The Future of Education

A lot of highschool teenagers are attracted by the idea of playing an instrument, of playing music. In Romania there are a lot of teachers and institutions where this is possible, but usually for the classical genre.
So teenagers end up being very well trained in classical music, although they would like to play modern music such as rock, jazz, pop. They usually get together and try to make original music or covers, but because there is no form of institution suitable for their age for these genres of music, they lack the knowledge of how this music should be approached and the discipline to do it. The only place where these genres are studied is the Arts University, which is above their educational level.
The project “Bandabeat” has three phases. The first one is the selection by audition of 30 teenagers who will attend to the project (5 pianists, 5 guitarists, 5 drummers, 5 bassists and  5 vocalists) . After the selection they are all grouped randomly or based on their musical level in five bands.
The second phase consists in 8 workshops (guitar, bass, piano, drums, canto, composition, show), a visit to the recording studio and assisted rehearsals of the bands. The trainers assisting the rehearsals will not be members of the jury, although they are well known musicians too.  During a month, the participants attend to all these activities learning how to act in a band, how to work for the music they like and how to improve their own music. At the end of this month, they have to be able to perform in concert one composition and one cover song with their band.
The final phase is the concert. The jury will be formed by the musicians who presented the workshops during the second phase. There are four prizes: the one for the show, the one for the cover song, the one for the composition and popularity. The last one is decided by the public by secret vote during the concert.   The winner  is decided by the total sum of the points for the three categories (composition, show, cover). The winning band will receive a free recording session to record their own composition, will get media exposure and will be included in national  teenage concerts.
This project covers up for the lack of education for modern music genres and it takes teenagers to think music more than just an activity to which they have no responsibility.
This paper has the objective to present the teaching methodology used in this new and unexplored ground in music education – the modern music, which has its own approach, very different from the classical one. Although it is supposed to be fun, and it still is, is not at all easy and the various methods of working and leading a band, teenage or not, have to be known by all music teachers, but they may as well inspire other team-building projects.