Back to Gladwell. Again.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell asserts that for a concept to tip (i.e., become a trend), it must be sticky: it must effectively attract adopters. Simple enough in theory. In practice, however, it’s quite complex.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been mentally outlining and writing my new Music Appreciation syllabus for the fall semester. Though I’ve taught the subject for six semesters, it was as a T.A. and my syllabus and content adhered to the general outline of my bosses’ syllabi. Now I enjoy the opportunity, as professor, to have full autonomy. (My only constraint is that I coordinate a general curriculum with another professor, who will be teaching separate classes on the same subject.) This is very exciting, as I believe that, if taught correctly, Music Appreciation could serve as a welcome common ground for musicians and non-musicians alike. (This is the subject I want to teach, more than any other.)

More than content, though, my biggest concern lately is: how do I make the subject sticky? What will engage the students to the point where it becomes more than just a required class, but something that’s relevant and they feel invested in? While I still am very much a student of teaching, my consistently positive student reviews keep me from worrying about the mechanics of my teaching. Instead, I focus on stickiness. While I do have a number of possible solutions floating around in my head, I prefer they crystallize more before sharing them here. But the question is important enough, I feel, that it needs to be presented, as it’s something that should be taken into consideration when teaching any subject. What makes it sticky, and how can that be effectively translated to the student?

This will be a frequently recurring theme. Music Appreciation, both as a class and a concept, is something I very much champion. Teaching it for six semesters in graduate school gave me a completely new perspective on this leper of musical academia. As a whole, scholars and performers dislike the topic, as it means instructing non-majors. On the other hand, students generally hate the class as they expect it to be an easy 4.0, only to find out they need to know the ins and outs of sonata form, and are beaten over the head with the cement baton of classical music (along with a brief, obligatory mention of jazz). Both parties generally walk away dissatisfied; the disgruntled professor insisting the students weren’t appreciative enough, and the confused student questioning the relevance of any of the course material.

The system requires much change, and the development of a comprehensive, accessible (but challenging), and relevant curriculum is something I’ve been working on for a few months. Bit by bit, and in no particular order, I’ll regularly address this topic, offering my thoughts on methods to improve this subject, as it could be a way to improve relations between musical academia and the general population at large. Educators must consider themselves ambassadors for musicians at large when teaching Music Appreciation, and aware that their performance in the classroom will reflect on the entire academic music community. Since Obama took office in January, pundits have dubbed him “Explainer in Chief”; one who must take a complex problem, distill it to its core, and explain it to the general population in a manner that is both easy to understand, yet detailed enough to garner respect. Perhaps the students needn’t learn about sonata form’s tendency to emphasize the relationship between tonic and dominant, but instead the importance of form overall, and its many creative implementations, and its relation to creative uses of common forms in popular music. (This is something I often emphasize in my own classroom.)

I frequently hear musicians complaining that, overall, people don’t care about classical music, or simply don’t give it chance. Before playing the victim, academia must first ask itself: have we given the average listener a chance?