Anyone see VH1's "Save the Music" commercials? I've heard music educators discuss the possibility that music and other arts might be cut from the schools, or discuss ways to rebuild and strengthen such programs, but what do you think? Is music endangered in the schools? Is the quality of instruction there? Did you ever have a teacher who make you look at music a bit more seriously?15 responses total.
If you weren't already serious whydja havva music teacher?
Well, I was already somewhat serious about music when I started (I invested $450 of my paper route money when I was 15 w/o knowing how to play a thing) but I certainly had lots of music teachers who made me better and helped me take seriously other aspects of music that I had not considered.
That's a good reason to have an instructor :)
I don't know why we aren't talking about this more-- music educators see the demise of music in the schools as a real threat-- funding for the arts is often the first thing to be cut in many schools (Mr. Holland's Opus deal with this issue.) How can we be sure future generations (quite possibly our children) have a good music education? What you got at least in elementary can't be taken for granted..
Honesty, music is less likely to be cut from school programming then things like the Fine Arts...Painting and what-not. Because, I mean, Really! How can we have a great Football team without a Marching Band? (Yes, there is sarcasm and bitterness there) I've gone to two school districts. The first one was pretty poor, and it's music program sucked. (we learned a few songs for the school Christmas program every year...other then that we hand wrote stuff off the board about classical composers that we caed nothing about....and that wtarted in Kindergarten!) The second one was Ann Arbor....which has a lot of pride in it's music program, and I had the biggest kiss-up of a choir director. We always had enough money to do whatever we wanted. Of course it helps that our Choirs, Bands, and Orchestras were all award-winning every year, so I'm sure that they wouldn't want to lose that. My jewerly class almost got canned due to lack of money, though. (sigh) Much as I love music in schools, I don't know that there is too much worry about it going away.
People in A2 are biased, I'm afraid, because the area has such a rich heritage of music. The Ann Arbor Symposium was a forum for child psychologists and music educators to discuss how children learn music. Other areas are not so fortunate to have that great of resources. Over here in the Northwest, music programs do not have the same tradition of music in the schools. Teacher shortages in Alaska, California, and other states here are pronounced in music education areas. Award-winning music ensembles may give a music department in a school district political power for a time, but really, a quality music education for everyone is sacrificed. My own high school instrumental music department had problems precisely because we had such stunning talent from a small number of individuals, and they *never* learned to support the rest of the group. In marching band competitions, we consistently received poor marks for ensemble performance, while individual performance was high. It's not so much a matter of music programs going away. It is a question of the quality of those programs. Politics give music programs problems in a number of ways: funding, presentation (in comparison to other departments), and..history. Yes, history. Those that write the history books tell us what music is good, serious, and worthwhile. Now, rest assured, MENC literature (MENC stands for Music Educators National Conference) address issues of how popular music styles can be used to teach musical concepts, but there are a lot of music educators who teach Western European music and nothing else. Recently, the Music Educators Journal even discussed the possibility that the instruction of such historical styles (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.) may disappear or be diminished in the next century. Music educators have also talked a great deal about interdisciplinary studies, and other disciplines of the fine arts play a key role. Granted, I see more activity in the elementary school, but motivationally, I'm glad at least it's being emphasized there. Ideally, we want to motivate children to music early and let them see how it's connected to all other subjects, including the arts. Yes, funding is always a problem. However, good educators know how to make the best of what they do have. Music does not need to be a finanically-dependent activity. Teachers who study Karl Orff's process to teaching music (music and movement) especially emphasize this. Yes, Orff instruments can get expensive, but they are merely an extension of the process of teaching music and are not absolutely necessary. My opinion is that promotion of music must include the fine arts. Indeed, music is a part of the fine arts. I suppose this involves establishing community support. One of the finest examples of the fine arts coming together was the presentation of _Fiddler On The Roof_ in my hometown. It involved all of the high schools, and all of the fine arts departments-- instrumental, vocal, dramatics, and so on. Both performances sold out and there was several articles and stories in the news. I guess what is necessary for an educational program to survive (be it in the fine arts or otherwise) is community support. Generally, the community at large will determine what they want to see and hear. If you feel your interests are not being represented, it takes finding support from others (friends, family, workmates, etc.) and working to make your case public. Where there's a will, there's a way.
You make many good points. Frankly, it would be interesting to see if something similar to the UM Halloween Concert concept could be tried at the elementary or high school levels. Granted, the UM repertoire may be too difficult for kids, but its a wonderful interactive way to interest kids in classical music. And it wouldn't be to hard to adapt the Halloween theme to other disciplines such as drama.
We had professional operatic musicians come to CWU and give a performance for the local elementary school children. I don't see why an orchestra, wind ensemble, or concert band couldn't do much the same for the same students. Already, many high school and college music programs will come to younger students classes to promote their music programs, or they will sponsor events-- there is the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the U of I in Moscow, ID, and also the lesser known Band Festival at the same location. I can think of times where universities have hosted marching band competitions. I think it would be very easy to extend these ideas to other art programs in the schools (but they would have to be modified somewhat for art disciplines that are not event-based).
I've had a pretty good musical education in the Ann Arbor schools. mostly in middle school and High School with the band programs. That sort of music education is quite alive and well in Ann Arbor, but learning about music other than playing (not sure how to word this), like learning about composers and such was pretty lacking in my education. The only place where people I know have gotten this was in the Humanities program that some students take in their senior year. As for elementary school, I had a crazy teacher who threw a chair at a student once, he had quite the temper, and basically we sang along with a record player, quite similar to what we did in music class when I went to school in the Willow Run district. That's my assesment of things... hope it made sense.
Well, I've noted from all of you that Ann Arbor and Detroit have powerful music resources. Our current orchestra director, Paul Cobbs, came to us from the University of Michigan. Dr. Cobbs is a thoughtful African-American man with an authoritative presence sprinkled with a marvelous sense of humor. (His speciality instruments are the viola and trombone-- if that explains anything.) Some CWU students speculated that the department paid a lot of money to encourage him to stay, but he likes the Pacific Northwest area. His office is still a practice room, which I thought was a rather sad welcome, but an unfortunate necessity. CWU recently built a state-of-the art Science building and remodeled the Education building to the same level, but the music department is still stuck with a junky old building that currently holds twice the capacity (counting music majors alone) that is was designed to hold. It's so sad when the arts continues to be seen as a 'frill' in the schools.
Especially at the college level, where it isn't just something that a lot of people do on top of academic subjects. In college, plenty of people major in music, and that isn't neccesarily a frill, they deserve the resources that all of the other departments have.
Exactly. I'm sick and tired of the shit the music dept., has to face, but we're still essentially in queue. Science and Education were there first.
Music has always been part of my life, since before day one. I really can't imagine life without it.
We finally got our pamphlet from VH1's Save The Music Foundation! Perhaps I'll have to list some of the pointers here.
good idea. I'll bring it (or you can bring it)
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