by Adam Patrick Bell
Tom decided he ought to study music at a university; one of those really good music schools with a prestigious reputation. The problem was that he didn’t know how to play a musical instrument—at least one recognized by the brass of American higher education music faculties. So, he decided to jump through some hoops to realize his goal and hedged his future on the flute. Six months before the audition date, Tom hired a flute instructor to help him go from primary to passable. He learned one piece, really well. In addition, he submitted a portfolio of electronic music, and his combined efforts earned him an offer of admission to Oberlin, a storied music conservatory.
Tom never played flute again at Oberlin (or elsewhere for that matter); instead, he focused his energies on composition. It is typical in a music degree program for students to be required to perform for faculty and peers periodically, especially in the final two years of study. Tom approached these recital requirements as opportunities to explore the wide world of composition. One year he was praised by his professors for his electronic compositions, and he was encouraged to maintain this promising trajectory. To the dismay of some faculty members, the following year Tom took his compositions in a different direction. With just an acoustic guitar and the few chords he had taught himself, Tom sang a collection of original folk songs for his final recital.
While Tom may not have been a model student from the perspectives of his professors due to his ever-shifting focus, in retrospect it is clear that he had foresight, and his tangential approach to self-led learning with “music technology” might serve as a good model for other learners in popular music education. He created and cleared his own path, identifying what he needed to learn, and how to learn these things in order to best prepare himself for life beyond the college classroom. His evolution as a musician continues to this day, and this is evident when you experience him perform as Mas Ysa.
At present, Tom’s instrument of choice is not one of the things he focused on as a college student such as guitar or a DAW. He plays a customized conglomeration of hardware including drum machines, synths, controllers, and mixers. It took him much time and effort to arrive at the iteration of his current instrument, which requires a meticulous setup and teardown for every performance. When he performs live he focuses intently as he sings and simultaneously hits buttons or keys or twists knobs, and it is clear from an audience perspective that Tom is playing an instrument, albeit not an easily recognizable or nameable one. Judge for yourself by watching Tom’s performance on KEXP in 2014:
Tom’s story is important for a number of reasons, but there a few points in particular I want to emphasize as they relate to “music technology.” First, Tom identifies as a folk musician, not an electronic musician. To him, the things he plays—typically categorized and referred to as “music technologies” by most people—are his instrument. At present, we tend to label things with microchips as “technologies,” but this is a short-sighted distinction taking into consideration the history of technological development. In Strange Sounds (2001), Timothy Taylor explains that because new inventions lack a sociocultural history, they tend to be lumped into a catch-all category of “technology.” In the case of music, with time and use we transition from referring to these “technologies” as “instruments.” Like the term “popular music,” the term “music technology” can be frustratingly ambiguous because it means different things to different people. And, like the term “popular music,” the term “music technology” is entrenched in our everyday vocabulary, it’s not going away, so we need to embrace its many meanings and avoid rigid categorizations. What I appreciate about Tom’s perspective is that whether it’s his voice, guitar, DAW, or heap of hardware, he makes no distinction between “technology” and “instrument.” Further, he plays an active role in transitioning his “technologies” to “instruments” by perceiving, discussing, and performing them as such. Too often I hear talk in the field of music education of “gizmos” and “gadgets,” likening newer instruments to infomercial fads. Such thinking is the reason why Tom had to fake it on the flute in the first place, and marginalizes those who make music with things that fall outside of the arbitrary bounds of so-called “real” instruments. Facilitators of popular music education experiences can support the Toms of this world by fostering a learning environment in which they can be themselves, play their instruments, and stop jumping through hoops to be included.
Second, Tom’s instrument is one that he created. He did not invent any of the individual components that comprise his instrument, but he customized the layout and wiring to suit his own personal workflow. The signal routing reflects his thinking about what should happen in sound once a button is pushed or a knob is turned. What I admire about this approach is the DIY ethos of self-empowerment. Tom could play a DAW or a guitar—both of which have well-established workflows, but instead he opts to play musical Frankenstein. He extends his experiences of making electronic music with a DAW and writing folk songs with a guitar to his current instrument, one that enables him to better express himself musically. It’s critical that we do not feel negatively constrained by our instruments and limited by the precedents of past performance practices. If we do, like Tom, we need to veer off these well-tread paths and choose our own adventures by modifying instruments or creating new ones.
Third, Tom’s pursuit of learning multiple instruments (including a long list of “music technologies”) from multiple musical cultures has made him multilingual (this concept is based on the premise that there are many music literacies). As a result, he has vetoed virtuosity in the vein of the Western Classical tradition; he cannot shred or wail or whatever the appropriate verb is to describe mastery on a single instrument. How could he with an ever-changing instrument? While this could be construed as a downside, the upside is that he has created a niche for himself; there is only one Mas Ysa. I suspect creating a space for this Tom-like attribute will be the most challenging for music educators. Can we make the pedagogical pivot and push back against dominant notions of instrumental proficiency, and instead promote experimentation in the name of innovation? One could argue that I’ve created a false binary because these things need not be mutually exclusive of each other, but if Tom’s case is any indicator, the trade-off of being a jack-of-all-trades is being a master of none, at least in the traditional sense. He’s created a context in which playing a lot of notes in a short span of time with acute accuracy is not valued; instead, the playing of a modular instrument while singing, is most prized. In sum, it’s about the sum.
Is there a place for the Toms in popular music education? A place where we recognize music technologies for what they are—newer instruments—and encourage creating and modifying them? A place where we make instruments fit us instead of the other way around? A place where learning tangents are supported and treading new paths of learning is encouraged? A place where we can create and curate alternative models of proficiency to virtuosity? A place where future popular musicians emerge from because their artistic decisions are championed by their mentors? If not, we need to make space for these places.
Adam Patrick Bell is an Assistant Professor of Music Education in the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary, Canada. He is the author of Dawn of the DAW: The Studio as Musical Instrument (Oxford University Press, 2018), and has written several peer-reviewed articles and chapters on the topics of music technology in music education, and disability in music education. Prior to his career in higher education, Bell worked as a kindergarten teacher, elementary music teacher, and support worker for adolescents with disabilities. Bell has also worked as a freelance producer, creating commercial music for clients including Coca-Cola.