"Get Smarter" Music: Making knowledge from know-how

This paper provides an account of a range of activities included in the Bachelor of Popular Music (BPM) program that are intended to enhance the creative skills of popular musicians. These processes are largely a reflection of learning practices that are normal in the practice of popular music in the broader community where self-assessment, peer feedback and self-directed study are common. Popular musicians are thought to acquire their abilities to make music through immersion in popular music culture, a learning by osmosis process that results in high levels of implicit know-how and the ability to actually make popular music rather than the production of high levels of knowledge that can be spoken or written about. Within the major study Popular Music Production, students reflect in writing on their creative processes; this brings their knowing of popular music out of the domain of implicit know-how into conscious awareness, as speakable knowledge. It is this engagement with both know-how and knowledge and the relationships between them that is the focus of this paper. Introduction The Griffith University slogan, "Get Smarter", infers that university study should produce graduates who not only have better skills and more knowledge, but also are better learners, and this assumes that learning ability is not a static characteristic of a person, but something that can be developed. The Bachelor of Popular Music (BPM) teaching philosophy is based on a belief that our teaching should develop the tacit know-how of students, producing knowledge and enhancing skills. The BPM program was introduced in Semester 1, 1999, and operates from a purposebuilt recording studio facility on Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus. Students are selected through an interview and audition process that seeks to identify applicants with potential in a range of activities connected with popular music including composition, performance, and relevant academic and technical skills. The program aims to develop students’ musical and creative potential and strives to accommodate the learning practices commonly found in popular music. Semester Major Study Audio Courses Literature Courses Supporting Studies 1 Popular Music Production