Stephan P. Barnicle, Simbury High School, Simsbury, CT

The National Standards for Arts Education have provided us with a fresh perspective on the development of curricula in the arts. As we approach the beginning of a new millennium, what better time is there than now to re-evaluate our entire approach to education in this country and to refocus our view toward the teaching of the arts, as indeed toward all of our academic content. As we music educators look for "A New Focus for the 21st Century" I invite you to observe the graphic we have prepared in which you will see a circle with the word "Music" in the center. While we have always intended that this be the focus of our curricular design, it is my contention that our focus has often been skewed to one side or another.

Before I go on I want to clarify one thing. I know that the true focus of all our efforts as educators must be, and is, the child, not the subject matter. However, for today's discussion, we are referring to the curricular content of our programs and therefore, our specific focus is music itself.

Now back to our graphic, and its relationship to the National Standards. The standards have been defined in such a way that they point out the necessity for a more comprehensive approach to our teaching of music. We have long realized that it is not enough to simply train students to perform tasks on musical instruments, including the voice, either in an ensemble context or alone. However, the standards make it clear that we must take a wholistic approach to the subject matter and help students to become independently capable of self expression in this, as indeed in all of the arts.

As we begin to broaden our focus, then, the next consideration to be made is: are we addressing the three areas of Creating, Performing, and Analyzing music equally in all of our courses? Can our students read and write the language of music as well as they sing, or play their instrument? Can they improvise a song as well as performing from notation? Can they differentiate between the acoustics of a Basilica and a night club, and understand why an a cappella motet might sound better in one and a jazz trio better in the other?

A fairly standard retort to such questions is, "if a kid wants to learn to write music, let him take a composition class instead of choir." However, the standards also point out the reality that, particularly at the secondary level, most students who elect to study music at all are not going to have the luxury of taking separate classes in performance, composition and analysis. Yet, we have an obligation to continue each student's progress in comprehensive musicianship.

I would like to suggest two approaches to addressing the issue of solving this problem. One is to rethink our existing curricula. In your handouts you will find a sheet labelled "Outcome Objectives" which was taken from a recently redesigned curriculum used in my high school choral program. As you can see, the greatest emphasis of the program continues to be singing and other related choral skills; however, care is taken to assure that composition and analysis skills are given significant weight in continuing each student's musical learning. While it will never be possible to fully address all musical skills, it is an attempt to assure that the student's musical learning will lead to each student's ability, upon completion of our program, to express themselves in music through composition, performance and verbal expression.

A second approach to this dilemma, however, is to design new courses which focus in new ways upon our subject matter. It is here that innovations in music technology can present us with some new answers to some old questions. Focusing on creating, for example, we have several options of avenues we can follow, including composition, improvisation, timbre construction, the recording process and many more. Composition, of course, is now easily addressed in courses using sequencers and/or notation software. We can design courses for students with keyboard skill, or for students using other controller devises such as wind or guitar controllers, to capture their improvisations as sequences, which can be edited into compositions and transferred to notation software for printing. On the other hand, students can be taught to construct compositions directly onto notation software with the ability to play back their notation to verify that it was what they intended, a process particularly well suited to students with little or no previous keyboard experience.

One of my favorite courses, however, does not require any computer or even sequencers or keyboards, although they can all be put to good use. Instead, this course centers around equipment most of us have in our departments, and have been using for years, in one form or another. The tape recorder, with microphones and perhaps a mixer and if possible some sound processing capabilities, such as equalization and reverberation, is the heart of a great learning experience in music and sound for our students.

While in our performing ensembles we strive to perfect intonation, blend, balance, tone quality, rhythmic precision and such, most of the students in the ensemble will never hear that balance, or blend, but will learn to react to the conductor's directions. In a recording studio situation, a student has significant control over many of these aspects of a performance which make them "musical." In addition, they can audition a variety of combinations and make decisions concerning all of these elements and much more.

Students learn by listening to the different characteristics of a variety of microphones, choosing the best mic for a particular situation. They learn to filter the sound through an equalizer to make up for deficiencies of a microphone or the instrument itself. They adjust the relative volume levels of each part, determine which should be primary and which secondary, where in the sound panorama an instrument or voice should be placed, and how the acoustics of a particular room or hall might change the entire feeling of a piece. All of these are crucial skills to a good musician, and they can be taught, as never before, through a hands on approach, where each student can make all of these decisions about his or her music or the music of others.

In case you have not had the opportunity to work with multi-track recording, and perhaps have not experienced some of these phenomena yourselves, let me play a short demonstration tape for you. The performance you were listening to as we began this presentation is by an a cappella vocal group which one of my sons sings with down at Cape Cod each summer. The group is called "The Hyannis Sound" and this is a piece I taped for them which I particularly enjoyed playing with in the mixing process. The piece is called "Why Should I Cry For You?."

Now, you heard it the way I chose to present it. However, in doing so, many decisions had to be made. First, and most influential, and probably most controversial, is the use of a heavy plate reverb. So let's listen to a bit of the piece dry, as recorded in our studio. I will begin it with the reverb, then I will take it out for a while, then I will put the reverb back in so that you can hear the difference. (Play second cut)

The next bit of fun I was to have was deciding on some EQ for the vocal percussion section. I will play it for you as it was recorded dry, then I tried boosting the lower frequencies to bring out the kick drum beat, I searched for the right frequencies to boost, then I boosted some high frequencies to bring out the sizzle in the high hat. (Play third cut, you might play it twice, reading the above again as you play it the second time.)

This is the kind of thing each student does in a recording technologies class. We usually spend nearly a week just learning to mic and EQ the trap set. Deciding on the best placement for each mic, the best mic for each drum and then EQing each drum to sound as we want in the particular style we will record.

After we make these decisions and record each instrument on their separate tracks, we then go to the mixing process. It is just as the one I demonstrated, except that we do each instrument or voice and make similar decisions. Even in the tape I played, there were many more decisions to be made. For example, there is no real low bass in the group, so when the bass sang his little licks, I boosted the lows on his track a bit. The tenors were sometimes a bit too bright, especially in solo passages, so I would often want to cut the highs a bit on their tracks. These same decisions are made by my students in every class.

Now I ask you, are these music skills we are referring to:

Of course they are, and they are as important as the ability to play a scale, or sing an arpeggio. These are skills that every musician needs to master, and how better to master them than to have the ability to individually manipulate each aspect of the performance and apply your decision to the outcome.

New ways to look at the teaching of music. A new focus. But this is only one focus I have chosen to take. We must look at the options before us today and choose the ones that work best for us. The National Standards provide the perspective we have needed to help us complete our task.

On the back of our flyer the nine content standards are listed. Often times, when we look at the larger publications with all of the standards for each level together with the achievement standards below them it is difficult to focus on the broader topics. Think in broad terms when considering changes in curricula. Begin focusing on Music, then stretch it to the three areas of Creating, Performing and Analyzing, and then stretch it further to encompass the nine content standards listed here. As you get more specific in detailing your developing curriculum, then refer to the individual achievement standards to see if you have missed any that might be covered in your course. I have found this to be a helpful approach to my curriculum development, perhaps it will assist some of you also.

Of course, we must take care not to think that all we can do with some of today's technology is use it in new "computer music" courses. On the contrary, there are many applications of today's technology which can and should be incorporated into existing curricula. Indeed, I use synthesizers, sequencers, multi-track recorders, video cameras, VCRs and other dedicated hardware and software products in my choral and orchestral programs every day. Not only must we consider such equipment as teaching tools, but perhaps even more effectively they can and should be used as assessment tools. They offer many unique ways of capturing musical performance and creativity for later measurement and individual as well as program assessment.

On the back of the sheet of "Outcome Objectives" you will find a score sheet I use for my annual "Choral Performance Measure." For this assessment the students sing a four part piece, which they should know well, in the rehearsal situation. While each student remains within their section, singing with the entire chorus, a mic is placed a few inches from the lips of one student in each section. This mic will pick up their sound and send it to one track of a four track recorder. When I have captured each student on tape (which usually can be done in no more than two class periods) I can listen to each singer as many times as I wish, one at a time, and anonymously, scoring all the students on one criterion at a time. I assign names to each track after all students have been scored on all criteria.

The following is a short excerpt of such a tape, first listening to all four tracks at once, where we can hear the four parts with four singers prominent over the rest of the choir.

(play the fourth cut)

Now I will play one part at a time. You can still hear enough of the background choir to get a feel for intonation, tempo, etc. but can easily hear the student whose performance you are scoring. (play the fifth cut)

Since I can listen as many times as I need to, it is easy to get an accurate measure of a student's performance on each criteria, although it does take time.

While I have found that few students' grades have changed much since I began this procedure about 8 years ago, I have been better able to define each student's strengths and weaknesses, and to demonstrate to the students (and their parents) where needs for improvement lie. For the past two years I have also had each student score themselves before they receive my scores. This self-evaluation has been remarkably beneficial to the students, and remarkably successful in mirroring the scores which I assigned as well.

Saving each of these test recordings over a four year period has also provided us with a "portfolio" type of long term assessment previously unavailable. Each student can take their tape after four years and listen to the development which has occurred.

I use several other tools for assistance in evaluating student performance, but the basic concept is to rethink how we can use the tools available to us to become better music educators.

Now I have subtitled my presentation "A New Focus for the 21st Century," but I'd like to ask you, "Is this a view of the 21st Century, or are we looking at what has been happening already for nearly half of the 20th Century?"

As new as MIDI is, it has been around for more than a decade now, and will be nearly two decades old before we hit the 21st Century. As for multi-track recording, this and its related techniques have been the norm in the music industry since the middle of this century. When we speak of synthesis, of course, we can go all the way back to the first quarter of the 20th Century and Leon Theremin's synthesizer known as the Thereminvox, and a very active school of electronic musicians in pre-war Germany at the conservatory in Cologne.

All we are trying to do at this point is catch up with the advances in music that have left us music educators years, no, decades behind. Behind the industry for sure, but worse yet, behind our students.

A few years ago, my wife was trying to convince her principal that a few electronic keyboards would be useful in her classroom. Of course, there was never enough money left behind at the end of the budget year to do anything for her. So she got outside funding for an artist in residence who has done some exciting things in the field of keyboard curriculum development to come to her classes for several residencies. In the meantime, she asked her sixth grade students if any of them had keyboards at home that they might bring in to prepare for these sessions. To her surprise, and the principal's shock, there were enough keyboards the next day so that every student in each class could have one to play. While the schools are still considering if these are relevant materials, the students have been exploring them, unassisted, at home on their own time. Last year, my wife got 11 keyboards for her classes and is in the process this year of equipping a music technology lab at the high school for the teacher they hired to teach such a course.

We are constantly challenged to help our students cultivate marketable skills. In my 25 years of teaching choral and orchestral students, while I have had several students go into the field of music education, I am aware of only one student who is actually making a living singing or playing their instrument, and even she teaches on the side to make ends meet.

On the other hand, jobs in recording studios and as sound engineers have mushroomed in the past few years. While a decade ago we in New England had to go to New York to prepare even a decent demo tape, today you will find nearly 50 listings of recording studios right in the Hartford phone book. Even many corporations are hiring their own sound/video/or multi-media personnel for developing presentations in-house. Due to the rapid advancement of the technology, we can now make better quality recordings on home equipment than the best studios could 10 years ago. However, we must know how, and teach our students how to use such equipment artistically, or all they will produce is remarkably clean sounding junk.

Another problem that is unique to teaching with today's technology is the rapid turnover of equipment. I recently read an excellent article in a trade journal which I received in late August about a product released the preceding April and taken off the market in mid July, having been made obsolete in the interim. While such stories scare many of us away from doing what we know is needed, we must answer this challenge by designing courses which teach transferable skills. It makes no sense to teach a student to become a master of one piece of equipment which is most likely obsolete when you begin to teach it, but rather teach the concepts which will be the same in today's tools as well as those which will be coming down the pike ten years from now. Of course, we probably can't even dream of the capabilities of the tools which will be used to make music in the year 2020, but we do know that the sounds will consist of qualities of amplitude, frequency and timbre, and that they will have envelopes with various attacks, decays, sustain and release qualities. For some time now we can expect to capture our musical creations in a variety of digital formats, as sequences of digital information. All these and many more concepts can and must be taught to our students.

In this age of justifying programs in relation to their relevance to everyday life, we can look to courses such as these again for assistance. One of my primary goals, in my Introduction to Electronic Music and Sound Technology course is to make the students who take that course better consumers. When they go into Radio Shack or a music store to buy cables to connect their electric guitar to an amp or mixer, I want them to be able to buy the correct cable the first time. They all will know the difference between a quarter inch phone plug, an RCA or phono plug, a Cannon or XLR plug, or an eighth inch mini-phone plug, as well as whether or not they are mono or stereo, and which it is they need for a particular application, because they will have leaned not only how to identify and use them, but also will have wired each type, so they know what makes them work.

How many of us know what we are looking at, and exactly what we are looking for in similar situations? Well, I've taken a few excellent courses in sound technology, and I have been teaching these courses since 1972, but I still have several questions about shielded versus unshielded cable, wattage, amperage and voltage, and exactly how does that oscillator change the frequency? But I can't let my ignorance stop me. We must all move on for the sake of our students.

The 21st Century is rapidly approaching. When will we decide to address our 20th Century students in 20th Century terms? Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to advocate in any way the abandonment of the music of the historical past. I, myself, will always be a choral singer first, and a particular devotee of the music of the Renaissance. The Baroque recorder is still my preferred performance instrument, and "polychoral" music will always be my choral specialty. But our students live in the 20th, and will live in the 21st Century. We should be held criminally negligent if we don't instruct them in the arts of their own time in such a way as to provide them with the knowledge, the skills and the sensitivity to express their deepest feelings, hopes and dreams in the ever-changing, yet eternal art of music.

We must be aware that this is only the beginning. The real work lies ahead, outlining goals, developing methods to best utilize these tools, designing curricula which incorporate technological advances, and, perhaps most difficult, convincing teacher preparation institutions of the need for such training, now. While these developments offer us wonderful new opportunities, we must also realize that the advances to come have only been hinted at by the current products. However, we can not wait for the next generation of products, but we must get involved immediately. Our students are already using these technologies, they are just waiting for us.