Grant Beglarian
EUNICE BOARDMAN, Director
GENERAL INFORMATION
The Southwestern Regional Institute for Music in Contemporary Education has developed plans to be inaugurated in the fall of 1967. The last of the Institutes to be formed, the organizational meeting of the Institute was held at Colorado Springs in March, 1967. At that time members presented their plans and discussed the importance of developing guide lines as quickly as possible. All agreed that the identification of those concepts and skills (and the relationship between the two) which are essential to comprehensive musicianship must be one of the primary goals of the year's activities. The urgency of determining valid evaluative devices (both "subjective" and "objective") was also expressed by members attending the organizational meeting.
Although the member organizations will have but one year to explore new curricular possibilities, the enthusiasm and concern of the cooperating program heads suggests that this institute will be able, even within the limited time, to make some helpful suggestions toward future innovations in musical training at both the university and public school level.
PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS
Region, Director and Administrative Center Institutions and Program Heads New Mexico State University, John M. Glowacki North Texas State University, Martin Mailman SOUTHWESTERN REGION University of Colorado, Gordon Sandford Eunice Boardman University of Kansas, John Pozdro Wichita State University University of New Mexico, Donald McRae University of Texas, Janet McGaughey Wichita State University, David Childs, William Watson WICHITASTATE UNIVERSITY
WILLIAM WATSON, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: One section of freshman theory consisting of approximately twenty-five students selected at random will form an experimental group. Remaining sections will serve as control groups. The experimental section will meet six hours per week; this course replaces the current music theory and music literature freshman courses.
Objective: To develop basic musicianship by expanding student's conceptual and practical knowledge of modes of musical organization and music literature. To encourage students to apply these concepts and skills to all aspects of their own musical experiences.
Implementation: The two-semester course will center around the consideration of various configurations of musical phenomena relating to the linear, vertical, durational, textural, and dynamic organization of musical structure. Music of all stylistic periods will be considered as they apply to the concepts under consideration. Class activities will encompass performance, analysis, improvisation and composition.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: Twelve teachers currently involved in the teaching of music in the Wichita public schools will be selected to participate in a seminar directed by university faculty from the theory, music literature and music education departments. The students have been selected on the basis of interest and concern with the problems identified by the institute and upon their demonstration of creative teaching ability. During the second semester each student will carry on an experiment in one of his public school classes. These classes will include instrumental, choral and general music classes at all levels: elementary, junior, senior high school.
NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY
JOHN GLOWACKI, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: A class of approximately forty freshmen will be divided into two groups; each will meet ten hours per week under the supervision of a team of professors from the musicology and composition departments. This program will be a two-year sequence and replaces the present two-year survey in theory and one-year survey of history of music.
Objective: The major objective of this program is to develop ways to avoid the current fragmentation of the music curriculum which seems to lead students to see their musical experiences narrowly, without recognition of interaction among the understandings developed within each approach to the study of music: theoretical, historical, compositional, performance. Through the planned program it is hoped that the student will be more likely to see the musical work (and his relation to it) as an entity.
Implementation: The course is planned sequentially, beginning with examination of the smallest units of musical organization and proceeding to more complex structures. Students will participate in analysis and performance of works from various historical eras and will be presented problems in composition based on the concepts of musical organization basic to the various styles being subject to analysis. In addition to the regular class periods, a special laboratory will be available where each student will have assigned a desk and an electronic piano.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: No specific class structure is planned. The New Mexico State University Music Department will work with students from the Las Cruces public schools in an experiment designed to develop programmed materials for the teaching of certain kinds of musical skills and knowledges. The students will be selected from those participating in the University preparatory program or on the recommendation of music teachers in the public school system.
Objective: Because New Mexico has many small high schools where a comprehensive music program at the high school level is not feasible, the primary objective of this program will be to develop programmed materials which would give students in such situations the privilege of expanding their own musical understanding.
Implementation: The value of existing materials will be studied as public school students make use of them. In addition, experimentation will be conducted to create additional programmed materials for the development of aural skills and the study of general stylistic concepts. It is planned to eventually make these materials available to high schools through the State Board of Education.
NORTH TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
MARTIN MAILMAN, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: Approximately twenty junior and senior music majors will be selected to participate in elective course, offered for three semester hours credit. Students will include majors in performance, composition and music education.
Objective: To help students gain a broader perspective of the varied skills and knowledge they acquire and to offer opportunities for them to become aware that such information must and can transfer from one area or discipline to another. To also help musicians with diverse areas of interest become more aware of the similarity of their interests and concerns.
Implementation: Emphasis will be on individual growth, with assignments tailored to individual needs and interests in an effort to encourage students to cross specific areas of discipline and to involve their total personal resources as they analyze major works, prepare works for performance, or develop compositional skills.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: Approximately twenty students including graduate students and teachers presently in the field of public school music education will meet during the first semester for a two-hour weekly seminar. During the second semester each student will work on an appropriate individual project.
Objective: As with the undergraduate program, primary concern will be to help each individual identify his own areas of interest and need and to guide him in solution of these concerns through the acquisition of necessary skills and information.
Implementation: The seminar will make use whenever feasible of public school performing organizations and general music classes in connection with appropriate lecture/demonstrations. Guest lecturers will be invited to present specialized viewpoints. Seminars will be devoted to the evaluation of music literature and to exploration of ways to relate performance to general music classes.
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
GORDON SANDFORD, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: The project will involve the entire junior class and will consist of a performance laboratory held in conjunction with the junior music history course. Fourteen laboratory sessions will be held during the year.
Purpose: To acquaint students with a wide variety of music not normally performed through involvement in live performance and contact with professors who are specialists in a particular area as a way to help students become aware of ways that the mature musician approaches the study and performance of music.
Implementation: Each of the laboratory sessions will be centered upon the consideration of a specific musical topic. At these sessions faculty members who are particularly knowledgeable in this area will present the material, direct the class in performance, and lead class discussions.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: Approximately fifteen public school music teachers, representing all levels from elementary through high school, will be invited to attend two Saturday seminars.
Purpose: To develop techniques of teaching creativity in the public schools by encouraging creative composition and to broaden and deepen the public school teacher's own creativity.
Implementation: Members of the Colorado University faculty will direct the seminars and be available for consultation by the public school teachers during the course of the program. At the end of the semester a composition festival will be held at which time each teacher will bring his two best students to the program. Performance of student compositions, evaluation by university faculty and talks about compositional techniques will be scheduled as part of the festival.
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
JOHN POZDRO, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: Consideration of curriculum and methodology will affect several areas of the school of music program. Freshman and sophomore theory programs will be evaluated; one section of freshman theory will be re-organized to allow time for the inclusion of more study of twentieth century techniques and materials. Junior and senior music education majors will consider compositional techniques through special seminars.
Objective: To place greater emphasis on inter-relationships of disciplines through examination by the faculty of existing practices and consideration of various teaching techniques and program organizations.
Implementation: Faculty members will meet with the program head to consider ways of developing more effective inter-relationships between the study of music theory and music history. Consideration will be given to ways of encouraging students to apply concepts gained through academic instruction to performing schools. Where appropriate, certain approaches, such as programmed instruction and team teaching techniques will be employed.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: Approximately five hundred junior high schools and fifteen-twenty high school students from Lawrence and surrounding school systems will be involved in general music courses. Teachers in the public school will work with university personnel in a seminar devoted to the development of general music programs.
Objective: To determine ways to improve instruction in music; to initiate and develop courses in general music by working with teachers whose responsibilities lie in this area; to increase the relationship between high school music courses and the courses at the university level which students will be taking.
Implementation: A program for the teaching of general music in the public schools, designed for prospective teachers was initiated in the public schools in the spring of 1967. This program was designed for prospective teachers. This program will be expanded next year to include teachers presently in the field who will then carry on experimentation in their own teaching situations.
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
DONALD MCRAE, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: This project will be primarily evaluative as theory teachers meet regularly to coordinate their goals, evaluate materials and techniques of presentation. Similar meetings will be held with history and literature professors to consider ways that the study of style and form can be made to interact more meaningfully with the student's applied music and theoretical studies.
Objective: To stress musicianship education in depth for all music students, regardless of their area of concentration, and to stress the cross-relationships among the various music disciplines which form the existing curriculum.
Implementation: In addition to the in-service meetings for all music faculty, there will be experimentation with team-teaching in certain situations to explore the possibility of this approach as an effective way to reach stated objectives. The use of new audio-visual aids in the teaching of theory will also be explored.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: Approximately twenty senior high school students from three schools in Albuquerque will participate in musicianship courses. Two of these presently offer courses in theory and general music; the third will be a newly organized course based on a comprehensive approach to the study of music.
Objective: The primary objective, in addition to that stated above, is to help high school music faculty to set up achievement goals, course levels, and develop methods for teaching theory and general music at the high school level.
Implementation: University faculty will work with public school teachers and cadet teachers placed in the three situations; they will act as resource personnel in the selection of materials and evaluation of methods. Two of the classes will be experimental; the third will serve as a control group.
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
JANET MCGAUGHEY, Program HeadUndergraduate Program
Curricular Organization: Two sections of theory, one at the freshman level, one at the sophomore level, will be involved in the experimental program; there will be approximately twenty students in each section.
Objective: To help students achieve, in terms appropriate to their level, a grasp of the diversity of music in Western civilization through the development of conceptual knowledges and technical skills necessary to the development of that awareness.
Implementation: The program will be a music-literature-centered program with emphasis on the development of aural skills; experimental use of various techniques aimed at helping students become aware of the correlation among reading, writing and performing skills, encouragement of the creative use of musical skills and development of ability to communicate via the musical-technical vocabulary.
Public School Program
Curricular Organization: Three classes have been selected: a fourth grade, an eighth grade, and a high school theory class. These classes are selected from schools in the Austin system.
Objective: The central objective of each of these classes is the same as that of the undergraduate program.
Implementation: The program at the University of Texas has been developed through the close cooperation of the program director and other members of the university and public school staff. The same emphases will be observed at each level of instruction. Primary concern will be with comparison of methodology which is effective at the various levels to determine similarities and differences which are significant at different points of maturity and achievement.