ABSTRACT
While conversations about the need for core curricular overhaul are nothing new, music schools’ curricular foundations remain largely unchanged for nearly a century. Chapter 14 seeks to lay the groundwork for a new conversation by identifying a series of key thresholds, each of which progresses in levels of challenge and potential turbulence. It begins with an inclusive statement: There is not a single aspect of the core curriculum that is not of potential value to all students, regardless of major. This is followed by acknowledging the reality that this core also leaves out content that may be of considerable foundational value to many students. The question then arises: Upon which criteria are core decisions to be made? And who decides? Further questioning advances the conversation to engage with empirical and qualitative research pertaining to how human beings learn, the importance of hands-on engagement and integrative pedagogy. Concurrently, issues of creativity and leadership aim to elicit receptivity to the possibility that, in fact, what has masqueraded as a core curriculum may be beset by significant flaws.
