So here we are, another year ready to begin at the university. Lot's of strange things took place over the summer but two that I find pretty disturbing will be covered here today.

First, when did the number of degrees become the most importatant tool for judging the quality of a music teacher? My school here (and I am sure there are others) have started going degree shopping when it comes to teachers. Anyone who does not have a masters degree has been removed from the faculty. Performing experience and teaching experience were not taken into consideration. I always thought the idea of a music program was to have the best music teachers you could get, not to see how many degrees you can collect amongst the faculty. We lost some fine teachers and performers this year due to this. To replace them we have people are may be very capable but are unknown quantities since they have little teaching or performing experience. Could be interesting.

The next thing is that Retention has become a big buzzword around here. So what is some of the faculties solution to retaining music students: limit the amount of ensembles they can play in. Now when I was in school I played as much as humanly possible because I was there to learn to be a musician (which usually, I thought, involved making music). If someone had told my I could only be in two ensembles I am pretty sure that would have "retained" me right out the door. Instead of having the play and make more music we are worrying about portfolios, media (i.e. overhead projector) classes etc.

Where is the music part of the music school again?