Increasing Access Through Popular Music Education - Andrew Krikun

Andrew Krikun, Bergen Community College Bryan Powell, John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University

Music education in public schools struggles to include diverse populations and has often inadequately addressed issues of access, inclusion, and equity for traditionally marginalized groups. Often, the ensembles present in school music programs are limited to bands, choirs, and orchestras that focus on Western European art music traditions. Even in schools that include jazz and popular music repertoire, music making in these ensembles are often taught using traditional pedagogical approaches. Music education is at a critical moment in its evolution. If music educators seek to expand access to music participation for all students, then they need to diversify the types of musical experiences that are offered in schools.

Recent scholarship indicates that the inclusion of popular music ensembles in schools can increase the diversity of students participating in school music while providing increased opportunities for participation for traditionally marginalized populations (Clauhs & Cremata, 2020). An examination of the practices and pedagogies used in these popular music ensembles can shed light on how music programs might integrate some of these approaches in an attempt to increase the diversity of their student participants. What follows highlights the popular music ensemble at Bergen Community College, tracing the history of the ensemble and suggesting ways in which other ensembles might increase the diversity of school music programs.

Community Colleges and Contemporary Music Education

Although two-year public community colleges have been in existence for over one hundred years and currently enroll almost half of the undergraduate student population, very little research has been devoted to their role in the democratization of the music education curriculum in higher education. Historically, public community colleges in the United States have played an important role in the development of the college music curriculum, establishing the first post-secondary music programs in jazz and popular music, opera, music business, and music technology. Beginning with groundbreaking junior college music programs in Los Angeles during the 1930s that introduced popular music and opera into the curriculum, as well as Max Kaplan’s pedagogical innovations at Pueblo Junior College in Colorado in the early 1940s, these often-marginalized institutions have offered opportunities for students diversified by factors including race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, and previous academic background to pursue music studies when traditional four-year colleges and universities had stringent barriers, including audition requirements and financial obligations (Krikun, 2017).

Bergen Community College

Bergen County Community College (BCC) is a twoyear college located in Paramus, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City. Bergen County Community College currently offers three Associate degrees with a focus on music: an Associate of Fine Arts degree in Music with concentrations in Classical/Jazz Music Performance, Popular Music, and Music Production for students planning to transfer to a four-year college music program; and two Associate of Applied Arts vocational degrees in Music Business and Recording Arts. One of the musical ensembles that Bergen County Community College offers is the Pop/Rock Ensemble. The current director of the Pop/Rock Ensemble is Andy Krikun, who created

The Pop/Rock Ensemble

The Pop/Rock Ensemble (PRE) was started at the suggestion of one of Krikun’s colleagues at BCC, the late composer Ron Mazurek, who founded Bergen’s electronic music program in the previous decade. Student enrollment in the BCC music ensembles dwindled after the college removed ensemble participation and applied music courses as requirements for students seeking their Associate’s degree in Music. Before the creation of the PRE, the only performing ensembles were the BCC Jazz Ensemble (which was comprised of six musicians primarily made up of senior citizens) and the BCC Chorus. With the launch of the PRE and the revision of the music curriculum to require ensemble courses, enrollment grew and currently, the PRE enrolls between twenty and thirty students each semester. The ensemble is open to the approximately 100 music majors at BCC, as well as nonmusic majors from across the campus. The BCC Pop/ Rock Ensemble was one of the first college popular music ensembles in the Northeast to be offered as a for-credit course.

The ensemble has performed both on campus and in off-campus venues showcasing a diversity of musical styles including contemporary pop, rock, Latin, hip hop, R&B, EDM, heavy metal, country, folk, and classic rock. The ensemble welcomes all levels of musicians from beginners to advanced and includes students from a wide diversity of musical and cultural backgrounds. Many ensemble alumni have gone on to pursue careers in the music industry, performing in local and national venues. The students have performed in a variety of themed events including “Bergen Performs Jersey,” a tribute to New Jersey based musicians as well as tributes to Michael Jackson, Sly Stone, Stax Records, Broadway, Motown, John Lennon, and the Summer of Love. Guest artists have included a diverse group of master musicians including jazz trumpeter/arranger Steven Bernstein, R&B/Soul vocalist Vaneese Thomas, Latin musician and BCC alumnus Kiki Bello, and Native American poet John Trudell. To assist the current director, in 2018, the college hired Divinity Montijoa to act as a student tutor. As a young woman with a diverse ethnic and musical background, Divinity provides important additional perspectives.

In what follows, we review some aspects of the PRE that set it apart from most collegiate ensembles, especially with regard to encouraging access for all students and expanding the diversity of participants.

Auditions

In contrast to many collegiate music ensembles where students must play contrasting pieces from a standard repertoire of music, the Pop/Rock Ensemble at BCC is open to any student who signs up; no audition process required. The decision to not hold auditions comes from to the desire to include as many students as possible. Doing so removes barriers to participation for students without traditional musical proficiency. This inclusive approach to music participation is in line with Glen Carruthers (2006), who argued for increased access to music programs as a way to promote lifelong learning and cautioned against discriminating against willing participants through auditions or applications. Carruthers stated that audition requirements that exclude students from participation places schools at odds with “current mainstream philosophies of lifelong learning where everyone is encouraged to participate to the best of one’s ability” (p. 7).

Repertoire Selection

The music repertoire performed by the PRE is largely chosen by the students. Sometimes the repertoire reflects a theme (e.g., “musicians from NJ”), and other times the repertoire is chosen simply because the students like the song and want to learn how to perform it as a band. Bringing students into the decision-making process when selecting music for the ensemble democratizes the process and allows the musical experiences to be culturally relevant to the students since they are given the opportunity to have a voice in the repertoire selection. As music educators seek to facilitate musical experiences that are culturally responsive, a good first step is to have a discussion with the students about their musical goals for the class and the types of music that they want to play or sing.

Student Songwriting

Another difference between the PRE and many music ensembles is the inclusion of original songs written by students. Rather than recreating music written by others,

popular musicians typically work together to create new material. Students in the PRE often also participate in BCC’s Songwriting Workshop, a course where students work on their original compositions through a series of group and solo activities. These students can then bring these songs into the PRE for the class to learn and perform as a group. Students also have the opportunity to create original material from scratch in their ad hoc bands. And even when covering songs written by others, PRE students determine the arrangement of songs, allowing them to possess voice in making musical decisions.

Rehearsals

During rehearsals for the PRE, musicians use different types of iconic notation including chords charts, tablature, and lead sheet notation when learning and performing music. Since the students also create the arrangements of the songs, they consistently add and edit parts on existing lyric sheets and chord charts. The faculty member of the PRE serves more as a facilitator than a traditional director. Unlike many music ensemble directors that run rehearsals and make many of the musical decisions, the PRE “director” often takes a step back and allows the students to figure out musical solutions themselves. George Boespflug (2004) advocated for this approach to popular music education and stated, “Rather than being the authority figure at the front of the room, the teacher becomes more of a facilitator, monitoring musical and lyrical content and student interaction and stepping in as needed to help coordinate the collaborative composition process” (p. 196). By allowing students to take ownership of the rehearsal process, the PME facilitator can leverage the potential of incorporating informal learning practices and peer mentoring into ensemble rehearsals.

Implications

This brief overview of some of the practices of the Pop/Rock Ensemble at Bergen Community College provides several implications for the music education profession. First, in order to increase diversity among student participants in our music ensembles, we need to consider diversifying the types of ensembles that we include in our school music programs. Adding popular music ensembles can attract students who might not otherwise participate in school music programs. Secondly, the incorporation of student leadership in the form of repertoire selection, song arrangements, and rehearsal processes can democratize the music classroom and connect school music programs with the musical lives of the students.

To be clear, the incorporation of popular music ensembles into the school music curriculum should not be seen as a replacement for the traditional bands, choirs, and orchestras; the field of music education is large enough to support all of these ensembles and more. The incorporation of popular music ensembles, and other ‘non-traditional’ ensembles such as electronic music, guitar and world music ensembles, can widen the door to music participation for all students, especially those not currently participating in school music programs (Powell, Krikun, & Pignato, 2015).

Works cited

Boespflug, G. (2004). The pop music ensemble in music education. In C. X. Rodriguez (Editor), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education. Reston VA: The National Association for Music Education.

Carruthers, G. (2006). Universities and the musiclearning continuum. International Journal of Community Music, 4, 1-17.

Clauhs, M., & Cremata, R. (2020). Student voice and choice in modern band curriculum development. Journal of Popular Music Education, 4(1), 101-116.

Krikun, A. (2017). Historical foundations of popular music education in the United States. In Brennan, M., Moir, Z., Kirkman, P., Rambarran, S. & Smith, G.D., The Ashgate research guide to popular music education. Farnam, UK: Ashgate.

Powell, B. J., Krikun, A. & Pignato, J. (2015). ‘Something’s happening here!’: Popular Music Education in the United States. IASPM@Journal, Spring 2015.