Bespoke Music Theory: A Modular Core Curriculum

Designed for Audio Engineers, Classical Violinists,

and Everyone in Between

Megan L. Lavengood
Department of Music, George Mason University
E-mail: meganlavengood@gmail.com
Received June 2019
Peer Reviewed by: Stephen Gosden, Kyle Gullings
Accepted for publication September 2019
Published September 2, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18061/es.v7i0.7362
Abstract

Traditional music theory curricula are increasingly scrutinized. Students

regularly misunderstand the scope of epistemology and scope of theory,
nd theory intimidating and di cult, and fail to see its relevance to their
career goals. In this essay, I outline a modular music theory curriculum,
which works to address these negative perceptions through a combination
of redesigned coursework and empowerment of students. After taking a
100-level course covering fundamentals and species counterpoint,
students may take our three style-based 200-level courses in any order
(18th-c music, 20th-/21st-c. music, and Pop/Jazz). We also o er a 300-
level course in Baroque and Classical Forms. The content of these courses
could and should be altered to t the expertise of a given school's faculty
and the needs of its students. This is especially bene cial to students who
do not need four semesters of theory for their degree, such as music
technology BAs, who can now take Intro and Pop/Jazz instead of learning
strict chorale voice leading. This curriculum relates more clearly and
obviously to each student's particular goals, clari es the scope and
context of each course, and reduces the gatekeeping aspects of the
theory sequence to improve recruitment and retention.
Keywords: modular, music technology, pedagogy, higher education,
curriculum design
Music theory has a bad reputation. To generalize: students (and to a lesser
extent teachers) regularly misunderstand its epistemology and scope (e.g.,
Hein 2013), nd it intimidating and di cult (Piilonen 2018), and fail to see
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 its relevance to their career goals (Campbell et al. 2014). These common
complaints have led to many theorists adopting new curricula that respond
to the new demands placed on a 21st-century music professional, a
number of which are described in this volume (Snodgrass 2016, Day-
O'Connell 2020, deClercq 2020, Peebles 2020, Gades 2020). In this essay,
I outline my own solution: the modular music theory curriculum I have
implemented at George Mason University, which works to address these
negative perceptions through a combination of redesigned coursework
and empowerment of students.

In my view, the most exciting aspect of our new curriculum is that, after
taking a 100-level course covering fundamentals and species
counterpoint, students may take our three 200-level courses—Theory for
Pop & Jazz Music, Theory for 18th-c. Music, and Theory for 20th-/21st-c.
Music—in any order. Our only established 300-level course, Baroque- and
Classical-Era Forms, requires Theory for 18th-c. Music as a prerequisite.
This totals ve theory courses (hereafter referred to as Intro, Pop/Jazz,
20th-c., 18th-c., and Form), and since most students at Mason do not
need ve semesters of theory, students custom-tailor their core theory
curriculum to their individual needs. The options are best explained
visually, as I have done below. Any path connected with arrowheads is
viable. As an example, most B.M. degrees at Mason require 4 semesters
of theory (see Appendix); students in these degree programs could take
each 200-level course, or they could emphasize 18th-century music by
taking Form and skipping either Pop/Jazz or 20th-c.

Example 1. Flowchart of possible paths through the theory curriculum at

Mason
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Our new curriculum also features two signi cant changes in course
content. First, courses are now explicitly organized around speci c
repertoires, allowing students to pursue music relevant to them. And
second, each course foregrounds connections to music performance,
which has clear connections with many career paths. Because this
curriculum is designed to honor student agency, students should feel more
invested in their "bespoke" curriculum, which I argue will lead to higher
rates of student success.
Project origins

Professors enjoy bringing their research into the classroom and teaching
their expertise. As a pop music specialist, I have much to share with
students about harmony, timbre, rhythm, lyrics, social issues, and form in
pop music—more than enough to ll an entire semester. But at Mason we
do not have the physical classroom space nor the credit hours available
for students to take music theory electives, so I began to brainstorm ways
of getting this content into the core curriculum. My rst thought was to
replace our traditional Theory 3 (chromatic harmony, Lieder, Sonata
Theory) with a jazz/pop version of Theory 3, which could easily cover
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chromatic harmony and form (though form would be quite di erent in this
music than in Classical sonatas).

I discussed this with Andrew Gades (also featured in this volume, 2020),
who also deals with limited time and coursework in his small liberal arts
college, and he quickly pointed out that with a jazz/pop Theory 3, there
might not be any need to have Theory 2 as its prerequisite at all—a
student probably does not need to have mastery over 18th-century voice
leading to learn and think critically about pop harmony like Sha er et al.
(2018), form like de Clercq (2017), or rhythm like Biamonte (2014). After
learning more about Gades's modular design, I saw it was also possible to
design a 20th-/21st-century music course that does not require mastery
over chromatic harmony (or jazz and pop!) in order to learn about the
diverse approaches of 20th-/21st-century compositions. These realizations
led to the development of the three independently conceived 200-level
courses.

With the help of a university grant, I formed a team with Dr. Elaine Rendler,
the other full-time theory instructor at Mason; Dr. Tom Owens, our
department's Director of Undergraduate Studies; Prof. June Huang, our
Director of Strings; and myself. I selected these faculty to represent a
variety of perspectives on student needs. We determined that in addition
to a modular design and the incorporation of a pop/jazz course, some
students would still need a focus on classical music, so we added an
option for a 300-level course in Baroque and Classical forms, which would
have 18th-c. as its prerequisite. Our discussions led to a curriculum that I
believe responds to each of the three problems I listed in this essay's
outset: it relates more clearly and obviously to each student's particular
goals (or, more colloquially, it focuses on "real music"), clari es the scope
and context of each course, and reduces the gatekeeping aspects of the
theory sequence to improve recruitment and retention.
"Real music" in music theory

Music theorists see clearly the signi cance of theory for every kind of
music major; each teacher could wax poetic on the many important skills
that theory imparts to students. Students, unfortunately, don't always see
it the same way, as Peter Schubert points out:
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 Knowing that many di erent styles have underlying similarities is probably
a good goal in upper-level courses, but we mustn't forget that for
beginners, style is what makes music intelligible. … (Imagine if [the student
fell in love with a person], and we said "yes, but think about your beloved's
skeleton rst; see, it's like so many others!"). (2011, 224–5)
Schubert argues it's best to teach our students "real music" from the
beginning of their theory education, not as an upper-level elective. In our
team meetings while designing this new curriculum, a similar and common
refrain was that most students would also appreciate a clearer tie to music
performance in the theory classroom. With this in mind, I'll consider two
aspects of our new theory curriculum that bring more emphasis to "real
music": one, emphasizing music performance, and two, o ering courses in
several repertoires so that students can learn about the music they will
encounter most in their particular careers.

Of course, not all students dream of a performance career, but regardless

of students' individual emphases, all are required to take some type of
applied lesson, and usually either solo or ensemble performance is what
brought our students into the major in the rst place. In light of this,
explicitly tying theory to performance works to make theory seem more
"real." While a performance emphasis is certainly possible in a traditional
curriculum, when every student participates in the same sequence, an
instructor may fall into the trap of assuming students will get experience
integrating theory with performance in a later course. A modular
curriculum, by contrast, compels instructors to understand their learning
outcomes for each individual semester, since students are not guaranteed
to take that hypothetical later course. Our modular curriculum therefore
unequivocally emphasizes performance within each of the ve courses.
For Intro to Music Theory, this means in-class performance of counterpoint
(another concept borrowed from Schubert [2013]) and quizzes on
performing fundamentals in addition to writing/identifying them (for
example, students have to notate intervals, interpret intervals from
notation, and also play intervals on their instrument). For the other
courses, this mainly takes the form of model compositions (of minuets,
blues tunes, free atonality, and so on) and their in-class performances, as
well as arranging in-class performances of pieces for analysis. Students
nd the performance experience is engaging, exciting, pleasant, builds
rapport, and engenders a respect for theory as a musical discipline.
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Mason has a very diverse student population in every sense of the word,
including diverse musical interests, so making our courses' repertoire
more relevant to students was not as simple as incorporating pop music.
Mason has an orchestra and a vibrant strings area, but about one-third of
music majors are in the music technology program, and these two groups
of students likely want entirely di erent things from their college music
education and their music theory coursework. Because B.A. students only
need to take two theory classes, in the traditional theory sequence (such
as the one Mason used to have—see Appendix) this would mean all B.A.
students quit studying theory just after learning all about 18th-century
harmony—valuable knowledge, of course, but hardly the most relevant
topic for an aspiring producer getting a B.A. in music technology. This
modular approach serves them particularly well, as now, after Intro to
Music Theory, they can proceed directly to a course on pop and jazz. But
in our meetings, our team also acknowledged that students who pursue a
traditional career as a performing orchestral musician may not bene t as
much from this pop/jazz course as they would from further study of
classical repertoires, and so we added the 300-level Baroque- and
Classical-Era Forms course.
Contextualizing music theory

In our curriculum, three of the "new" classes are actually renamed versions
of Theory 1, 2, and 4 that have not been substantially altered. The course
titles have been changed because the curriculum is de-sequenced: for
students, it does not make sense to call things Theory 1 through Theory 4
if they don't have to proceed in order. As an added bene t, the titles of
each course circumscribe the course's content within a particular time
period and style. I prefer the new naming scheme and advocate it even
within a sequenced curriculum, because the titles communicate better to
the student what repertoire will be addressed.

Theory 2 at Mason (now 18th-c.) contains the content that is usually the
scapegoat for student dissatisfaction at every institution: functional
harmony and four-part composition in a strict style. Students often get the
impression that instructors believe they are teaching immutable laws of
right and wrong—even if we repeat endlessly that we are teaching stylistic
norms. I would suggest that titling a course in a very general way, as in
"Theory 2" or "Harmony," contributes to this misconception. A title like
"Theory for 18th-c. Music" makes clear what music this applies to (within
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 the restrictions imposed on course title length at Mason) and, more
importantly, what it does not apply to.
Recruitment and Retention

Mason is located about 20 miles outside of Washington, D.C., so there is

no shortage of schools nearby: other music programs in the region include
those of Howard University, Catholic University, Peabody Conservatory,
University of Maryland, University of Mary Washington, James Madison
University, and Virginia Tech, to name a few. Many of these schools,
frankly, have better name recognition than Mason does. Music theory is
typically not a big selling point for recruitment, but Mason's music theory
program now distinguishes itself from these other schools by o ering an
innovative curriculum that emphasizes performance in the classroom and
permits students an uncommon measure of choice in their core
coursework.

This modular curriculum also mitigates retention problems in two ways.

First of all, students feel a greater sense of ownership over their
curriculum, as they've selected these particular courses out of a menu of
options, and the selection allows the student to tailor their curriculum to t
their needs. Secondly, because the 100-level Intro is the only prerequisite
for all three 200-level courses, students can fail a course without
completely derailing their degree plan. Even with 200-level courses only
o ered in the fall or spring, a student can fail a spring semester 200-level
course and still take another in the fall. Then, the student can go on to
retake the failed course, or possibly even come up with a new path that
does not require that course at all. This sets up music tech and other B.A.
students for success, since they can choose courses better aligned with
their backgrounds and goals. Furthermore, when a student fails a theory
class, they often su er from demotivation. A modular design lessens
gatekeeping and the punishment for failure while still maintaining high
standards for student success. As the curriculum begins in the Fall 2019
semester, I will be working with Mason's O ce of Institutional
E ectiveness to trace statistics on such students.
Challenges and possibilities

While the modular design solves many problems, it also generates a few of
its own. Some people question whether taking courses out of
chronological order will actually be to a student's detriment, because they
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 won't see a historical evolution or dialogue between these di erent styles.
Because my new curriculum is in its infancy, I have not been able to
observe whether or not this will be an issue. I suspect the opposite will be
true, however: I believe students will generate more meaningful
interconnections between courses, as di erent students will bring di erent
experience to the discussion. If a student were to take 20th-/21st-c. or
Pop/Jazz before 18th-c., wouldn't that lead to a unique kind of perspective
in the 18th-c. course? Students aware of the signi cance of planing in
Debussy or power chords in rock music would be well-equipped to
understand the importance of context when learning that parallel fths are
"forbidden." Furthermore, the capstone course that must be completed by
all music majors should work against the tendency to compartmentalize;
the e ectiveness of this has been proposed as a solution in the modular
curricula of other disciplines (Rust 2000).

Another potential issue has to do with sta ng. For example, I am the only
faculty member equipped to teach the pop/jazz course. But I actually do
not see this as a problem at all, because the goal in this modular design is
to teach the faculty's expertise, not to check o a speci c box. Pop/Jazz
serves my institution particularly well because there is a strong interest in
these musics, but other schools may be better o creating a course on
band music, musical theater, Renaissance music, video game music, or
something else. Similarly, more 300-level courses may be added someday
that build on the 200-level courses, like the Form class but for other
repertoires. Perhaps the most obvious addition to Mason's current
curriculum would be to re-incorporate 19th-century music as a 300-level
course with 18th-c. as a prerequisite. The decision to skip 19th-century
repertoire was made mainly due to practical constraints on faculty, time,
and space, rather than from a philosophical opposition to 19th-century
music. Other schools with more resources may very well keep this course.

One may question whether students, many of whom are brand new to the
formal study of music, will actually choose courses that are best for their
long-term professional and academic goals. Couldn't a student sign up for
courses that are "wrong" for them (in one sense or another)? This can be
resolved through a commitment to good advising. Students should always
work closely with advisors to choose their path to graduation; music
theory, in this curriculum, is no exception. Advisors can help students
balance a desire to specialize and focus on their personal goals with the
need to broaden one's horizons by learning new repertoire.
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One still-lingering question is how theory will now align with aural skills
and keyboard skills. I have not yet tackled this issue, as aural skills is
currently quite separate from theory at Mason. I hope to eventually either
establish co-requisite skills courses dealing with similar repertoires as
those of the theory courses, or even integrate theory and aural skills into a
comprehensive 5-day-a-week course. It may be more achievable, though,
to design a skills curriculum that remains genre-neutral (one-size- ts-all
vs. bespoke, if you will) and focuses on building ear training and keyboard
skills apart from a historical context.

I do not pretend to have all the answers to these questions. I intend to

collaborate with other scholars implementing a modular curriculum on a
report of our results once those results become clear (Gades 2020,
Peebles 2020). But when it comes to making progress in curriculum
design, we have to start somewhere—and I am excited about what we've
begun at Mason. I believe these changes will rehabilitate music theory's
bad reputation, but moreover, they will result in more empowered,
successful, and career-ready student musicians.
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