I just came from listening to a keynote at the Iowa Music Educators Conf. By NAfME President Scott Shuler and in many ways was blown away by what I heard...  And a little scared too.  It brought up something that I have noticed more and more in doing my research for the tech articles in Teaching Music.  The reality is that traditional music education is changing, and perhaps now more than ever it needs to.  At the same time it seems as though we music teachers are doing the profession a disservice by resisting that change.    In any given school you have a choir, a band, and/or an orchestra.  The problem is that society and students have changed so much that these ensembles no longer attract students the way they once did.  You want to play guitar?  OK, here's a trumpet!

I read about and talk to teachers all over the United States that tell me of their district's guitar programs or mariachi ensembles that complement their own bands or other music technology classes and it seems so foreign to me, yet also so very logical.  The thing is that as a band director I am personally scared a little about the idea of guitar classes or mariachi bands becoming a curricular subject.  Thanks to budget cuts band directors and music teachers no longer feel the strong sense of job security that we had grown to take for granted.  Now, all that many band directors can think of is that  if their band enrollment drops as a result of these alternative ensembles pulling away their students then there are even fewer reasons to keep the band guy around.  

Tales From The Podium