Musically Marginalized: Making and Finding Place

Sandra L. Stauffer, Arizona State University

Audition season. Thousands of young people, and some older ones too, roam the halls of departments or schools of music across the United States looking for the doorways of studios and recital halls where the gatekeepers wait to hear them sing or play. The auditionees hope for admission to music degree programs. Some of them wish to become music teachers. The gatekeepers listen, waiting to hear a particular kind of sound that will cause them to unlock the entryway and admit the hopeful musicians to the career pathways wish to follow.

Many musicians negotiate audition season successfully, but for some, the gate is closed and locked before they begin. “You only play jazz and pop songs on that guitar? Some mariachi tunes too? Ok. Can you do anything else? Can you read actual notes?” “A turnable? Who told you that you could audition on that?” “It’s great that you’ve had the lead in every musical theatre production in town, but have you had any voice lessons? Where’s your foreign language song?”

The outcomes of audition season are well documented in the literature (e.g., Koza 2006, 2010), and the problem, even the story above, is a familiar trope: schools and departments of music have become places of musical exclusion. Or, schools and departments of music become places where multiple musical practices can be heard and studied, but only some kinds of music practices can open the pathway to careers in music, particularly careers in music education.

This case, written in the form of critical story (Barone, 1992; Nichols, 2013; Stauffer, 2014), aims to reveal how musical marginalization functions and to raise questions about how it might be subverted, thus making the places of the music academy made more open and inclusive. Stan (pseudonym) could not gain entry into a School of Music, because of the kinds of musical practices in which he engaged. He earned an undergraduate degree in another discipline while continuing an active performing life in the community. At some point, Stan began to participate in an urban arts ensemble sponsored by the university and available for credit, but not for music majors. In that context, he met music students and a faculty member who opened a side door into a master’s degree program in music education, where Stan is thriving.

Audition season—a time when, to paraphrase Weber and Geertz, music faculties are “caught up in webs of significance that we ourselves have spun” (Geertz, 1973). Does it have to be this way? What is the price of musical marginalization? In what ways is musical marginalization related to race and class? How might the perpetuation of musical marginalization be a violation of personal sense of place and a breach of ethical aesthetics? The case of Stan, and those who are similarly marginalized, raises these questions.

References

Barone, T. (1992). Beyond theory and method: A case of critical storytellig. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 142-146.

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Koza, J. (2006). A place at the table. Visions of Research in Music Education, 16(5). Retrieve from http://www.usr.rider.edu/~vrme/ (Reprint of 1993-1994 article).

Koza, J. (2010). "Save the music?" Toward culturally relevant, joyful, and sustainable school of music. Phillsophy of Music Education Review, 14(1), 23-38.

Nichols, J. (2013). Rie's story, Ryan's journey: Music in the life of a transgender student. Journal of Research in Music Education, 61, 262-297.

Stauffer, S. L. (2014). Narrative inquiry and the uses of narrative in music education research. In C. Conway, Ed., Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research in American Music Education (pp. 163-185). New York: Oxford University Press.