What does a pop study programme teach you, and what is the best way to prepare students for their careers? This is the subject of Wessel Coppes' PhD thesis at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC). Coppes is the head of the pop programme at Codarts. "There is no such thing as the Unilever of pop. That is why we are on an ongoing quest to ensure the diplomas we give out have the greatest possible value."
Making a living from music and performing in front of a sold-out crowd is the dream of many aspiring musicians. This is what motivates hundreds of students to enrol in one of the pop programmes in the Netherlands every year. But what do such programmes actually teach? Wessel Coppes, head of the pop programme, asked himself the same question. On 5 June, this quest will earn him a PhD. For his research, he visited comparable programmes in Europe, interviewed current and former students and pumped record labels and pop venues for information. The research also held up a mirror to himself about what he wants to impart to his students and how the curriculum could better align with this field.
Conservatories turned out to have very different opinions on what the programmes should teach students. Where some programmes are all about mastering an instrument or virtuosity, others focus much more on storytelling. However, when he asked the programmes for their definition of pop (short for popular music), Coppes always got a different answer. "I remember a conversation I had with a colleague from Poland. I asked him: 'What is your definition of pop?' He literally fell silent for a few minutes and really had no idea. He was clearly puzzled by his own inability to come up with an answer."
Pop is like a unicorn
A fellow researcher once compared the term 'pop' to a unicorn. "Everyone knows what it is, but no one has ever seen one. This feels like an apt metaphor to me." One thing that has become clear from the research is that pop is a ‘low consensus field’. Most of the programmes started in the nineties, while conservatories have existed for centuries. Jazz made its entry in the fifties, increasingly resembling classical training. "When talking to people in jazz programmes, they are very much in agreement about what the curriculum should look like and what music goes with the curriculum. Call me naive, but I honestly thought that the same would apply for pop programmes. That turned out to be a misconception, prompting me to do this research", Coppes says.
So while lecturers in jazz programmes could list their classics in an instant, this turned out to be quite different for pop programmes. Coppes: "You can say: ‘You must know the Beatles’. But what if you are passionate about dance or reggaeton? And do you need Stevie Wonder and his many chords if you want to make a completely different kind of music?" It turns out that programmes all advocate a different canon of pop, assuming this is something they care about in the first place. "A programme in Copenhagen skipped all this, leaving room for students to develop their own tastes. Many programmes devote attention to local music, but a programme in Mannheim turned its nose up at schlager music. Similarly, we ignore a lot of top 40 music."
British-American pop and jazz theory
Common denominators do exist. For instance, almost all programmes pay attention to English-language (British-American) pop, and the curriculum usually includes jazz theory. Many programmes also focus on marketing and entrepreneurship. Coppes surveyed his own students and alumni about this curriculum. Whereas students often indicate that they are not so keen on these kinds of courses (and would rather make music), alumni said that they had benefited a lot from these courses and regret not having realised their value sooner.
No Unilever of pop
The researcher also spoke to parties in the professional field (record labels, pop venues, teacher collectives and such). These conversations in some cases confronted Coppes with some difficult truths. He was told, 'There are lots of people who can play the guitar very well.' "They want you to really have a story to tell, and they find students at conservatories sometimes lack this ability. They feel that programmes do not prepare students well enough for the professional field. As someone rightly noted: 'There is no Unilever of Pop'. That is why we are on an ongoing quest to ensure the diplomas we give out have the greatest possible value."
The head of the Pop programme at Codarts takes this personally: "Of course, you should be able to tell a fifth from a third, but it should be more about your idea for the future and whether you have a story to tell. That is why we are increasingly looking at the whole picture during intake." He wants to further integrate skills such as communication and teaching in the curriculum and not separate them. At the same time, Coppes wonders whether pop programmes even belong in conservatories. "Pop programmes have increasingly gravitated towards highbrow arts. In classical music and jazz, mastering an instrument is key. Of course, we consider that important too, but we focus more on storytelling. Maybe that's why we are closer to an art academy."
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