Texas Tech University

TTU Music faculty Roger Landes playing guitar on stage

School of Music
the Vernacular Music Center
about us

About Us

Testimonials from Friends of the VMC

 

VMC Mission Statement

The mission of the TTU Vernacular Music Center (founded 2000) is to provide a center for in-depth interdisciplinary research, study, teaching and advocacy on behalf of the world's vernacular musics and dance—their construction, history and role in defining cultural life in human communities— in all cultures and historical periods, and the contributions they can make in the modern world. It is the first research center housed within the Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts to be officially recognized by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. The VMC is an innovator in building partnerships and generating outside funding for these initiatives, with grants to the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Civic Lubbock. 

The VMC engages with folk and traditional music and dance from around the world: "vernaculars" that are learned, taught, shared, and passed-on by ear and in the memory, with the arts of improvisation and performance practice, ​and with practice-based research and publication about them, as they intersect with history, culture, and community. The VMC is dedicated to the study of the "vernacular" processes by which music and dance can be taught and passed on as a community-building activity, as well as assisting in the ongoing cultivation of arts in the American Southwest, across the country, and around the globe.

The Texas Tech VMC offers graduate and undergraduate courses and ensembles, open to students in music, dance, fine arts, arts & humanities, social sciences, business, law, and international public policy. The VMC emphasizes "teaching across the curriculum,” drawing on the expertise of a faculty team from a range of disciplines. Ample opportunities are provided for students’ interaction with visiting scholars and guest teachers. The VMC serves as both a liaison and consultant for partners such as learned societies, archives, non-profits, museums, public broadcasting, and private corporations.

A central and unique part of the VMC's core mission is the training of young arts professionals: young singers, dancers, players, teachers, and organizers who, through their VMC experience, are empowered to advocate for and lead vernacular art initiatives in their own campuses, communities, and future activities. Our students apprentice in the skills of combining speaking, playing, singing, dancing, and teaching on behalf of participatory community arts; such activities are part of every VMC initiative. We particularly emphasize team- and project-based learning, within which developing arts professionals collaborate to create performances, new works, and new initiatives; a glance at the list of “VMC Past Productions” provides examples. VMC alumni are uniquely positioned as advocates within and beyond the university: on curriculum committees, to state education coordinating boards, ISD school boards, and Boards of Regents, but also to other arts organizations, educators, and community leaders.

VMC alumni embody and promulgate cultural diversity and a vision of inclusive excellence. This aspect of the Mission is coalesced by the VMC Scholarships program, but all VMC students and alumni are powerful and capable advocates in support of our ideals. 

The VMC serves as a foundation organization for the study, appreciation, and support of vernacular music and dance within academics and the community at large. We also sponsor a calendar of special projects, and annual arts and cultural events, which are open to students and public alike. 

history 

“The TTU Vernacular Music Center was founded in the Fall of 2000, when Dr Christopher J Smith was first hired as Assistant Professor of Musicology by then-Director of the School of Music Garry Owens. Director Owens asked Chris about a future vision for his own research and Chris replied that, within a few years, he would like to be running a small center for research, teaching, and advocacy in the world's vernacular musics. He was thinking of several models from his own alma mater, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University: most notably, the Latin American Music Center which had been founded by the composer Juan Orrego Salas, and of the Early Music Institute, founded by Professor Thomas Binkley. 

“The term ‘vernacular,’ which comes from linguistics, was specifically employed because it is a reference to people speaking in day-to-day conversation in order to get social business done. The implication is that a vernacular language is practical and functional, rather than (necessarily) aesthetic or ‘classical,’ and so vernacular music is functional music: music that is learned taught and passed on by ear and in the memory, music which is employed by people to celebrate life cycle events and major transformations; to sing and dance, to celebrate and mourn. “Vernacular” emphasizes that we are interested in shared goals of communication and function, rather than divisions between high and low or classical versus folk. 

Director Owens encouraged the foundation of the VMC, and over the next 20 years we developed a model for research, teaching, and advocacy in the world's vernacular musics and dance: performance art forms which are learned, taught, and passed on by ear and in the memory. Over two decades, the VMC both grew and evolved, as faculty members developed new specializations and new colleagues entered the ranks of the VMC partnerships. We developed collaborations with campus and community organizations, and a slate of both annual and one-off special events, the annual Solstice and Lubbock Guitarslingers Concerts, the biennial Arts Practice Research and Electric Guitar in American Culture conferences, and a series of watershed collaborative creative teaching productions.

Throughout that era, we were working with a model of individual project budgets, but with the appointment of Dr Martin Camacho as Dean of the Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts, and Dr Andrew Stetson as Director of the School of Music, there was new encouragement to propose the VMC for formal recognition by the research by the Office of the Vice President for Research. Throughout that process of application, we reflected upon, evolved, concretized, and formalized our sense of what it is that we have done, do now, and might aspire to do in the future. When formal Center status was granted, with the very important recognition of the VMC's role through status and the welcome resource of an annual budget, we were brought to where we are today. 

Throughout this website and throughout our history, you will see reflected our student-centered, project-oriented, collaborative and team-based teaching and learning, our advocacy for the world's vernacular musics and dance and for their efficacy in human community revitalization, and our continued commitment to living, as the American composer Henry Cowell put it, “In the whole world of music.”

School of Music

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