Cultivating Hybridity: An Interdisciplinary Philosophy of Applied Tuba Instruction

Instructional materials, syllabi and scholarly documents, were evaluated using discrete comparative analysis in an attempt to develop a curricular approach that is interdisciplinary and multicultural to ensure compliance with new market demands of tuba professorship listings and performing tubists. These materials encompass the areas of applied instruction, theory instruction, curriculum development, and applied jazz instruction. The specific musical attributes addressed by this study are stylistic fluency, scalar proficiency, and music composition. It was predicted that comparing and analyzing applied tuba syllabi, applied jazz syllabi, and applied composition syllabi would reveal large scale commonalities between the three disciplines. It was concluded that modifications to the standard tuba curriculum, that reflect an intercultural and cross-curricular awareness, are possible. A proposed curriculum guide and recommendation for further study is enclosed