in the same way as themselves. He therefore advocates, among other things, ‘to appoint search committees aligned with the change mission and support innovative job descriptions’ (p. 75). Unfortunately, the author does not touch upon the innovation-inhibiting function of entrance examinations in this context, which due to their highly formalised and standardised requirements might be a difficult hurdle to overcome for young musicians who are creative and talented, but at the same time non-conformist and innovative. Because for the recruitment of students, the same applies that Myers so aptly describes for the recruitment of teaching staff members: people prefer to recruit people who smell like they do.
All in all, it is surprising how accurately the situation described above applies to European HMEIs, even though the political framework conditions under which arts, culture and education take place in the English-speaking world and in particular in the US differ significantly in some respects from those in continental Europe. However, the question remains in both cases as to why Myers places so much emphasis on institutional leaders as drivers of change-making when, at the same time, he notes how limited their scope for action actually is due to the rules of academic administrative autonomy.
It can be added at this point that the obstacles described by Myers are all the more serious because also the leaders of institutions are usually selected by committees in which teaching staff members have a significant say. Despite the positive and encouraging trend that more and more European HMEIs have recently succeeded in recruiting leaders who are open to innovation, this does not change the fact that also those innovative leaders continue to face resistance from the institutions’ decision-making bodies when they try to implement their ideas down on the ground.
Opportunities, alternatives and conclusions
In the middle sections of the book, the author argues that challenges should be seen as breathtaking opportunities for change and outlines ideas for how, despite the aforementioned resistance, musicians and HME teaching staff members who ‘often do not like to think in terms of their responsibility to listeners, to the audience, and to society’ (p. 43) could be empowered to act as self-responsible agents of change. Myers proposes developing new formats for music presentation in co-creative collaboration between musicians and teachers that take into account the ‘fundamental human impulse to engage’ (p. 42). Furthermore, he calls for the development, research and testing of such new formats to become one of the central tasks of HMEIs in the future. This seems to be in line with measures already in place at many European institutions under the umbrella of Artistic Research and as part of efforts to empower students to act as self-determined ‘reflective musicians’.
The book’s fifth and final chapter does not offer many new ideas, but accurately summarises the material presented earlier and refers to musicians from different generations, such as Leonard Bernstein, Bobby McFerrin and Jacob Collier, who, in the author’s opinion, have succeeded in an exemplary manner in involving audiences in the creation of a concert experience through co-creative action and at a musically appealing level.
It should also be mentioned that the text contains numerous web links providing further information or examples of good practice. In addition, the publication is supplemented by three so-called ‘scenarios’ which are designed as support material to be used in study courses at US HMEIs.
David E. Myers concludes his reflections with a renewed reference to the term ‘essential goodness’, more precisely to ‘how leading from music’s essential goodness might play out in changes that hold potential for embedding classical music within the value structure of society’ and thus ‘to position the classical ecosystem within a confluence of music systems … that ‘symbolize human-kind’s need for communication/sonic creativity and expression.’ (p 106) Music’s essential goodness is presented here once again as a value inherent in all music, but Myers obviously shies away from describing it as such, perhaps because he attributes to it a catalytic function rather than a feature or quality of music as such. Given that he explicitly attributes this characteristic not to music as a product, but to its potential as a generator of social, emotional, holistic, etc. experiences, this seems logical and understandable, but then raises the question of why he chooses to describe this catalyst with the term ‘good’ or ‘goodness’, whose semantic aura hovers between ethical, religious, idealistic and humanistic ideas of ‘good action’ or ‘good behaviour’ without revealing a clear point of reference in this web. This not only makes the term more confusing than clear, but also almost impossible to translate into other languages. But perhaps all this is just an indication that in a US context, where culture and the arts are not state-funded and are not considered governmental tasks enshrined in the constitution, owe their existence and well-being to the ‘goodness’ of charity initiatives launched by individuals, whose motives may be as diverse, open and undetermined as the term ‘goodness’ is in the context of the book.
Be that as it may, none of this changes the fact that this publication is a courageous, inspiring and long-overdue book that is well worth reading, also for European readers, and deserves a place in all HMEIs’ libraries around the world.
