Teaching Music Today Episode 1: The Current State of Music Education ft. Adam Calus

In this first episode, Adam Calus goes on to talk about a number of current disconnects that exist between music education and the way music exists in society today. One of those main disconnects is the current working musician in today's society. Current music education practices are based off of old structures implemented in school music programs to prepare school-age children for conservatory training and traditional music performance. This was because when these structures were created, this was reflective of the working musician in today's society. Many jobs that were available were those of traditional music. Today's working musician looks much different than that of the past. The working musician of today is a business minded individual who is compensated for a number things that are often of the individual's own entrepreneurial design. Musicians of today are recording in studios, writing songs, getting revenue from streaming services, making music for film, creating nonexclusive music for music libraries, performing, selling merchandise, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on...Even though this is the case, we still have many music programs across the nation still filling every second of their classes with hyper structured ensemble rehearsal in order to achieve a high ranking at any number of festivals, ultimately further perpetuating their program's only form of success. If we are going to have music students ready for today's industry we have to start making programming more relevant to the existence of music today.

Adam Calus is a Music Educator originally from Fowlerville, Michigan. Adam is  graduate of Berklee College of Music from the Film Scoring program and also studied a number of Music Education courses while at the college. Shortly through his music education studies at the college he abandoned the program because he felt that while he was gaining new knowledge from the program, he was not at all able to apply it to the teaching he was currently doing in schools and privately. After graduating Berklee, Adam went on to revive a music program at a Boston Public School called Charlestown High School. Since forming the program he has been awarded a Berklee BUSA award for his public service, has had his program recognized by the district, featured at the MMEA Music Education IN-Ovation Council, and awarded a number of honors and grants from private organizations throughout the nation. The success of his program comes from his passion, dedication and love for his craft, and the connections he builds between his practice and the relevance of music in today's world--how it is consumed, created, and shared. Adam is currently the Music Director and Visual /Performing Arts Team Leader at Charlestown High School, CEO of a nonprofit rebuilding music programs in the US called Music for Schools Inc., and is currently studying at Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

Some of the readings that apply to this episode include:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Popular-Musicians-Learn-Education/dp/0754632261

https://www.amazon.com/Discourse-Disjuncture-between-Higher-Education/dp/1137561955/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=discourse+and+disjuncture+arts&qid=1555944354&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmrnull

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=remixing+the+classroom&hvadid=241926270617&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9001991&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&