music institutions

I felt like writing something about this as in the last few weeks I’ve seen some quite bleak comments about music schools from a series of respected musicians speaking in the press and on social media sites. I have been in music institutions since I was 14 until I was 22 – so obviously I have a particularly strong experience of the subject, but at the same time I feel like it gives me some things to say as well.

Ive read some things recently that claim that the reason for ‘uninventive’ or ‘shit’ (as one Berlin based guitarist put it) music (in jazz particularly) is music schools. The various people talking about this said that music colleges churned out players with no imagination and that sounded all the same to each other. The way I see it is that within every generation of musicians (regardless of genre) there are those who embrace current musical movements, or recreate past musical movement, and those who define new ones, all to varying degrees of success – this existed long before Jazz (or any type of music) was being taught in Colleges – the reality is that there are just more people playing Jazz now (which is a good thing right? – I mean however many people are really good at it, it’s a good thing to be isn’t it?)

I think Music Colleges are hard places to be, and also hard places to teach at. With Jazz you are teaching something that by it’s very nature is intuitive – but also is something that is based on knowledge and at some level on theory. It also something that in reality no-one has the right to determine ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – but just whether they like it, or respect it – or in fact, no-on has the real right to define what it is.. * these things being it’s main strengths* But it is hard, not impossible. To be able to provide a student with the right amount of information for them at the right time for them is hard – but incredibly important! With the right piece of information (however small) you can provide a student with enough inspiration to listen to the same record for months, but give the person too much and they feel trapped and defined by what you have given them – and unable to break away from it. This is a challenge you will meet whether you attend a college or not however.

The truth is if I didn’t go to college, I wouldn’t have met ALL the people in my band who I love playing with, I wouldn’t have found out about so much music (or at least it would have taken me a longer amount of time) and I wouldn’t have had something to kick against. This last point is important – College gives you something solid for you to accept or reject, it asks the question and demands the answer. Some people will always agree with everything College says, and some people will also reject it – and most people will do a healthy mix of both. I can safely say that a big part of what made me want to play the type of music I want to play was how it was presented (or not) to me at college. Saying all this – I am sure if I had learnt music away from music institutions I would have learned many of the same things, and might have worked in a different and perhaps (for me) better way, but that was my choice to make – without preconception. Also, I am not generalizing about all the people that make music who didn’t study at music college.

Sometimes I worry that this view on music college is born out of a feeling of defensiveness – the idea that somehow the knowledge you gain is worth more if it is not taught to you. The reality of course being that we are taught by everything around us constantly, we cannot help it – it is just a matter how you present things. This attitude can bring up preconceptions between musicians and is very unhealthy for creative music making.

Also the reality is that at a music college, your music has to belong in a system for a while. This is good practice! Sometimes it will fit it, and sometimes it won’t – this is how it is in the real world! For better and often for worse – one’s music just belongs in a bigger system – be it record sales, media, getting booked – all sorts of things, and as I mentioned before – sometimes having something to kick against can propel you in your chosen direction more intensely than if you remain unchallenged. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the only way to be a jazz musician is to go to music college! Far from it.. I am just saying that it is a tool, and like any other – it is what you make of it, it suits some people’s goals well and other’s not – it is also has too broad an output to make generalizations on. What you can get at a music college is musical relationships and knowledge – what you do with these things is up to the individual, but surely any person or institution willing to pass on this knowledge is worth supporting and trying to improve – not blaming.

Having gone to what I consider (I mean this with full respect) a fairly conservative music college, I don’t (and didn’t when I left) feel that I had to play like my teachers and nothing else – instead I felt/feel happy to be able to finally explore my own thing after having been extensively taught the tools with which to do so with more understanding and choices (which although painful at times, I value greatly now).  Music isn’t forced on anyone – it isn’t an obligation that everyone is born with, it’s a choice at every step. People on the whole don’t play if they don’t want to, and the on the whole they play in a style they like and respond too. What I fear is that when these big Jazz musicians suddenly declare that most Jazz is shit nowadays, that a lot of people with less confidence in their playing than Branford Marsalis will feel threatened and paranoid, and feel unable to explore new things without fear of failure. I also fear that when people blame Music Colleges for the music that they don’t like, (or make rash generalizations that are deep down based on taste) it will discourage people from trying out learning in an environment that might have suited them as well as I think it suited me. It will most definitely not work for everyone – but nothing does.

~ by kitdownes on September 21, 2011.