Faculty Post - Bernard McDonald - I was Lost but Now I am Found: Choosing Where to Study

I was Lost but Now I am Found: Choosing Where to Study

by Assistant Professor of Opera, Bernard McDonald

This post is autobiographical. The reason I am sharing it is because I want you to know that the greatest thing about being a music professor at Simpson College is the daily joy I experience in teaching, guiding, and being a mentor to talented and committed young musicians in ways that I did not experience as an undergraduate. 

I am agog at the many opportunities Simpson music students have. I want you to know this so you realize that being a music student here is different – in many ways it is equal to and often much better than pursuing an undergraduate degree at a major conservatory or university. I hope it will encourage you to commit even more highly to your own future success while you are here.

When I was leaving high school and for most of my undergraduate years, I had no idea what I was going to do in music. I had studied piano and violin from a young age, and was fortunate to attend the junior school of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).  I played organ and conducted the choir in my local church, I played violin in orchestra, I had started to conduct shows for my local community theatre group; I had even played piano concertos with orchestra. I was certainly destined for a career in music but no-one ever took me aside and said, “Look, if you do x now, you could be doing y five years hence.”  

As a first generation musician, I had to make my own way, and a lot of mistakes, before discovering a path that would only later become obvious. Looking at my teenage self, it is obvious that I had the nascent skills of a répétiteur, vocal coach, chorus master, and conductor of opera – but I had no idea I could have a career doing those things and what steps to take then to make it happen. Had I auditioned at Simpson in 1990, I know that Robert Larsen, Maria Di Palma, and others would have sat me down and explained the kinds of options available to someone with my particular skills and varied interests.

Trying to be sensible, I went to the University of Edinburgh for its traditional, academic music degree. It was a mistake. I transferred to the University of Glasgow. Apart from the friends I made, also a mistake. Now, there’s nothing wrong with either institution, in fact they are two of the great, ancient universities of Europe, but performing opportunities were not equal to what I had experienced before.

I was like a square peg in a round hole. I transferred again: to the RSAMD, where I cobbled together enough credits between outside gigs to graduate in two years with a degree in piano performance. I gradually discovered what kind of career I could pursue.

After graduation, I took a year out – something that I would recommend to many of you – during which I traveled, studied Italian in Italy, practiced, gave recitals, took German classes, read a lot, partied a lot, and conducted the Yeoman of the Guard!  It was then that I started to make decisions that felt right, about which I had no doubt.

First, I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. My years of piano practice, language study, and the experience of conducting and playing for singers earned me a scholarship for its répétiteur course. For a year I worked with great coaches, language coaches, played scenes programs, played rehearsals, played voice lessons, and was a chorus master for two productions. I had the bug, and it lead me to the United States and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Two years of practical training and study at CCM lead me to an apprenticeship at the San Francisco Opera, which lead me to the New York City Opera. Finally, I had started to make a living doing what I loved to do and was learning from the terrific singers, coaches, conductors, directors, and artistic administrators who were now my colleagues.

Now, learning is life-long. So, much later, I made peace with the University of Glasgow (and myself) by graduating from there with a degree in musicology.  I also studied conducting at Indiana University.

Why am I telling you this? My world tour of music schools was a source of baffled amusement to my friends, concern to my parents, and in the end, mostly a fabulously circuitous cumulative experience. But when I say the Simpson undergraduate music experience is second to none, I feel qualified to say so. I have attended six internationally respected institutions that offer a bachelor’s degree in music. I have taught, guest conducted, and coached at a few more. From my point of view, Simpson is the best.

In my next post I will enumerate how and why. If you are a current, or prospective student or parent, and need to know in the interim, email me and I’ll be happy to share.

Faculty Post - The Minimum Requirement Fallacy for Musicians - Dr. Tim A. McMillin

The Minimum Requirement Fallacy for Musicians

by Dr. Timothy A. McMillin

Premise 1: There are N (arbitrary number) minimum requirements for my degree in music.

Premise 2: If I complete the minimum requirements, my institution grants me the degree.

Conclusion: By achieving my degree, I am well-prepared to face the world as a fine musician and scholar.

FALLACY

Fallacy is defined as “an error in reasoning.” Do you see the error in the above illogical conclusion?  I’m not sure I became aware of the enormous flaw in the reasoning demonstrated above until after I was actively involved as a student musician.  Here it is - The dirty secret of the musician’s minimum requirements… Are you ready?

MINIMUMS

Minimums will neither guarantee success nor expert status. A degree in music neither guarantees success nor expert status.  Achieving a degree by meeting minimum standards won’t necessarily guarantee employability or admission to graduate programs. Minimum requirements are just that – MINIMUMS. What is the minimum wage?  The very least amount one would expect to be paid…ever.  What is a minimum age?  The absolute youngest age you can possibly be in order to qualify.  What are minimum requirements in education?  The absolute fewest activities or tasks one must complete in order to receive a degree.  I submit that the minimum concept does not stand the test for performing musicians. It is in our nature and at the core of our training to strive to make every performance the best that it possibly can be. Nothing about that conforms to the concept of a minimum. Rather, serious musicians should be asking themselves how they are achieving significantly more than the minimum requirement in order to be competitive in a tough field.

There are certainly other fields where the concept of minimum might be fallacious (although I am admittedly not expert in any of them). Consider: As a consumer, do you want to trust a doctor who has completed only the minimum requirements to gain his or her degree?  How about your pharmacist?  How about your teacher?  Do you want to know that any of these people met minimum requirements in minimum training – that would typically be Cs and/or Ds in only the fewest classes required in their training?  I would guess not.

MUSICIANS and MINIMUMS

For serious musicians, many minimum requirements are moot.  An important premise not mentioned above is this: You have only four years in an undergraduate music program to hone and polish your skills to the level of professional.  Being a musician is a personal and individual task.  Be as selfish as you possibly can when it comes to improving and perfecting your musical skills.  Consider a few minimums that exist in all music programs, ask yourself why they exist, and assess whether you are currently blowing them out of the water. If you are not, what benefit might you realize if you did?

Performing opportunities:  In typical degree programs, there are a minimum number of required opportunities for every music student to be involved in making music. Are you going above and beyond the minimum requirements in your experience?  What benefit might you reap if you added an additional ensemble, an additional solo opportunity, sang or played on music convocation even if it isn’t required in your studio?  Perhaps more importantly – If you aren’t taking advantage of the extra opportunities that abound, what is keeping you from doing so?  Is it something as easy as laziness?  If so, fix it!  Is it something more dubious like a fear of failure?  Seek help in overcoming that fear! Is it that you lack the skills to perform in a manner that you are proud of showcasing?  Take steps to become a better performer with great haste – time is fleeting!

Practicing your craft:  Most applied music studios ask for a minimum number of minutes in a practice room from you.  Are you far surpassing those expectations?  If not, what are you waiting for?  Will there ever be a time in your life again when you have the resources of time and ample and undivided guidance to assist you in becoming the finest musician you can be?  I don’t think so!  So, why aren’t you practicing at least 2-3 hours a day in your major applied area (for singers; 4-8 for pianists and instrumentalists, right?) and adding another hour or two in a minor area for good measure?  Imagine what you COULD accomplish if you doubled whatever you currently are doing.  Will you graduate with a degree if you rarely practice? Perhaps.  Will you be the musician you could be? Absolutely not.

Attending Performances:  Attending recitals, ensemble concerts, workshops, master classes and seminars all carry minimum requirements on some level. First, think about the educational implications.  What do you learn from performances by others? Literature, performance practice, and honing your own ears for excellence in a variety of genres are but a few of the myriad benefits of hearing others perform.  What about guest master classes and workshops?  What could possibly be more important to a musician on a Saturday morning than taking advantage of an opportunity to hear nationally recognized presenters or expert performers speaking about and demonstrating their craft?  For a student who is serious about a successful future in the field of music, the answer is nothing! Later, all of these opportunities will cost you dearly. Moreover, they will not benefit you in the early years of your career!  Why wait? 

There is a larger ethical and moral consideration when it comes to attending performances of your peers to consider as well.  As professionals in the field of music, what is the one thing that we all require?  Audiences!  If you are unwilling to set the example by being part of an audience, what possible reason would you have to think or expect that anyone would ever be a part of an audience for your performances?  Further, the issue of creating a collegial environment in your department is a serious one.  How much more pleasant and inviting is a place where students support one another in their performing ventures by attending and engaging?  Whether in ensemble concerts or solo recitals, your presence (or absence) is noted by your peers and the faculty.  How would you feel if there were no faculty members at your own recital?  If your faculty can make time to attend for collegial reasons, what prevents you?  The model of prioritization is an important one to grasp!

REQUIREMENT vs. OPPORTUNITY

There are numerous other minimum requirements that one could enumerate.  However, I believe the same essential questions can be applied in all cases. What is the minimum?  Why does it exist?  What are the benefits associated with achieving the minimum?  Wouldn’t those benefits be expanded by greater exposure and study?

If one engages in this logic, the idea of “minimum requirement” for a musician really does become moot.  Instead, the successful student of music views each “requirement” as an opportunity.  Who doesn’t want to take advantage of as many opportunities for self-improvement as humanly possible?  It does take a level of maturity and dedication of purpose to achieve, but I guarantee the end result is worth the immediate perceived sacrifice.  Go forth and grab as many opportunities as you can in such a short time.  Embrace your education and make the most of it!

The Myth of "Practice Makes Perfect" - Annie Murphy Paul

The Myth of "Practice Makes Perfect" 

By Annie Murphy Paul


(Originally posted here)

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice. In a groundbreaking paper published in 1993, cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson added a crucial tweak to that old joke. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Deliberate practice.

It’s not a minor change. The difference between ineffective and effective practice means the difference between mediocrity and mastery. If you’re not practicing deliberately — whether it’s a foreign language, a musical instrument or any other new skill — you might as well not practice at all.

I was reminded of the importance of deliberate practice by a fascinating new book, Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning. Its author is Gary Marcus, a cognitive psychologist at New York University who studies how the brain acquires language. Marcus is also a wannabe guitarist who set out on a quest to learn to play at age 38. In Guitar Zero he takes us along for the ride, exploring the relevant research from neuroscience, cognitive science and psychology along the way. One of his main themes is the importance of doing practice right.

“Hundreds of thousands of people took music lessons when they were young and remember little or nothing,” he points out, giving lie to the notion that learning an instrument is easiest when you’re a kid. The important thing is not just practice but deliberate practice, “a constant sense of self-evaluation, of focusing on one’s weaknesses, rather than simply fooling around and playing to one’s strengths. Studies show that practice aimed at remedying weaknesses is a better predictor of expertise than raw number of hours; playing for fun and repeating what you already know is not necessarily the same as efficiently reaching a new level. Most of the practice that most people do, most of the time, be it in the pursuit of learning the guitar or improving their golf game, yields almost no effect.”

So how does deliberate practice work? Anders Ericsson’s 1993 paper makes for bracing reading. He makes it clear that a dutiful daily commitment to practice is not enough. Long hours of practice are not enough. And noodling around on the piano or idly taking some swings with a golf club is definitely not enough. “Deliberate practice,” Ericsson declares sternly, “requires effort and is not inherently enjoyable.” Having given us fair warning, he reveals the secret of deliberate practice: relentlessly focusing on our weaknesses and inventing new ways to root them out. Results are carefully monitored, ideally with the help of a coach or teacher, and become grist for the next round of ruthless self-evaluation.

It sounds simple, even obvious, but it’s something most of us avoid. If we play the piano — or, like Marcus, the guitar — or we play golf or speak French, it’s because we like it. We’ve often achieved a level of competency that makes us feel good about ourselves. But what we don’t do is intentionally look for ways that we’re failing and hammer away at those flaws until they’re gone, then search for more ways we’re messing up. But almost two decades of research shows that’s exactly what distinguishes the merely good from the great.

In an article titled “It’s Not How Much; It’s How,” published in the Journal of Research in Music Education in 2009, University of Texas-Austin professor Robert Duke and his colleagues videotaped advanced piano students as they practiced a difficult passage from a Shostakovich concerto, then ranked the participants by the quality of their ultimate performance. The researchers found no relationship between excellence of performance and how many times the students had practiced the piece or how long they spent practicing. Rather, “the most notable differences between the practice sessions of the top-ranked pianists and the remaining participants,” Duke and his coauthors wrote, “are related to their handling of errors.”

The best pianists, they determined, addressed their mistakes immediately. They identified the precise location and source of each error, then rehearsed that part again and again until it was corrected. Only then would the best students proceed to the rest of the piece. “It was not the case that the top-ranked pianists made fewer errors at the beginning of their practice sessions than did the other pianists,” Duke notes. “But, when errors occurred, the top-ranked pianists seemed much better able to correct them in ways that precluded their recurrence.”

Without deliberate practice, even the most talented individuals will reach a plateau and stay there. For most of us, that’s just fine. But don’t delude yourself that you’ll see much improvement unless you’re ready to tackle your mistakes as well as your successes.

Faculty post - Putting Your Education into Practice

Putting Your Education into Practice

By Steven Kennedy

As students majoring in music, you are preparing to follow one of two primary career paths within music – performing or teaching.  As such, it is important to get as much real-world experience in these areas as you can while you are still in college and are able to learn from the mistakes you will make, and to learn from the situations you may encounter.  Getting this experience involves searching out performance and teaching opportunities within the area.  Simpson is uniquely located in a small to mid-sized metropolitan area (Des Moines) that allows for many great opportunities for musicians that smaller, and even larger cities, often do not afford so easily.  In this post, I would like to share some advice and general thoughts on taking advantage of these opportunities while you are a student at Simpson.

Performance Opportunities

Churches, coffee shops, restaurants, and other venues are always looking for musicians to perform.  Though getting paid to perform should be any musician’s primary objective, as students, just getting the chance to perform in front of people can be a greater benefit (though certainly seek out as many paying gigs as you can!).  Many churches (particularly mainline denominations) are always looking for young and talented students to perform for offertories, communion, and other special music needs they may have.  Churches are usually friendly environments, too.  Congregants have no idea that you messed up the first few measures of the Schubert song you sang; they are just appreciative to have you perform for them.  Performances like this can boost your confidence significantly. 

Coffee shops and restaurants are great places to perform, particularly if you have a hard time playing in front of an audience that is completely focused on you.  These gigs are more easy-going because you are often relegated to the background.  This is okay though, because it allows you to relax, causes you to focus more (due to the constant noise of a restaurant), and it is a good opportunity to play pieces that you have not performed yet.  Each week, convocation gives you an opportunity to perform for your peers and professors, and it is something you participate in regularly.  However, it can be an extremely intense situation to be in, especially if it is your first performance of a piece.  Your nerves are high, and only performing a piece or two does not allow you to settle in the way you might during an hour-long performance.  Background music gigs are a great stepping stone to performing in convocation, then eventually in your recital.  The noise at most background gigs also forces you to focus on the music, both mentally and aurally.  If you can play through a piece by Bach with a waiter dropping his tray ten feet from you while also overhearing an awkward conversation at the table next to you, then surely you can play through someone’s cell phone going off during your recital.

Also, the more you perform, the more you learn what equipment you will need to bring with you to future gigs.  There have been a few times where those who have hired me choose to set me up in a spot where there is no electrical outlet for my amplifier.  Now, I always have extension cords and a power strip with me when I go to a gig.  It is better to figure things like this out now while you are students, than in a few years when you are getting paid several hundred dollars to make someone’s wedding extra special. 

Teaching Opportunities

There are a number of teaching studios and music stores within central Iowa that offer lessons and are always looking for great teachers.  Additionally, advertising yourself to local schools as an independent instructor can yield great results.  Teaching gives you the chance to put into practice the concepts you are learning from your applied instructors and in your methods classes, and can even generate decent money for yourself.  When I was a student at Simpson, most of my income came from giving lessons, and I was able to live relatively comfortably from what I made.  Further, teaching bolsters your resume, so when the time comes to get a full-time job employers see that you not only have a great education, but also real experience. 

In closing, remember that your education and experience cannot come exclusively from Simpson.  You have to get out into the world and experience how things will be once you graduate.  The more prepared you are as a performer and/or as a teacher when you leave Simpson, the greater is the chance of you being successful in your career (an obvious point, but not every student takes the necessary steps to ensure this).  It is better to do the preparation now while you can still learn and recover from mistakes, than when you are getting paid to be the expert and your reputation is at stake.  

The importance of a positive routine in the lives of musicians - Faculty Post - Dr. Virginia Croskery

This week's blogpost comes from Assistant Professor of Voice, Dr. Virginia Croskery. 

“Routine” has a negative connotation in our society, but when it comes to a career in music, it can be a godsend. None of us want our lives to feel like a “routine,” adding a little routine to our practice regimen and daily schedule will promote progress and good health.

Humans are “circadian” creatures; that is we are programmed to function 24 hour cycles, during which we take our meals, do our daily tasks and sleep on a prescribed schedule. Keeping some regularity to our daily schedule is essential for optimum health and mental function.

Check out the National Institute of Health’s website on Circadian Rhythms at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Education/Factsheet_CircadianRhythms.htm

This can be a tough lesson for college students, who tend to have a different daily schedule every day. They might go to bed at midnight one night, 2 a.m. the next and take a 4 hour nap at noon. With such an erratic sleep schedule, they always feel tired! Trying to learn new facts and concepts when you are tired is a losing battle. The brain just doesn’t function well when it is sleep deprived. Students would be well advised to keep a more routine sleep schedule. Of course, they will stray on occasion, but a sleep routine will help your grades! In fact, most research shows that “cramming” for an exam doesn’t help, but a good night’s sleep does!

Students also make the mistake of eating an unhealthy diet. Have you ever noticed that you get indigestion when you eat foods that are either “different” or “greasy?” We become accustomed to foods that we are familiar with and find them to be “comforting.” What do you like to eat when you are sick? Probably something that mom made when you were young. If you grew up in India it might be some kind of curry, but chances are, if you grew up in Iowa it is something familiar to Americans, like macaroni and cheese! It is always wonderful to try new things, but when we stray too far from our personal norm, the body often revolts! Students should consider what foods they eat and when they eat them. That 3 a.m. pizza might come back to haunt you.

Perhaps nothing is more important to the performing success of a musician than a practice routine. Playing an instrument or singing is a skill of “muscle memory.” If you instill the correct muscle memory for playing your instrument or singing into your body, then you can relax during a performance and enjoy creating music. No one wants to worry about the basics of rhythm, pitch and production during a performance. Once the audience is there, we should be creating a musical presentation. That can only be accomplished if the basics are solid in our muscle memory. There is unfortunately no shortcut for muscle memory. Only repetition can instill muscle memory. That means daily practice! Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, about the “10,000 hours of practice” necessary to become a master. Tiger Wood started hitting the golf ball at age two. We can’t relive our past, but we can start working on our 10,000 hours now. “Routine” can be your best friend!