List of contents:

Foreword                                                                                                        
Introduction                                                                                                   
Why music, teaching, students and institution in a sociological frame?  
Giddens’ theories                                                                                           
A dream of who we want to be                                                                      
Giddens’theories in use in a conservatory?                                                
Suggestions to a new learning environment                                               
Perspectives                                                                                                    
Musicality as a goal?                                                                                                 
List of literature                                                                                             

Foreword

Through my own path of making choices and decisions about my life I have become interested in the modern way of life; that we to a great extend are able to create and forge our own lives and turn it into the life we want to live. We have so many possibilities available to us, even when we’re very young leaving school at age fifteen. Already then do we have to make choices that can have huge influence on our future lives. But how do we make ‘the right choices’ and, is there a ‘right choice’?
I can see that through the choices I’ve made that I’ve started living a lifestyle which is very different from the one of my family. A pattern has been broken. The interesting thing is that it’s not only me who’ve done that, no, it’s so many of the people I know.
When I lived in Los Angeles, studying at LA Music Academy, I met people from all over the world of all ages, wanting to learn music and to spend one year of their lives devoted completely to focusing and concentrating on this. What we all had in common was the urge to learn and develop and to explore what we could do with music.
Some had saved money for several years to study there and some were supported by parents. There were people from all classes of society. Furthermore, from at least fifteen different countries.
In the beginning I thought that the reason why we all got on so well was due to the fact that we were all musicians and therefore had so much in common. This was of course true to some extend but it was much more than that, it was the fact that we had all come a long way to be there. We had all made the decision to leave the secure and protective environment of our home-countries in order to learn and grow, not only as musicians but equally as humans.
After my study in LA I was accepted at the Rotterdam Conservatory and I immediately went to live in Holland. First I experienced a culture-chok but after a while I realised that I was meeting the same kind of people as I had met in LA, who had left their home-country to study at the conservatory, where there are so many students who are not Dutch. Of course this is generally speaking, and should be understood in the sense that I was truly surprised to see so many nationalities studying at the same institution.
Again I experienced the same enthusiasm from the people I met, perhaps because they too had come a long way to be there.
So I started to become curious and wonder if it was only us musicians who would travel the world to study and play music. It seemed to me that this was the new cosmopolitan way of living and it was ‘hip’, somehow. I wanted to understand the more deep perspectives of how it has become possible for us to have this freedom of choice that we have today. At least my grand mother always told me that she was very jealous of the possibilities that I had and still have!
I’ve experienced positive sides to this freedom but also negative sides, when there are so many possibilities and choices to consider that the confusion can be too big. This seems to be a feeling that many people have, from time to time.
In this thesis I have tried to take a look at what it is that is happening worldwide, sociologically and psychologically for the individual person, living in the age of modernity.

Introduction

Many books about teaching and learning methods have been released, including books about how to learn a specific technique on an instrument. Furthermore, the material on how to be creative and how to develop ‘the inner artist’, so to speak, exists in large numbers. It seems to me that all the information is ‘out there’ in the total sum of literature, and if not, we can listen to music that was recorded by other artists than ourselves, to find inspiration and answers to technical questions, simply by listening and imitating. If we need training from a teacher we apply to conservatories or other music institutions, to study with a teacher. Preferably a teacher we look up to and trust as far as abilities to teach us what it is we want to learn. But maybe it is more than that, maybe it is also to help us build the person we want to be and think of ourselves to be?
It is my opinion and feeling that the students in conservatories and music students today in general, are of a much wider ‘crowd’ of people than just forty to fifty years ago. Here I’m thinking of the fact that people from economically more poor classes are able to study as well as more rich classes of society, also that the way people live their lives has changed so much with individualism as a keyword for creativity.
This must surely demand more from the institutions and the teachers, directly or indirectly, since the people who interact with each other, teachers and students, are all different with their own unique way of doing and thinking. But, also the whole character of the society has changed very fast, the reflectivity and the complexity of choice which characterises the modern society, makes it a challenging job to be a good teacher. That is, a teacher who is successful in living up to the many demands of how to teach the ‘modern’ student.
Then what about the students, what is happening in the modern society that might affect the way they live and study?
Here in this thesis I will try to find some of the answers, or at least ideas, for these questions. I will also rise new questions to perhaps find new ways in the interaction between student, teacher and institution.
I will concentrate mainly on the theories of Anthony Giddens, since it is in his theories that I have found the underlying explanation and analysis of how the life in the modern society relates to us all, also music students and teachers.
I will not touch so much on the subject teaching methods and the specific methodology that applies to them, I will talk of them as options and possible ways of dealing with the teaching of students that are individual and different from one another.

Why music, teaching, students and institution in a sociological frame?

It is perhaps confusing to talk about sociology in relation to a music study in a conservatory, therefore I would like to tell about experiences I’ve had during my own period of studying concerning the many aspects of music, teaching music and the institution where this takes place. I also would like to share some thoughts about the more psychological parts of being a student in today’s conservatory.
Many times have I been in situations where I would ask myself: “Does this have anything to do with music?”  There seem to have been so many obstacles standing in the way for really, truly making music!
Obstacles can, for example, be lack of self-confidence, insecure environment, pressures from teacher or institution or simply a combination of circumstances that takes the main focus of creating art/music away. When the main focus is too vague and not “shinning” through all the more systematic and logical approaches to making music/art, it is easy to lose the direction we once started out with. This loss of direction can happen in many ways, depending on the individual person involved but, as I will try to explain in this thesis, there are some factors that play an important part in this, which takes place in a much wider perspective than what is perhaps most apparent to us.
We are, today, in a situation where the society is developing rapidly, bringing new possibilities and challenges with it, everything goes fast and the world seems to be a fast paced world, more and more every day. This, what is happening sociologically and worldwide, globally, is what influences all people living in civilized societies. It has helped me in my understanding of how to be a musician and a teacher in a modern society, to study the latest research on what is happening in the other ’layers’ of life, the layers that we don’t always think about consciously every day.
Psychologically, some scientists have said years ago that if an individual lives under the circumstances which we live under today, the individual would completely lose his feeling of ontological security. However, it seems to be going fine! These scientists couldn’t know the true outcome of the way the society was developing, they were only relating to how psychology was interpreted at that time. I think it gives us an idea of how big an influence our surroundings have on our state of mind, feeling and ability to keep a healthy way of life.
I have met many music students and they (we) are all very different, with different motivations for studying music and with different expectations to what music brings.
With this I mean that living a life with music not only involves the music itself, it also involves a period in life where the musician is constantly being observed, analysed and expected to develop within a certain frame. This has possibilities for really focusing and to develop, it also has consequences for the person who is involved. A consequence, just to mention one, could be a student who studies with a certain teacher who wants the student to develop himself in a specific way, as far as technique and expression. Technique usually involves working with body regimes, habits learned through one’s whole life since birth and the human voice that is the result of a life’s history. The voice is in fact, in my opinion like a blueprint of a person’s life. A life’s experiences is in this way encoded in the voice with which we sing and express ourselves. Expression most often touches on the areas of the inner-self, feelings and usually also the student’s psychological make-up. To work with these things as a teacher and student is something that should be done with care and knowledge, it is a special kind of relationship between a student and teacher. In fact I can’t think of any relationship in the normal everyday life where the interaction is about changing/developing the ways of a person’s bodily habits and psychological expressions. A consequence of the work-relationship between student and teacher is often a change within the student, leading to a, hopefully, better performance of the student’s musicality, including the technique necessary to do so. However, this change is a very personal change since it has to do with the factors mentioned above.
There are so many different kinds of teachers and I’ve been very lucky to have met ones that were truly great to work with. It has meant everything for my own progress to learn from them in many ways, with this I mean also the more psychological things, the things and parts of singing and making music/art that are difficult to formulate and put into a university-degree study.
But, since we have the opportunity to study music it is perhaps helpful to keep in mind, in times where we seem to be running around from office to office and sitting with our heads deeply involved with things that are not only music, that we have to relate to a society and a world that is developing so fast, with all it’s many components and abstract systems. This is different than when music was first invented and it can sometimes seem to be miles away from the beauty of art.
In my opinion it would be nice to just fly along with the music, getting deep into the simplicity, complexity and beauty of making music. This is what we are wanting to do so often including to share music with others, be it audience or fellow musicians.
But, the world looks a bit different and we are woken up from our dream of just being in the world of music, continuously, by the demands from our survival instincts to have to relate to the place where we live, or else we fly off to some dreamland where we are no longer on the same level as the other people around us.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit here, but I want to make my point clear and to explain why I find it so necessary and important to search for reasons and understandings of why the things are the way they are. There is a long way from the Gregoriant Chant to the modern singer today. We have to relate to many things that have influence on our lives and we have so many options available to us, not even to mention all the choices surrounding the path we choose for.
To talk about these matters is in a way very abstract, in the process of figuring out which parts play an important role in the making of a valid layout, or call it an explanation it can be difficult to see the connections between all the subjects discussed immediately.
In this thesis I suggest to use the summary of Gidden’s theories as a reference chapter, where it will be necessary to return to some parts later to understand how it relates to my following arguments.
In short, I hope to gain understanding of the sociological facts that influences us, as humans and, in relation to this thesis’ main focus, as musicians, singers and the environment in which we study. Furthermore, I believe that sociological facts also has a consequence for the institution, which a conservatory is, with its structure, philosophies and the people involved on an every-day basis. I will also try to bring in the discussion of the choice to become a musician/singer and what is the motivating factor that makes us set out on the journey of making music. 

      
Giddens’ theories

In the book “Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late modern Age”, written in 1991, Anthony Giddens describes the many issues that all together form the late modernity. He focuses mainly on the individual and how it is to be living under the influence of modernity, this includes psychological aspects as well as the more practical and physical aspects.
Giddens suggests that a rethinking of the nature of modernity is nescesarry, as well as the reworking of basic premises of sociological analysis. This is due to the fact that the connections between the emergence of modern institutions, including social institutions in its many forms, and sociology is much more problematic and complex than realised earlier. The modern institutions are dynamic and most often don’t have traditions and habits, compared to older institutions. This results in new ways of doing and thinking, but it also results in many problematic questions about society and self. As Giddens says, it is not only extentional transformations that take place in institutions, it also directly affects the day-to-day life of the individual, social life and personal aspects of the self.
He suggests that there are two extremes that interconnect with each other and makes a distinctive trait of the modernity; the globalising influences and the personal dispositions.
That the individual is influenced by globalisation is essential when describing the self in modernity, there are so many new mechanisms of self-identity which are shaped by the modern institutions and the other way around, that the individual plays an important role in shaping the institutions and the society, since the capable modern person is someone who’s not passive. Rather, it’s someone who actively shapes her own self-identity.
Giddens uses the term the reflexive project of the self.
The reflective project of the self is something that has started when the earlier societies, with a social order based firmly in tradition, no longer gave individuals defined roles. For example as far as who to be, what to do, who to marry, where to live, where to spend old age etc. All these essential questions in life are now in our own hands, the traditional society doesn’t exist anymore in the same form as in pre-modern times. Giddens suggests that even in the few existing traditional societies today, there is still strong influence from the media and the growing effects of globalisation.
That we today are free from the strings and demands of tradition leaves us with many choices to make, and this under the circumstances of uncertaincy and multiple choice. This can be good but also frustrating at times. Giddens describes this dilemma in terms of high-risk society and ontological security, which demands further explanation.
So, we are in charge of our own lives and are therefore the ones who are responsible for our own life-planning. This is a confusing and difficult task, when we live in the high-risk society, where there are no guaranties for whether our plans turn out to be successful and good for us or not. This means that our feeling of ontological security is constantly at risk of becoming unbalanced. Giddens uses the expression the protective cocoon which is basically the trust that an individual builds from the infant stage, established by its caretakers. The protective cocoon defends the individual’s ontological safety and can be threatened by fateful moments.
In fateful moments we make decisions about something crucial in our lives that cannot be reversed, with the possibility of something to go wrong.
In these situations we can no longer fall back on the rules and habits of tradition to help making decisions, we must run the risk ourselves of making a choice, hoping the outcome is right. In forming our life-plan, so to speak, there are many factors involved, all which are for us to deal with. In general it is the reflexive project of the self that drives us to define our self-identity, creating a narrative or biography of oneself and thus living a lifestyle that rings true to us. Here’s a quote from Giddens that describes the complexity of the modern way of life and its inherent questioning:

“Each of us not only ‘has’, but lives a biography reflexively organised in terms of flows of social and psychological information about possible ways of life. Modernity is a post-traditional order, in which the question, ‘how shall I live?’ has to be answered in day-to-day decisions about how to behave, what to wear and what to eat – and many other things – as well as interpreted within the temporal unfolding of self-identity.” – Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity, Stanford University Press.

What has also created the reflexive project of the self is the emergence of what Giddens calls pure relationships, which he defines as being ‘a social relation which is internally referential, that is, depends fundamentally on satisfactions or rewards generic to that relation itself.’
We search for pure relationships to a very great extend today, in love and other relations as well. This is a significant part of the individual’s search for self-identity and it should be understood from the perspective that in pre-modern times it was not easily accepted to strive for romantic love only. The decline of religion and the rise of rationality plays an important role in the way we choose our relationships today. We mirror ourselves in each other and strive to be who we want to be in a relationship, with uncompromising exchange of true feelings.

Giddens talks about control, the control that we humans have taken over the nature. He implies that we even strive to have control over ourselves and our bodies as well, since the reflexity of the self not only affects psychic processes, it also affects the body.
Bodily self-management is something we deal with every day, to persuit specific bodily regimes. This includes awareness and cultivation of bodily appearance, body language and facial expressions. Giddens describes regimes as ‘regularised modes of behavior relevant to the continuance or cultivation of bodily traits.’ All this is a part of our lifestyle but the body is also becoming a phenomenon of choices and options as a result of the advanced biological reproduction, genetic engineering and medical interventions.
Another factor that influences us on a day-to-day basis is the media and its ability to inform about distant events in our everyday consciousness. This influence is strong and it shapes us in many ways. It is also possible to say that we influence the media as well.

In connection with this is what Giddens calls disembedding mechanisms,  he terms them ‘symbolic tokens’ and ‘expert systems’, together he also calls them abstract systems.
Symbolic tokens can, for example, be money but with the maturation of modernity it becomes more and more normal and widespread to use credit cards or money-transfers to accounts, without physically being in tough with the money. In this way money brackets time and space.
Expert systems should be understood in the sense that an expert is someone who has a certain knowledge that clients and practitioners make use of. This is a typical example of modernity where we easily can contact an expert who has the knowledge we need, not only as far as technical expertise, it also reaches social relations and the individuals’ intimacy. As examples can be mentioned counsellors, doctors, therapists, scientists, technicians, engineers etc.
Disembedding mechanisms, a term that Giddens has made himself means: The lifting out of social relationships from local contexts and their recombination across indefinite time/space distances. This means that they separate interactions from a specific place.
Disembedding mechanisms are essential to the thoroughgoing reflexitivity that is so significant for the dynamism in modern institutions. It also reaches into globalisation because we today, for example, can have a contact and relationship to someone who’s not physically where we are, via telephone, e-mail etc. This expands our reality in a way and we are able to have various relations that are not connected to the place we are in, in a particular moment. It also demands more from our regimes and the way we behave, a certain attitude is demanded from us at work, another at home, during free time activities, going out with friends, taking lessons in something, perhaps therapy etc. The main point here is that we are involved in so many different relations, institutions and forms of abstract systems that our self-identity is exposed to judgements to a much greater extend than in earlier times when people moved in more local circles. This is one of the reasons why we constantly play different ‘roles’.  It is simply the way the modern society is built that we are in so many contexts of interaction and where we have a tremendous amount of possibilities available to us. There are many factors involved as the driving force of the reflexive project of the self, including our own will to explore and develop. It is not uncommon today to ask yourself the questions which Giddens sums up:

‘What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living under the curcumstances of late modernity – and ones which, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behavior.’

Giddens stresses that it is not only negative for the self to be confronted with the difficulties of the late modernity, it also gives possibilities for the self to grow. He says that the difficulties and tensions that exists in the modern world for the self, is most easily understood if we see them as dilemmas which have to be resolved, in order for us to keep a coherent narrative of the self. So, the main thing that identifies a strong and capable self is ‘to keep going’, as he says.
He uses four different terms to describe the dilemmas of the self:
Unification versus fragmentation, the fact that modernity unites and fragments and how to keep a direction through the numerous contextual happenings, which the individual is exposed to every day via the reflexive project of the self.
Powerlessness versus appropriation, the dilemma that there are so many lifestyle options available to us today, with the opportunity to take a certain lifestyle as ones own but that this, however, easily can generate a feeling of powerlessness.
Authority versus uncertainty, when we encounter situations where there are no final authorities, we have to find a way to balance a feeling of uncertainty and yet still feel commitment.
Personalised versus commodified experience, this is a dilemma that confronts us with the task that it is to construct a narrative of the self, under circumstances where personal goals and dreams are influenced by the standardised ideas of behavior and consumption.

On the positive side there are the programmes of actualisation and mastery that the reflexive project of the self generates. It allows us, in other words, to use our potential to the fullest. However, Giddens warns us that the process of self-actualisation can lack moral meaning and real authenticity. The modern society is often a secular society, therefore it lacks the rules of religion and even tradition, which leaves it up to the individual to keep a healthy sense of morality.
In the last chapter of the book he talks about the emergence of lifepolitics, which means a politic of life decisions. This includes the emancipation from tradition and hierarchical domination. He raises the question of what these life decisions are and how to conceptualise them.
To mention a few things that he considers as life decisions:  the decisions that affect the self-identity, how to connect future projects with past experiences in a logical and healthy way and how to shape the narrative of self-identity and reflexively sustaining it in the constantly changing world of social life, local as well as global.
Giddens talks about the difficult situation of remoralising social life and in general the existential issues that are so crucial in all lives, now that we live in a post-traditional order with very few guidelines and so many ways of adopting freely chosen lifestyles.
He suggests that political decisions should be taken from the perspective of ‘freedom of choice and generative power (power as a transformative capacity)’ and that ‘the creation of morally justifiable forms of life that will promote self-actualisation in the context of global interdependence. Furthermore he says that life politics should develop ethics concerning the issue ‘how should we live?’
A dream of who we want to be.

“I want to be a singer!”, is probably a very well known dream for many who start to sing. “I want to play guitar in a band, touring the world!”, is also a dream that drives many guitarists to learn to play and qualify for the great competition there is in the music environment. That ‘dream’ is probably what makes us work so hard to achieve the level we want to have in order to become successful with our music. We can equally say that also people who want to have a different profession most likely start their path towards educational qualification in the same way, by imagining themselves in a certain situation in their life where they are doing what they like to do.
That very moment when we decide to work towards a goal that is our own, free from  traditions and rules that could tell us what to do, is when we are creating our own biography, a narrative of the self as Giddens says. The fact that people want to create this narrative of the self is one of the important traits of the modern society.
Since we, in what we call the Western world, no longer live under the rules of the traditional society in pre-modern times, where the choice of profession was not often a free choice, we are today to a much wider extend able to have the freedom of choice. We can have a dream and truly seek to fulfil that dream because of the many factors that shape the modern society and are no longer forced to go into a profession that does not appeal to us.
This is in my opinion a very creative process in itself. I’m thinking that when Giddens talks about the fact that we today can actively shape our own self-identity, among other things by choice of profession, it is easy to think that we would seek the one profession which we are most good at, the easiest for us. It would somehow be the most logical solution but when considering Giddens theory of the reflexive project of the self, it appears that there are many other things that influences us when we choose for a field of work or education.
Because the time we live in now is a time when we ask ourselves the essential questions of ‘Who do I want to be?’ and ‘What do I want to be?’, this suggests that the way we see ourselves, the image/picture we would like to identify with is what drives us to create this image and make our dream come true. We have a right to be what we want to be, nobody can tell us otherwise. Surely many parents must have told their sons and daughters that it is not easy to make a living as a musician, but still we apply to conservatories to educate ourselves as musicians. My feeling is that the reason why we want to do a certain thing in our life, in this example to play music, is not always because of the very thing to actually play music, it is also because of the way we can identify with being musicians living a certain lifestyle that many musicians live, living in the environment of music and musicians and in general the way music and perhaps even fame is thought of today.
Furthermore, it is a long process of self-development to learn to play music, as with any other process that takes place in a longer period of studying. My opinion is that artistic educations are more related to the psychological development of the self than most other educations. So in a way a conservatory study, or for that matter any other artistic or creative study, gives the possibility for the self-development which is necessary for an individual who is seeking to develop his ‘psychological skills’ and himself in general, according to his own reflexive project of the self.
I’m wondering if the reasons why people apply to conservatories have changed in some ways, compared to earlier times. Here I’m talking about the more underlying and deeper reasons. At least it is difficult to tell what other people feel and to identify the deeper motives they might have for the way they live their life and the way they make choices. But when relating to Giddens theories about the more psychological aspects of the modern society it is easy to see that there are things that can have a very strong influence on us when creating our self-identity.
Here I’m thinking about what Giddens talks about in terms of lifestyle and life-planning. He suggests that the choice of lifestyle not only has to do with the area of consumption, it relates to decisions about how to act and who to be. As he says:

“The more post-traditional the settings in which an individual moves, the more lifestyle concerns the very core of self-identity, its making and remaking”.
Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity”, pg. 81, Stanford University Press.

To choose for a certain lifestyle involves in other words the choice of self-identity as well. In earlier times lifestyle was something that was somehow handed down from generation to generation, today it is most often the case that it is something that is adopted in the sense that when we encounter different lifestyles, we are either attracted to it or not and then make a choice if it is something we want to adapt to. If we don’t make a choice and develop a lifestyle the protective cocoon, as Giddens talks about, is threatened. I will try to expand on that later in this chapter.

So why do we choose to study music in a conservatory and in general to play music? Is it right to say that all music students study because of the mere joy and pleasure of music, expressing their feelings and creativity? And, is it wrong to say that some students study music because they want to adopt the lifestyle and identity of a musician? Probably the answer lies somewhere in between.
It is a well-known fact that the process of learning to play music and just playing music in general, is considered as a sort of self-therapy. For example, the process of studying singing is a process where the inner-self is constantly confronted with questioning and the possibility of having to change habits and ways of thinking in order to perform the right muscular actions. In other words a project where the development of the inner self is one of the main focal points of attention. This is where the reflexive project of the self comes to play an important role.
When Giddens says that the self undergoes massive change in the time of the late modernity and that therapy and self-therapy is an expression of this change, it is tempting to think that it is somehow more attractive to study in a conservatory today than earlier. He puts it like this:

“In a post-traditional social universe, reflexively organised, permeated by abstract systems, and in which the reordering of time and space realigns the local with the global, the self undergoes massive change. Therapy, including self-therapy, both expresses that change and provides programmes of realising it in the form of self-actualisation.” – Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity”, pg. 80, Stanford University Press.

He furthermore suggests that the reflexive project of the self generates programmes in which we can achieve this actualisation and mastery.
What can be concluded from this could be that it is very important for the ‘modern’ individual to achieve a certain level of mastery, in some form, to maintain a healthy narrative of the self and self-esteem, so to speak. Could this mastery and self-actualisation be to study music? Or as mentioned earlier, another artistic study?
In the time of the late modernity more and more music conservatories and music institutions in general, have opened. This must be a sign that more people want and feel the need for playing music.
If we assume that some people study in a conservatory mostly to undergo a kind of self-development (some would even say healing), is it then still possible to actually follow a curriculum on a university level, considering the fact that it is then a very ‘emotional’ study? Of course this is one of the big questions that has always existed, but seen in the light of Giddens’ theories, that we in the modernity are focusing so much on self-development and to reflect on literally almost everything, it casts new light on the long time division of artists and people with different and perhaps, more normal professions. The kind of people who now study in conservatories most likely have several intentions and ideas for what they might achieve from studying there. I should make it clear that I’m not implying that all music students are looking for self-therapy and are intending to find that in a conservatory. The point here is to analyse the tendencies and strong influences of the modern society which, in a sense, take place on the level of the subconscious. It is something that penetrates and dominates the society, slowly changing structures and ways of doing and thinking in all aspects of life.
How do the institutions, in this case conservatories, deal with these changes? And, which consequences does this new, reflective society have for teachers and students?
In my attempt to analyse and find answers to these questions I will focus mainly on the singer’s education in a conservatory. However, there are many of the subjects which I will discuss that can be applied to the education of other instrumentalists.

When thinking of Giddens’ theory that we in the late modernity are constantly confronted with the task of making choices, seen in relation to the reflexive project of the self, we can easily conclude that e.g. a singer who takes vocal lessons in a conservatory, in some way or the other is confronted with many situations where he will have to decide if the choices he makes is something that is ‘feeding’ his self-development (reflexive project of the self), or if the given situation he’s in, is working against it. These different situations can be understood as, for example, in one-on-one lessons with a teacher, being confronted with having to learn a specific vocal technique, choosing repertoire/style and the situation of being in an institution that has its own systems and ways of doing.
To make this situation clear, we can compare the singer’s education of today with the way singers were educated in earlier times when the old master and student relationship was dominating. There were simply not so many choices and possibilities to consider, the attention was not so much on the individual student’s needs and personal development, as it is today.
Susanna Eken who is a vocal teacher in The Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen, writes about this complexity in her book “Den Menneskelige Stemme”, (the human voice), 1998. She states that the strategies the vocal teacher must have in the course of the lessons, is under strong influence from the modern society. This, she says, has to do with the fact that vocal students today have different demands, even more than just forty years ago. They do not only expect guidance on their technical, musical and artistic development, they also expect empathy and understanding from the teacher on things that has to do with their inner, existential ‘problems’, so to speak.
Susanna Eken suggests that a thorough understanding of the communication between student and teacher is necessary, so that important knowledge can be accumulated about the different phases in the one-on-one lessons. This can create a solid foundation for a more qualified planning and strategy of the teaching methods, together with sincere insight on the intellectual and physical learning processes. She even suggests that knowledge about non-verbal communication should be considered as equally important as verbal communication.
Obviously she stresses the importance of the psychological qualities the teacher must possess in order to fully understand the student of today, who is different from the student in pre-modern times.
This, to me, is an observation from a teacher (who has been teaching professionally for twenty five years), who is recognising the tendencies of the modern society and how it influences teachers, students and institutions on a level that not only touches the visible but also the invisible, which has to do with the individual’s personal sphere. So, when Giddens talks about the reflexive project of the self and the consequences this leads to, I would like to draw the comparison between the two authors, since they both talk about the same phenomenons only from two different perspectives. The difference between Giddens and Eken is that Giddens is writing about the modernity in a very wide sense, Eken is actively dealing with the facts, which Giddens describes, in a conservatory where she has to relate to the changing times and changing students, still keeping her authority as the vocal teacher who has the technical knowledge and understanding. Today, she says, the role of being a teacher in a conservatory has changed and become a job where it is also required to be a therapist and a person who gives advice and guidance to students on very personal matters.
Giddens sees therapy as a methodology of life-planning and says that therapy, in its many forms, and counselling in general is a result of the break down of the protective framework of the small community and tradition. This results in a lack of the psychological support and security which more traditional societies give. Therefore, in the attempt of building ‘the protective cocoon’, so many people search for a form of therapy where they can get the psychological support they need to maintain a healthy and capable psyche. Singing lessons could be one form of therapy.
One of the important factors of the way the education of a singer takes place, is the one-on-one lessons where the student must show openness towards change and new ideas to find the ‘inner voice’, or in other words, the vocal technique which will give him the possibility of expressing feelings that are connected to the inner-self, without a wrong technique standing in the way.
Susanna Eken says that the work of a singer most often has to do with psyche and soma, which are strongly connected and under influence of ways of upbringing and ways of living. This makes it a very challenging job to be a vocal teacher since the teacher not only has to deal with the here and now, but also the past and the reasons to why a student has possible vocal problems.
I would like to emphasise that the one-on-one lesson therefore is a very intimate and somehow a fragile situation. How can this be put in a curriculum of university level in a reasonable form, integrating teachers, students and conservatory as a whole?

Giddens theories in use in a conservatory?

Would it be useful for a conservatory and the teachers who work there to know and acknowledge the tendencies and influences of the modern society? Here I’m thinking about what the outcome would be if institutions and teachers consciously would structure and organise educations according to the theories of e.g. Giddens.
Surely it can’t have been Giddens intention to write a manual for institutions and teachers on how to teach and how to build the whole structure and philosophy of an institution. However, he does come up with many interesting points when he talks about modern institutions and how the individual person is affected by modernity, in the daily life and on the deeper level of the inner-self, as discussed earlier.
Reflexive awareness, a term Giddens uses frequently, is one keyword that can describe what is necessary in an institution in late modernity, this concerns all persons involved in the creation and development of an institution. I will expand on this matter later in this chapter.
Among other things, I’m interested in how we can find a way for a good and healthy learning environment, where creativity can unfold together with the obligations of a curriculum and a study-plan, which must be followed.
Would it be benefitial to allow new teaching methods in a conservatory?
Since the character of the modern society is reflexivity and the complexity of choice, I believe the fact that so many new perspectives on how to teach and communicate in general, is a direct result of modernity. People search for new ways of developing not only themselves but also other aspects of the life they live on a day-to-day basis, which exists in the many different contexts one person moves through in only one day.
Giddens talks about the necessity of moral resources in the daily life, to not feel ‘existential isolation’. This leads me to think that there in an institution must be a huge amount of moral resources. Just consider how much time we spend in institutions through our lives! This is without a doubt a big responsibility for the teachers who have the possibility to influence their students, be it in a positive or negative way.
This contains so many possibilities to learn and develop, but are we aware of this as teachers and students and not to forget; as humans with a moral responsibility towards oneanother?

In the modern society we are used to the freedom of choice when it concerns our own lives, we don’t necessarily take it for granted that what e.g. an expert says is true. In other words, we estimate our own power of judgement to be on a level where we can decide whether or not to study with a given teacher, we can even select from various institutions when we look for a place to study. The modern student in a conservatory is very critical because he is exposing his reflexive project of the self, his inner belief, to possible influence and change, he is the one who is in control of what directions his life is taking.
If the way he is taught does not go hand in hand with his own goals and dreams, it is possible he will simply choose to leave and seek to find what he is looking for elsewhere. A useful quote from Giddens is:

“The break-away from fixed practices of the past allows human beings to secure increasing social control over their life circumstances.” – Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity”, pg. 211, Stanford University Press.

So, students today are very much aware of under which circumstances they should let someone (e.g. a teacher) into their personal sphere.
The relation between student and teacher is often a very personal relationship and since personal relationships, in its many different forms contains so many possibilities for self-discovery and intimacy to some extend (not to be confused with a love-relationship), how do we choose these relationships in a conservatory? The wish for what Giddens calls a ‘pure relationship’ can very often lead us to want to have precautions and create distance e.g. to a teacher, if we feel that we might be able to get a relationship to another teacher which is better and more in tune with who we are what we want to be. The old master and student relation does not exist anymore because, as Giddens says, the modern society is a society where we no longer have the same respect for experts as in pre-modern times. But still we call upon experts (a vocal teacher is also an expert), which there are plenty of in the modern society, such as therapists, technical expertise, scientists etc. The difference today from earlier times is that there are so many kinds of experts on almost all fields of interest that it can be a difficult task just to choose between them, it requires knowledge on how to choose. This can be described as the phenomenon ‘authority versus uncertainty’, as Giddens point out is one of the dilemmas of high modernity:

“There are no authorities which span the diverse fields within which expertise is claimed – another way of repeating the point that everyone in modern systems is a lay person in virtually all aspects of social activity” – Anhony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity, pg. 195, Stanford University Press.

This, in my opinion, results in a situation where students have a sceptical outlook on teachers and institutions which often can result in some form of doubt and uncertainty about whether to trust a teacher or not. This goes for that matter as well for the institution (conservatory), as a whole.
The saying “The grass is always more green on the other side of the fence” applies very well to this confusion of too many possibilities. Unless, we learn to deal with this modern society where there will always be many, many opportunities and many different directions to go, even in the same field of study or work. Our task must therefore not only be about developing skills as far as what we study, but also as humans with ‘psychological’ skills so to speak, who can choose in a time of uncertainty.
A possible way for a conservatory, as an institution, to keep its position as an authority that students and teachers respect could be to open up for new, possible ways of teaching. Since there are so many theories about learning styles and methods and so much literature available, it would perhaps be benefitial for everyone in a conservatory to at least discuss the various ways of studying and perhaps together find a way to get the most out of the lessons. This would not be easy, all teachers and students are different, but what I am suggesting is to start a dialogue where the parts involved would have to take responsibility and try to create a ‘frame’ where work can be done with a feeling of direction. This will involve the student in a different way, since he will have to take an active part in how to structure his own education. This is happening already to some extend but mostly when it comes to planning a schedule, in order to live up to the demands for a certain amount of study-points.
I realise that it is difficult to have an open dialogue in an institution which is very big, but if it would be possible for each department to be interacting more with each other, within the department itself it would give students and teachers a feeling of being in a social environment where people make an effort to develop not only themselves but also the education itself. The ways of communication could be in a monthly meeting where discussion could take place about various subjects, such as goals, learning styles/methods, the philosophy of the department and perhaps even to discuss the psychological aspects and affects of the modern society. In general what I suggest is to have a class or lectures/meetings where subjects that have to do with the reflexivity and complexity of the modern society, including humans as individuals, can be discussed. According to Giddens it is not only about studying a specific subject today, it is also about developing necessary skills for keeping a healthy sense of inner-self in the time of modernity, which he says is a turbulent time for the individual. There is no guideline anymore, we are the ones who have to create the contexts which we are in every day and this gives, in my opinion, many good possibilities for growth, as long as we are open and receptive for new ways of studying and teaching. I realise that it is difficult to finance extra lectures, but I see it as a necessary factor to keep up to date with the fast developing society we live in, a society of reflexivity where things change rapidly.
As mentioned earlier, it is a challenging job to be a good teacher living up to the many demands of the ‘modern student’. The voice and the whole physicality of the vocal instrument does not change, but the reflection in the modern society brings new and different aspects to the study of singing. Perhaps vocal students today are different than forty years ago?
Singers with voices that are not exceptional are more easily accepted to study in a conservatory and the music market has more space for these types of singers, who are not perfect in their technical expression but are able to express feelings with great intimacy and personality. This is what many people want to hear today in the many new styles of music, since the emergence of modern rythmic music. A teacher must therefore be someone who can teach in a wide spectrum of styles, or rather, he must be someone who can see through that and help the individual student develop his full potential. But what does this mean when there is no clear artistic direction? Is it the intention to develop the student’s own idea of what singing is to him or is it more important to develop singers who sing with the right technique, who would fit in the criteria of a fixed curriculum? Of course it is too exaggerated to divide something so complex in this way, but it seems to me that there sometimes is big confusion on this matter, whether to support the student in his development of his inner self solely, or to try and shape him according to traditional beliefs on how to sing.
As mentioned earlier, it is my feeling that more different types of singers find their way into conservatories today than e.g. forty years ago, this leads to new ways of thinking about singers ability to express emotions and deep, inner feelings. A singer can today fail in his technical examination and yet still go and possibly get a record deal, there are simply so many different ways of making art and that people buy records from singers who are not perfect, is a fact.

I will try to make my point clear here by discussing the phenomenon that Giddens calls ‘the protective cocoon’.
Because the modern society has almost eliminated the secure, protective environment of the traditional society, the environments where we feel security are now replaced with larger institutions/organisations with a very impersonal environment. The fact that we need a psychologically safe and healthy ‘frame’ (the protective cocoon) to support our personality in the daily life, can make us want to search for this feeling of security in various contexts. Perhaps even when we’re in a conservatory?  As mentioned earlier I’m here thinking about the adoption of lifestyle and the need for self-development in therapy. To be in such an institution will automatically give one the identity of being a musician, which also means that a certain lifestyle is lived. This can be in different forms e.g. the people you know, where you go out, style of clothes, opinions on political subjects and in general the musicians life, where it is normal to practice several hours per day and play gigs at night. Already there is a ‘frame’ that gives a certain identity.

To sum up we can say that students today are so different because of the reflexive project of the self, its inherent plan of self-actualisation and mastery and the fact that music and singing itself has changed so drastically, music is also free from tradition. Furthermore, what Giddens talks about as one of the many dilemma’s of high modernity, is the ‘personalised versus commodified experience’ which I in the context of students in a conservatory will interpret as a dilemma where e.g. a singer is influenced by media and entertainment business, to want to be famous. The entertainment industry is growing rapidly and generates role models for young, coming singers. Perhaps some of these singers would not even be singing if they had not been influenced be the wide projection and marketing of famous singers, who live a lifestyle which looks very attractive. In such a case where a person  is wanting to be a singer in order to adopt a certain identity and lifestyle, there are aspects of the education in a conservatory which will be difficult for this person. The student can not avoid being confronted with having to develop himself and ‘look inside’ to figure out if he really wants to sing and for what reasons. 
Being in a conservatory, studying to become a musician or a singer, does not necessarily result in a great career or fame. For some it might be a job as a teacher that is the result and possible work. For most it will certainly be a period in their life where they develop immensely, it will simply be the journey and the road they are on which matters, more than the actual result. Here I’m thinking about the result that applies to the music profession. Another result is the result of where the graduates stand in relation to the reflexive project of the self. It is this result that is today acknowledged as a very important achievement, when someone has gone through a long education or another similar process, to develop himself or herself.
In some ways it is like borrowing an identity for a while which can make it out for a protective cocoon, while we develop as free individuals. The music scene and the market in general, does not have space for us all to be stars, but the need for teachers is growing since more and more people want to work with music, so there is work for many graduates. I will dare to say that more and more choose music as the tool to develop themselves, the inner, reflexive project of the self which, as Giddens says, finds its way to develop itself, even if it is on a subconscious level.

Suggestions to a new learning environment

There are many new learning styles and teaching methods which have developed in the past fifty years and it can be difficult for an institution to decide which one, or which ones, it should use. Most institutions seek to define a philosophy for their way of teaching but this can be a confusing task in the time of modernity, where there is so much to choose from.
More time is spent in institutions to administrate and organise the structure of the institution, students have more demands and expectations to the institution, all this as a result of the situation of multiple choice and the underlying psychological facts which are discussed earlier.
Is it possible to imagine a situation where students and teachers interact with administrators of the institution and together decide which teaching methods should be in use? Can they then create the institution itself? It would require more time from all parts and more knowledge about teaching methods and possibilities of change.

In relation to how Giddens theories can be applied to a conservatory as an institution I will use the term reflexive awareness, as mentioned earlier, in order to find a key word for what I see is most important in the process of creating, or recreating a conservatory that is successful in living up to and facing the tendencies and influences of the modern society.
What I have concluded from reading Giddens book “Modernity and Self-Identity” in relation to this, is that we today are much more reflexively aware of everything we do. Everything is in a sense open to possible change due to the high-risk society we live in and we are more conscious of the choices we make and how we can have huge influence on our own lives. The modern institution is also, and should be, reflexive and dynamic in its construction, if it is not it will fail in developing accordingly with the modern society. This means that everyone in an institution should be reflexively aware of how they take part in the institution as a whole.
Personal involvement is one thing that is necessary from administrators, coordinators, teachers and students, together with the ability to stay open and to be curious. In the process of creating a healthy learning environment for everybody, not only students, I see it as a necessity to create a form of culture where all parts consciously make the choice and effort to take part of this culture and hopefully, together be able to decide under which philosophy the institution should exist, allowing and appreciating differencies by keeping an attitude of curiosity rather than a judging and negative attitude towards change.
In this line of thought I am thinking that it makes an institution stronger, if there is a visible attitude that will invite people to take part in the creation of common visions. In general what I suggest is to acknowledge the causes and effects of the modern society and to consciously be aware of the fact that we live in a time of multiple choice. If we don’t make a conscious effort to make choices everything will be left to chance and coincidence, without identity.
So rather than having an institution with invisible and not outspoken philosophies and visions, I want to suggest that an identity and overall goal that is visible, is created for the institution by the people who use it on an everyday basis.
I believe that when people are personally involved things will grow and large amounts of creative energy will be released. When Giddens talks about life politics and moral resources as a necessary part of building a society, after traditional rules and systems have vanished, I would like to draw the comparison to an institution, which in its own way is a small community:

“The emergence of life politics, I have argued, results from the centrality of the reflexive project of the self in late modernity, coupled to the contradictory nature of the extension of modernity’s internally referential systems. The capability of adopting freely chosen lifestyles, a fundamental benefit generated by post-traditional order, stands in tension, not only with barriers to emancipation, but with a variety of moral dilemmas. No one should underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with these, or even how hard it is to formulate them in ways likely to command widespread consensus. How can we remoralise social life without falling prey to prejudice?”  - Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity”, pg. 231, Stanford University Press.

Perhaps it could be interesting to see what the outcome would be if these things were dealt with in conservatories and, for that matter, other institutions as well?
The phenomenon lifelong learning is very popular today and it is a direct result of modernity where the demands for educational specialisation is growing constantly. The result is that no one can be free of having to come to terms with change and further development of ones qualifications. This requires a high level of openness and the ability to constantly reflect on ones actions and behaviors, asking oneself what promotes positive development and what doesn’t. Giddens term institutional reflexivity describes very well this matter:

“Institutional reflexivity: the reflexivity of modernity, involving the routine incorporation of new knowledge or information into environments of action that are thereby reconstituted or reorganised.” – Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity”, pg. 243, Stanford University Press.
So much can be gained from positive interaction and curiosity and we, as individuals and as a part of a social environment, have obligations towards oneanother, not only our own life-project.

Perspectives

In the writing of this thesis many new questions have arised in my attempt to find out what influences the modernity has on a conservatory as an institution, and which consequences this has on the people who are actively a part of this institution. I realise that to analyse modernity, as a sociological phenomenon, is difficult and it is a subject that cannot be described in the limited space available here. I have merely tried to bring new ideas, perspectives and reflections, on the music/conservatory life and its people involved.
Some of the questions that have arised are about which teaching methods we should use, there are so many methods to choose from, it has been impossible for me to describe them all here but I want to mention the theories of Ned Herrman and his “Whole Brain Concept”, as my favourite method because it reaches the need for diverse learning styles and openness, depending on the individual person who is teaching or being taught. For more facts about this teaching method see the enclosed papers about Ned Herrman.
Other questions are about how we can create a social environment where the best conditions for artistic development exists, without the temptation of prejudism that so often finds its way into institutions when a common philosophy must be found.
In my research and interpretation of written material that I have used in this thesis, it is clear to me now that there are dilemmas as far as how to deal with modernity and its consequences in a conservatory. On one hand it is clear to me that, according to Giddens, the time we live in now, is a time where the individual is living out his own reflexive project of the self, in the midst of so many possible outcomes for this. And, as mentioned earlier, I dare to say that some music students now choose a conservatory study, for reasons that are more connected to the creation of an identity, related to the tendencies of the modern society and the self-identity affected by this. On the other hand, the question is if a conservatory should consider itself as an institution where people must study on an academic level (which is the situation today), where the main focus is on the material and technique that is studied, or if it should involve itself in the more psychological aspects of the education via new learning methods, more democratic structure and openness towards change, by influence from students, teachers and staff.
This is the dilemma Giddens calls unification versus fragmentation. How should a conservatory deal with the massive change, intentional and extensional, which is a consequence of modernity and still find an overall, common philosophy for the institution? 
It is a dilemma which is complex in its own way. My personal opinion is that positive communication, curiosity and openness are the only ways to achieve unification in a conservatory, rather than letting things go their own way with no sense of direction.
If I should continue my research on this matter, I would try to find out which ways of communication and organisation that could have this unifying effect on an institution and, which teaching methods that could be most effective for a music study.

Musicality as a goal ?

As far as being one of the future vocal teachers, who will be teaching students in the near future, I have realised that it is a big responsibility to guide a student and teach him in a way that supports his own unique expression and musicality.
I think that in order to develop new styles of music it is necessary to respect new ways of singing and new ways of playing the instruments which have been played for many, many years. This requires trust in the students potential and talent and to work on a level where this can be developed together with a technique that will at least not harm this expression. My teacher, Kevyn Lettau, once said “We don’t need another Ella Fitzgerald or a new Stevie Wonder, we need to find new ways of saying what we need to say!”
In a conservatory it must, in my opinion, be the most important goal to allow students and teachers to focus on making music by demonstrating trust, openness and will towards this. Even today, in this complex world of systems we all have to fit into some way or the other.

Throughout my whole period of studying, first in LA, then in Rotterdam, I have met teachers who have inspired me very much in many aspects, as mentioned earlier. If I should draw one single conclusion to what they have all showed me, I would conclude that the best way to study music and to create art and beauty is to have one focus: Musicality!
When we musicians are different, perhaps even on different levels of playing, there is one place we can really meet as equals; in the process of creating music together, bringing out our inner feeling of musicality. Without this we are merely trying to recreate what is already out there.
In my lessons from Raul Wijfels, Rotterdam Conservatory, I have become aware of the importance of how we address this musicality, that we constantly must search for ways to reach this place in a student where he can bring it ‘out to play’. As mentioned earlier, the Whole Brain Method by Ned Herrman is the method which I think could possibly reach the many aspects of how to reach this musicality and develop it from a perspective of adapting to how the student is, not from a point of view of what the curriculum says should be worked on.
When we maintain this common goal, to develop musicality and make sure that this can develop freely in lessons and in an institutional environment, we invite students and teachers as well, to bring out their own personal expression. But not only that, if it is considered as a common vision for the whole institution, it will perhaps allow new ways of going where we want to go, with the support of the acknowledgement of how important it is to stay focused on musicality and creativity.
Musicality and creativity can be compared with Giddens’ term reflexive awareness, which was discussed earlier, because it takes creativity to adapt and develop new goals and methods. Musicality is the same as a kind of intuition, which is a very important part of getting the ideas we need to see in which direction we are going. I believe that musicality can be used in a practical approach, in lessons and when figuring out a structure for a conservatory curriculum. As an example can be mentioned to teach more from listening than playing from reading scores.
When people talk about if someone has “it” or not, they are probably talking about musicality. It reaches across styles and even technique but needs the right surroundings to be heard.
One of the most influential factors on music today is the media and because of the consequences of modernity, that we are looking for an identity far away from tradition in a complex, multiple choice-world in order to keep a protective cocoon, many young people want to be just like the stars they see on tv, they want to have “it”. This influence is very strong and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with musicality and creativity. Rather, it is more like the re-producing/re-inventing phenomenon I was implying in earlier chapters. In such a case where a singer wants to study music in a conservatory, who is more attracted to the idea of being like the guys on tv, I would call it a reflexive project of the self, as Giddens talks about, since it is more about the development talking place for the person than the development involving musicality and creativity.
I want to stress that I’m not saying that it makes the journey less important or less worthwhile, in fact I think that the process is just as important and I think that music is a wonderful tool to develop this reflexive project of the self and besides, a student like this may prove to have great musicality. However, as teachers and institutions we need to be aware of influences from the modern society. This will help us when we teach, study and take part in development. It will also help us bringing us back to the first question we could ask ourselves: Why do I want to play music and be a musician?”.
Endless methods and the best technique teachers can’t help us answer that question but the reason why I find it important to teach from a basis of curiosity and musicality is, that a method should help us supporting and feeding that one idea that made us want to be musicians so that we can return to our spontaneous expression after dealing with technique, theory and systematic learning approaches.
  

List of literature.

Anthony Giddens, “Modernity and Self-Identity” (Standford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991).

Suzanna Eken, “Den Menneskelige Stemme” (Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag, 1998).

Jon-Roar Bjørkvold, “Det Musiske Menneske” (Trondheim: Freidig Forlag and Jon-Roar Bjørkvold, 1989).