In December of 2022, I earned my masters degree in percussion pedagogy from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. I have always been passionate about bringing quality music education to new audiences because cultivating the next generation is one of our most sacred responsibilities as musicians and teachers. In order to help advance this goal, I wrote my thesis on designing a method of instruction through which we use jazz and popular music as a vehicle to reach new students, without sacrificing the integrity of education that we find in our standard classical-based teaching methods.

I successfully presented this thesis on November 16th, 2022. In order to help advance the concepts found in this research, I am making my thesis available online for free. The written part of the thesis is available on this website under the section entitled, The Bridge PDF. A video of the thesis presentation, as well as performances of the accompanying pieces can be found here:

Abstract

It is the primary goal of this thesis to increase participation in music education by creating student literature that is both highly educational and relevant to our modern lives and musical interests. Much like Zoltán Kodály utilized Hungarian folk music to connect with students, and Dr. Shinichi Suzuki spoke of the incredible motivational power of “familiar melodies”, this thesis builds on that tradition and uses a wide variety of today’s folk and popular styles to create our teaching literature. If one analyzes the work of Suzuki or any other highly regarded pedagogical text, it is easy to observe a common pattern that exists among all of the works as the pieces develop in difficulty. The musical selections for this thesis are innovative in their use of popular melodies and styles, yet they honor tradition by featuring solos that follow the developmental pattern present in Suzuki and other famous educational works. The writing for this thesis focuses on a trio format consisting of mallet percussion, various drums, and simple piano accompaniment, although the broader pedagogical concepts can be applied to an ensemble of any size and any instrumentation.