Avenues for Professional Development for teachers

For me, the greatest issuein NZ High School Music Education is how do we get more schools teaching Music Technology – i.e.using MIDI and audio (microphones, DAW’s, interfaces, etc) to produce music. While I’m a huge believer in teaching reading music and notation (in my professional career most of the work I got was because I was known as one of the few good sight-reading bass players in town) the reality is that these skills are of less importance to students wanting a career in pop and rock music.

For these students, knowledge of how to produce with Logic or Pro Tools is of a lotmore importance. Now, I know that if I wrote this on the Artsonline Musicnet email network (an email network connecting NZ High School Music Teachers) the daggers would be out with plenty of people attacking me (but also plenty of people in support). But in all my reading, research and experience running a recording studio and teaching high school for over ten years I’m becoming more and more convinced of the importance ofmusic production skills using technology.

Let me say out front that this is not my background. I’m not trained in music technology. I have two music degrees majoring in classical and jazz music. But the longer I’m involved with the music industry the more I see the need to train our high schools students for the realities of our music world. The simple fact of the matter is that if they are into Pop or Rock, then it’s more important to know how to produce music with a DAW than it is to be able to read Figured Bass or to be able to analyse Sonata Form.

What is heartening is that there are plenty of teachers that agree with me but many teachers who have been around for a while often have the question: “Where do I start?”

My business, Learning Ideas Ltd , has been providing Music Technology workbooks for the New Zealand Unit Standard system for the last few years and as best I can tell, these workbooks and tutorials have been of great help to many students. I have also been running workshops for teachers all over NZ for the last few years. And while I think these are very positive and helpful sessions for teachers I’m mindful of the fact that many teachers are overwhelmed with information.

What many teachers need, particularly older teachers, is someone to walk along side them in the teaching of their first year of music technology. By all means use the workbooks and tutorials from Learning Ideas butteachers should seek the help of someone else who knows the ‘content’ very well (even if they’re not trained teachers).

These might be teachers at other schools, but probablynot as most teachers are struggling with the workload at their own school so can’t help other schools too much.

So far, I think the solution lies with our Tertiary providers. Places like MAINZ , SAE , CPIT and Universities that are running music production courses (like Massey, Auckland, etc). Teachers should seek out the people who run those music schools to find thebest students in their 2nd, 3rd or 4th years of study. After all, in NZ, everyone involved in the music industry is involved in education in some way so getting ‘placement’ into high schools to assist teachers can only be good for those Tertiary students. And because they’re not qualified yet teachers shouldn’t have to pay them too much! (Teachers need to remember though that any resources or teaching associated with Performing Arts Technology Standards can be paid for with STAR funds).

I see this as a win/win situation. Teachers can offer Music Production/Tech courses that will attract higher numbers into their programmes, and they can be in charge of assessment. But in the teaching of complicated things like Compressor Threshold and Ratio, Phase, RT, Parametric EQ, and so on… they can have Tertiary students who should know the basics of all the knowledge and basic techniques of use. Teachers will still need to do their own PD(see here for some good options ) but the pressure on the teacher to know everything immediately is takenaway.

So, if you’re one of those teachers that want to offer a music technology course in 2016 but don’t know where to start send me an email to [email protected]

I’ll set you up with the resources and I’ll help you touch base with your local Tertiary Music Tech provider who maybe in a position to send some talent students or recent graduates your way.