February 19, 2023

#103. From Songwriting to Developing a Popular Music Program with Caleb James Part II

56 minutes

This week on A Voice and Beyond we continue delving into the world of Popular Music education in academia, as we release part two of our two-part interview with our guest, Caleb James who is a Senior Lecturer in the Bachelor of Music at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University and is the Course Convenor of the Popular Music Program.

In Part 1, Caleb shared his career pathway from a highly successful career in the music industry as an award-winning touring performer, international songwriter and music producer, working at a high level with Record Labels, and Distribution Labels, and how he transitioned into an academic career in a supervisory role. In this episode, Caleb discusses how he has developed and continues updating the course content for the popular music program, which is growing in demand every year.

Although QCGU has adopted such an innovative popular music program, Caleb understands that not all academic institutions are so receptive or progressive when it comes to change. Caleb describes some of the roadblocks that teachers, educators and the institutions themselves may encounter while trying to update and create new curricula. He tells us quite candidly that when developing new academic music programs, it requires a commitment to controlled chaos. He believes that students who do arts’ degrees don’t want to go down traditional learning pathways and it takes steady calculated risks to create an environment where students are excited to be there to learn.

Remember this is Part 2 of a two-part interview with Caleb James and Part 1 of this interview, is episode number 102. Once again, I am really thrilled to be sharing another episode with Caleb, my boss from QCGU.

In this episode
1:06 - Welcoming back Caleb James
4:24 - The origin of the popular music programme at QCGU
15:17 - The Popular Music Program today
23:20 - Writing 20 songs in 1 day
30:37 - What Caleb looks for during auditions
36:27 - Self Care
50:03 - Caleb’s one piece of advice

Find Caleb Online