New Paradigm Shifts and the World of Music Education

Solutions can be found from new perspectives
 

The effects of the Internet and globalization and perhaps other factors are shaking up the music industry.  Mergers and Acquisitions shake company cultures and the overall result is a fearful observation of where it is all going. Many would say the industry is in serious trouble.  The classical music part of the industry shares these troubles. The situation for classical music in the regional and public domain in many countries is also one of stagnation. Why? What causes especially the classical music scene not to be able to join into the euphoric boom and busts of the internet age and to take its place and receive its share in the vast increase in wealth created in recent years?

The spirit of this time is confusing since we can observe two contradictory movements.  The most visible and seemingly dominant tendency is one of destruction and disintegration.  In the background one can also observe the birth of a new reality, the emergence of a new time spirit, a reality with different dynamics. Technology seems to be instrumental in both movements. It is up to us as individuals and as institutions to chose with what movement we wish to connect for our future. 

However to understand the emerging reality we need to put ourselves in a different position, we will need to put on different spectacles and we will need to allow ourselves to reconnect with our intuition and our higher intelligence.

In the past some individuals made this shift and became self-employed, entrepreneurial people who steered themselves to success.  The groundswell is now becoming stronger and institutions will have to understand this change and transform themselves to survive.  For teaching institutions, especially in the classical conservatories this often means a double shift. The first shift is that the teaching program should be changed to provide a teaching environment that prepares students to develop in preparation for such a reality. One could draw the parallel with the creation of business schools out of the old science faculties of economics, sociology and technology. The need might now be for a MMA (Master in Music Administration).  This now directly points towards the second level of change and that is of the teaching institute themselves. Either they are instrumental in these changes and they can co-shape and re-invent their own situation or change will be forced upon them. The latter process is a much more damaging and painful option than the first. The first however requires courage, vision and leadership.

Technology is like the early spring sunshine it will melt the ice.   So institutions can struggle to try and maintain their old structures based on ice or they engage in the transformation since for most of them it soon will become a life and death issue.  

Melting ice is increasing the vibratory pattern of water.  That is what is happening with the globe called earth.  Its vibratory patterns are increasing quickly and dramatically.  Music can be an enormous accelerator in this process and thus there is an enormous potential for the music industry and especially for the skills and talents developed in the classical music scene. It will only work however if they are combined with other more business and people oriented skills and the creative and expressional freedom found in the Pop industry. Experience in other branches of industry shows that if the traditional institutions do not pick up these opportunities then other players (often in other countries) will. 

The change illustrated by the fast development of technology requires transforming and re-inventing large parts of society.  Again in this there is a role for Music as a catalyst of change.

While the old economy of ice was build on fear, scarcity and control, the emerging one functions on the basis of flow of releasing locked up abundance tendencies. An important aspect of the new dominant reality is that the lead will be in the hands of individuals driven by the desire to express themselves, who are well-connected with their feelings and acting out to enjoy life to the fullest without hurting or damaging themselves or their environment that allows them to exist.  Institutions that wish to succeed will have to grasp the essentials of that change.  

In the new paradigm the role of the leader and chief executive is one of the super servant serving everybody in the organization.  Only when the everybody is well-served will the organism function in top form.  The organization becomes like the body of an athlete.  Every weak spot must get the attention it needs to heal or to be strengthened. So living the paradigm and leading by example will again take centre stage.

Under this paradigm artists and artistic teams (virtual artists) will need to be in touch with the essence of their art, craft and sources of inspiration.

Pop and classical music industries are in danger of becoming caricatures of themselves, stagnant icons of a glorious past, with no connection to the demands of the future.  Under the new paradigm however they can become each other�s teachers and then be the guardians of the path into the only remaining (business) reality with a fruitful and successful future.

To clarify the path one can contact the desired futures and pull their essence into the present.  The MUSTT foundation has the knowledge and know-how to help you do this for your own institution as well. 

The paradigm change should be understood in order to be able to set the framework and draw up the specifications of what the new teaching institutions should look like and what the teaching material should cover. The next important step then is to take all the teaching staff onto a journey to discover the new paradigm and to internalize its key qualities as a pre-requisite to re-invent themselves and with them also their institutions into new paradigm institutions bubbling with activities and ecstatic about the unbelievable abundance in chances and possibilities that are presenting themselves.

For more information about your journey into a different future of your choice please contact the MUSTT foundation.

EUROPEAN LIFELONG E-LEARNING

FOR THE MUSIC SECTOR (ELEM)

 Provisional Summary

First of all we are going to make an inventory at some conservatories and also some musician�s unions on the following points: with regards to students we would like to investigate together with them what they believe are the current needs of music students in order to survive in the fierce competitive music and labour market and what particular needs will have to be addressed in the modules that we are developing in order to enlarge the employability chances of music students. This inventory and development of new innovative methods is an absolute must based on the following need analysis we have examined. This is only a brief summarisation on the reasons why we are keen on giving certain support to the music sector.

Unemployment is extremely high in the music sector and there are great problems for musicians to work in any other professional sector since current music education is too specialized only on learning an instrument, is rather outdated since for the last three hundred years music education has made very few adaptations to current market needs.

There is barely any dialogue between the music industry and their needs and the conservatories. There is also very little exchange between good practices among different international music organizations. Conservatories are often too much behaving like little islands not providing enough social dialogue between students and for instance places where students could get important working experience (e.g.. playing in hospitals; therapeutic institutes, elderly homes etc.). With regards to career advice it is unfortunately almost non-existent in conservatories and is mostly based on the old subdivisions of music careers, namely training to become a teacher, performer or soloist. It is clear that the situation of the current market offers totally different opportunities and demands. For instance, to mention a few new fields of application of music: using music in the ever expanding infotainment market, TV-film market, multi-media market, advertisement market, music psychology market, music management market etc. Even though most of these domains are in need of music, they are still unknown to the majority of music students.

In our lengthy research of the last few years and covering a very large part of European conservatories, we have very well identified that there is a very urgent need to implement some drastic changes in music education in order to stop the music crises to escalate even further. As many can observe some music industries are in great trouble. Orchestras close down, the majority of record companies in Europe are in serious trouble, music institutes are fusing, and the employment rate keeps growing amongst musicians. For all these reasons and many more we have decided to start carrying out an independent research through the MUSTT foundation to come up with solution-based actions. We have set out an innovative strategy to tackle the different problems at hand.

For the ELEM project, we have specifically designed a strategy dealing with the following points: providing a platform of e-learning for different music sectors, namely music students, music teachers and music performers. Providing the latest innovative pedagogic methods of knowledge transfer through the use of on-line learning. Providing a specifically strategic platform that is designed for monitoring all stages of the project from the testing to the implementation of the final products of e-learning.

Firstly, the originality of the ELEM approach also lies in the pioneering approaches used. Not only is it that for the very first time such a vast area of different multi-disciplinary experts have been gathered together to create a kind of think tank which constantly comes up with innovative and useful contents from many other professional areas that will greatly improve the toolkit of the musicians to meet the demands of the current labour market. In particular learning certain business skills, management, PR, marketing, communication and IT skills will benefit many in the music sector.

Secondly, the innovative approach also lies in the fact that best practices will be exchanged since we are setting up the e-learning platform in such a way that all interested European music education groups can also enter in dialogue with each other and exchange valuable international experiences.

Thirdly there is a very strong team in place that has a strong proven track record dealing with the coordination of international, multi-million euro projects, with complex tasks, dealing with different countries, cultures etc, who are now in place to implement, guide, monitor and coordinate the entire ELEM project