Random Thoughts, Specific Purposes

The Oxford University Press music education text rep. visited with me for an hour. She is interested in the Rock/Rap text. Also in my course pack which I developed in 1995 and have used for all of my elementary general music methods courses, with adaptations and additions, every year since then. I was surprised she was interested in the Course Pack after all these years of my using it ... but that is in fact why she contacted me in the first place, not because of the Rock/Rap text.

So I told her about my rock/rap journey, waxing poetic as I tend to do, on the subject. She listened, asked a few questions, and looked at the mss. I have completed so far and then gave me a LOT of advice. Some of that advice was nuts and bolts: How many pages? Paperbound or hard bound? What about copyrights & reprint permissions? To whom is the book going to be targeted, in terms of market? Will there be an accompanying DVD or CD or both? Table of Contents? The sorts of details that any publisher needs to know in order to assess the potential costs & profits of a book.

Then, she asked me some much more difficult-to-answer questions.

Such as: what [about your text] will compel professors to require their students to BUY this text? It is a "supplementary" text -- I'm fully aware that methods courses teachers--and I'd be among those, I'm afraid--are not going to just drop all their accustomed repertoire and processes to use this book in place of what they use now. What's to prevent them ordering their complimentary desk copy -- and letting students borrow that single copy to use for lesson plan ideas for the unit they're doing on "including popular music in your teaching"?

Also: she told me "your passion for this music is driving the book right now. That has to change. The book must be centered upon, and driven by, issues of teaching and learning music; NOT on your personal journey of discovery of musical treasures and gems to be found in rock music and in rap".

I had a little taste of what she means in that last statement. Yesterday I did a workshop for my undergraduate music education students. The first lesson I took them through was the one where students are to compare how Schubert and Metallica treat the issue of children's fears of the night and of the dark in their respective compositions The Erlking (solo art song) and Enter Sandman (heavy metal rock). That lesson seemed successful; they liked it. One of the students asked me if I knew Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark piece as well. I was grateful for his idea.

But the second lesson I took them through was comparing three different artists' renditions of the song Johnny B Goode. First of course, I played them the Chuck Berry original. They obviously responded very positively to that. The second version I played for them was a reggae version of Johnny B Goode by an artists named Peter Tosh. The students LOVED the reggae version! The third version I played was that of Judas Priest. Now: I LOVE the Judas Priest cover of Johnny B. Goode. But....my ears have become accustomed to the "screaming" vocal techniques of heavy metal singers, in this case, the brilliant voice of Rob Halford. But the voice majors in the room yesterday flinched at his first scream, covered their ears, asked me to turn it down and then suggested I turn it off after the first verse! They buzzed among themselves most energetically and I could see their reactions were largely negative.

I have to agree the voice major students: this style of singing is NOT a good model for children to hear in our music classrooms! I should have, on reflection, played the Grateful Dead cover -- which has close vocal harmony and some added instruments from the original version--and no screaming -- quite lyrical singing in fact. That was a rather dramatic example of my personal passions or tastes ruling over my pedagogical understanding -- and what I need to convey in this text to people who are becoming music educators. I'm sure that's what the rep intended by her charge.

As for what about the text will compel methods class teachers to require students to buy it: that is a far more perplexing and frankly, daunting, question. As the rep pointed out: this would be the first text of its kind. That means marketing it will need to be very focused and clever so that a niche market is created. I told her that all of the composition chapter will be written by living, working rock musicians. Quotes from rock and rap musicians will be throughout the book. The chapter on rap is being entirely written by working rap musicians. I'm merely an editor for them. I had hoped to be able to have some small contributions from people like Quincy Jones about Michael Jackson's music; or from rock composers who have achieved fame in their field. I tried contacting Steven Tyler for that purpose. To no avail. I will continue to work on contacting Cheap Trick who are down the road in Rockford IL.

It would be wonderful to contact any rock composers or rappers (I'm interested particularly in Mos Def and Common) who have become famous for their music and who would supply some kind of essay or quote or something more extensive for this text but I don't know how to do that and I've no idea if such a project would be of the slightest interest to them. The VH1 folks might be helpful as VH1 does a lot of PSA's on TV and has a rather extensive grants program for music education. That may be the route to follow. Meanwhile, I keep slogging on. I think if I had contributors who have achieved wide recognition the book could use that in marketing strategy.

The other part of the book that I think will be very valuable will be the Technology for the Classroom chapter written by my cousin Paul Geluso who is a well-regarded recording engineer in New York city and who teaches courses in studio recording at New York University. His mom and sister are both music educators so he understands that point of view as well as the professional studio environment and working with rock music as well as music from classical, jazz, and other genres.

Some of the childlike joy and passion have evaporated for me. Not that I have ceased to love the music or listening to it. But, as the Oxford U Press rep said: the time has come to change focus. And wear my "teacher trainer" hat. But as I told her "I always tell my students to teach the music about which they are most passionate because that joy, that enthusiasm, conveys itself to their students. Kids know when you are faking it. I was always very successful at teaching my kids in elementary and middle school about opera. They caught my passion for it, the wanted to share in my enthusiasm." I am hoping that sense of joy and commitment will shine through the pages of the book even though the focus of the book from MY point of view will have to be more down-to-earth and practical than I might prefer!