Lifting the Veil: A Report on Graduate Music History Pedagogy Training in the United States (2015)

Abstract

Over the past decade, there has been a steady drumbeat of action in music history pedagogy, from the founding of the AMS pedagogy study group in 2006 to the establishment of the Journal of Music History Pedagogy to the annual Teaching Music History Conference. Because of this action, pedagogues have become interested in the training afforded to graduate students in music history pedagogy, steadily establishing coursework in American universities. Yet there is precious little data about these courses, from where they are offered, to what is covered in those classes, to faculty’s impressions of their effectiveness. In the fall of 2015, Andrew Granade led a class in conducting a nationwide survey of graduate programs identified by the American Musicological Society as offering degrees in music history and musicology. The purposes of this survey were to establish quantitative data on the frequency of courses in music history pedagogy and the commonality of that coursework across institutions, as well as qualitative data about faculty thoughts on the utility of pedagogical training. This article presents the results of that survey, placing music history pedagogy courses within the larger academic discussion of post-graduate pedagogical training and offering a gallery of best practices in the field today.