yeah you said it Sean.

I think there's something maybe buried in a sacred text somewhere about the time when all the musicians have set down their instruments and deceased from their songs.

In the southeast when I was there, much of the population plays an instrument, and coming from the more northerly parts of the states I was kind of culture shocked. Likewise returning.

The question is whether to be considered educated should mean able to find a job, or whether there is something more to it. It may be a bit 18th century, but a well-educated person is one who knows rather a lot about several facets of his/her own society and times, and a generous amount about times and places not his/her own. Music, foreign and ancient languages, painting, sculpting, dance, acting, philosophy all have their place at the center of what it is to be a fully educated human side by side with science, math and basic reading.

Perhaps the problems stems from an excessive focus on the 3 Rs, of which only one actually starts with that letter.

In North America, music and musicians are among the most popular subjects of discussion.

However, in North America, the occupation of being a musician is the poorest paid, and least respected.

and all the obstruction of access to all that prior knowledge and human skills restricts an individuals ability to think using intuitive abstract reasoning. It's a muddle without that. What appears to be real is real, and not often as it is an invented reality which is swallowed up as though it were living substance. I could go on.

well, I'm not seeing a great outpouring of music in similar vein as there was in earlier eras. Or if it is it's underground. In the mainstream every once in a while someone comes up with seven songs, makes a bundle, we all get tired of it, and then there's silence.

Music should be self perpetuating like Nature, unless there's a concentrated effort to finish it off.

Yes, the masterminds of the economic system are killing everything natural off piecemeal and using the economy as a weapon.

You want to know why we aren't out on the streets, because we have several mouths to feed and bills to pay and we fear the loss of that.

I'd always loved listening to music, but it wasn't until I was 35 or so that I got me an instrument and started trying to play. Amazing stuff, and I'm always striving to learn something new. I'm oh so happy I got that cheap guitar ten years ago and started on this. Only wished I'd started early.

That's not the fault of public schools though. In Tennessee in the 70's, there was periodic bits of music classes along the way. At one point I had a music teacher trying to convince me to join the junior HS band in the summer. At the time, playing baseball seemed a better way to spend the summer. Nowadays, I wished I'd joined the band and started learning more about music twenty years sooner.

Be careful about saying you aren't seeing an outpouring of music in this era. It depends on where you look. If you just pay attention to commercial radio and the concerts sponsered by Clear Channel, I can see where you might think that.

But there are other music traditions in this country that are alive and well and going strong. Me, I've been a deadhead for most my life (that's Grateful Dead for those who don't know the term). They deliberately followed a different model from commercial radio, and treated music as a community experience instead of something to be packaged and sold.

So, the Dead always allowed people to record their shows from the audience, and then allowed these recordings to be traded and later downloaded as long as you aren't making money from it. And they've never objected to things like guitar tabs of this music on the internet (something the RIAA types hate and try to kill off), so they've always supported others learning how to play their music. They always treated their music as something to be shared with a community that they were a part of, instead of this divide\chasm between the artist on stage and the listening audience that you see elsewhere.

That's more the tradition of music in this country. And it was very successful. They always had an audience where an extraordinary percent of the audience also plays an instrument. They made tons of money because their live shows always sold as many tickets as they could fit people into the venue. And now the following generations are continuing this with their own bands in the same tradition.

If you just listen to commercial radio, you'd barely know this exists. Unless you got stuck in the traffic jam of a 100,000 of us going to a music festival you never heard about on commercial radio to see musicians and bands that you never hear about on commercial radio. But that sort of genre of music, and some related American folk traditions like the variations on bluegrass music are alive and well and going strong.

I play the trumpet poorly.

We may have eternity to perfect our skills, if we don't this is wasted time. Kind of like a dream that never was.

I wish I could remember the author's name, but a doctor wrote a book sometime in the early nineties comparing the advances in science with art and about advances in science FOLLOWING new forms of art. I don't know how to express this idea clearly in words, but the doctor was basically saying that new ideas and forms of art were usually followed by new breakthroughs in the sciences. Most of the book goes back to the days of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle and makes comparisons with the art of those times and science and works its way up to the present. Many of the great figures in history weren't just involved with art or science, but commonly both. Michelangelo comes to mind here.

One example I can give of this happening is the new projects being worked on at DARPA which are inspired by art. In this case it would be the literary arts, namely science fiction and the movies coming out of Hollywood; technology that seemed impossible 30 to 40 years ago are today becoming reality. The downside to citing DARPA is that the end uses of these new technologies are not for improving society or supporting true democratic principles.

Yes, I think this is very good black and white snapshot of the value of esthetics and art in our lives. Bye, bye Miss American Pie! Unless we regain the arts in our education and carve out a renewed figure of America and we can paint a picture of what tomorrow can look like. Maybe we too can have a grin on our faces again, like the Mona Lisa.

COMarc,

You have to know at this point I'm with you! I think many weeks ago we may have had this conversation before.

I have musically inclined friends fortunately. But I don't have a car so don't sit in traffic so don't listen to the radio.

The economy chased many of the musical friends out of the area and are now part of the diaspora to which I belong.

I'm out of the loop.

Preserve that music!

The Renaissance ideal of the well-rounded education is a beautiful one. Playing piano helped me with mathematics for sure.

Note the amount of $ that goes into sports, brute competitions of athletic excellence; or investment in conformist styles of pre-fab "learning" and related apparatus (apparati?). Music, art, culture are the expressions of Venus, so say it along with me, it's time to graduate beyond MARS rules since all that leads to is more war, more worship of raw power, competition, and bloodbaths disguised as his-story.

Too bad that many schools put arts education right down there with world languages. Yet, they revere sports, especially high school football here in Texas. It is incredible the amount of funding that is diverted from academics to fund the "Friday night lights."
Students should have music, art, and theater throughout their 12 years of public education. If we want to "compete in the global marketplace", we should also teach other languages starting in Kindergarten or first grade, and continue this throughout their 12 years of schooling. Yet, many schools do not begin other language instruction until high school, and then only require two years, which is not enough to achieve fluency.
Music education is associated with improved math comprehension, as well as higher verbal reasoning. Not to mention the study of history, which goes along with a good musical education. Sadly, if students do not have good reading skills, all the rest suffers. Many students are years below grade level in reading, and many cannot write a coherent sentence or paragraph, let alone a research paper. But, they can throw, kick or catch a ball, or run fast. Great skills to "compete in the global marketplace."
No wonder we are getting our ass handed to us by some other countries. Oh well, at least we'll have some obedient, dumb sheeple who will not be able to think critically so they can go along with crap like the neocon never-ending "war on terror"....

Perhaps the coming reckoning will avail our culture to organically select the ones that will survive, and my guess is that B$-operatives will be out of a job (other than shoveling sh!t).

Who would you choose of your neighbors to join your community?

This is going to be an object lesson in evolution, and the test is oh so FINAL.

Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi

Without music education the violence loving athletes won't have band camp attendees to beat up and humiliate...Save The Music!

Never fear TURK, ... and the music played on ... as there is a readily growing population of 'squints', that have seldom escaped similar predation.

Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi

Because I squint, now I fear...

I have played guitar since my early teens. At various times, I've played publicly, but what modicum of money I made has never, I'm sure, covered the sums I've spent on instruments. Anyway, music has been a lifelong friend and companion, sometimes the only one. So I'm all in favor of presenting a music experience to the young. As for the grander notions that teaching music, and other arts, is intrinsically important (as Aristotle and others may have said) for personal development, I'll abstain on that vote.

However, and I throw out this caveat reluctantly, literacy and a passing familiarity with mathematics and social studies (under whatever guise) have to come first, and school budgets/expenditures must be prioritized. Having said that, the "education bureacracy" doesn't fool me. I recall that at one time the Miami-Dade County school system had more employees in administrative positions than it had teachers, and I'm not sure that's changed, or is unusual. Wasting money, then saying we have no money, does not engender kind understanding with me.

COmarc made a fine point about the outpouring of music. Commerical radio (for reasons valid to the business model) presents very limited playlists. I actively search for new music, iTunes, satellite radio, whatever else I can access, and there is so much that is creative, new, and good, I cannot keep up with it.

The exclusive emphasis on the instrumental value of music (it helps with this; it develops a propensity for that), with no mention of music as a supremely valuable end-in-itself, is evidence of just how impoverished our conception of education (and the full person) has become.

"Music is the highest philosophy." Plato

We don't always even do music right - in the schools that I've seen, it tends to focus on instrumental to the exclusion of singing. I thoroughly enjoyed playing a french horn in high school band, but haven't touched one since I graduated - but I, and most of us, sing regularly, even if its in the shower. And all of us carry our voices with us for the rest of our lives. It's just that by age 10, we've become convinced that we can't sing "well enough" (or draw "well enough", for that matter).

I think the difficulties are that 1) we don't tend to want to have courses without grades (and why should a 7 year old have a grade in music or art, save only perhaps to indicate participation?) and 2) we don't have a clue what to "use" it for, as if only things that can be "used" or show "progress" are somewhat useful.

But then, when was the last time that someone considered why we teach most of what is offered in school? Personally, my physics classes are packed not because there's oodles of people yearning to become scientists or engineers but because I work on making it interesting and relevant for those who will never take it again. That isn't all that common. But lots of adolescents would leap at the opportunity to take a (good) philosophy course to let them explore the questions they spend so much of adolescence working out on their own without guidance. Perhaps the problem is that we don't look at we value what we do?

Craig

Twoblueday,

The wisest words I've read in a long time are yours, "music has been a lifelong friend and companion, sometimes the only one."

Amen

...although the accordian should be banned...

Venezuela is the best current example of how successfully public financing can stimulate music making, and how amazingly a dedication to music can effect people. Just google the top organizational fruit of this 30 yr. old effort: "Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra." And now President Chávez's government has announced a major increase in funding which promises to greatly extend the reach of this program.
More info. on this and other Venez. music presented and critiqued by an ethnomusicologist in recent Afropop Worldwide show.

And the pinnacle of musical technological achievement in western Europe in the late 1800s is spelled "accordion."

"And the pinnacle of musical technological achievement in western Europe in the late 1800s is spelled "accordion."' - That's accordion to you! (couldn't resist, apologies)

"Venezuela is the best current example of how successfully public financing can stimulate music making..." That's beautiful! I'd love to see the look on Springsteens face when the government taps his ticket sales in the name of music education for the commons...

mf,

Yes. Jazz is largely considered the greatest cultural export of America. We also invented Blues, Gospel, Rock and Roll, Bluegrass, Zydeco, and countless subgenres.

Across the country, music is the most popular aspect of our culture, more popular than film. Recall when Ali G tricked Trump into a brief meeting, Trump correctly answered Ali G that music is the most popular single thing in America.

Yet, the musicians that bring this cultural treasure to fellow citizens and enrich the whole world with it are forced to live like rats. Very precious few can enjoy any semblance of financial stability at any point in life.

In essence, the contribution of these musicians to the country VASTLY outweighs what is received in return. In fact, this is a SPECTACULAR example of the failure of market forces to bring about a fair return for the investment of time and talent by the musician.

I was impressed when I visited Sacre Coeur in Paris. An entire district where the state boards and feeds talented painters and allows the most promising ones to thrive without the constant terror of starvation that a similar artist would experience over here.

It is a disgraceful shame in my opinion. The argument against helping artists is that they might generate some material that the funding citizens find offensive -- like writing a song about Jesus and Mary in the sack or something.

But, it is a very weak argument. Some 40% of my tax money is going to fund a war machine that I violently oppose. My money, against my will, is being used to activate a perpetual and murdering war apparatus. And, there is nothing more morally repugnant than that.

So, those that argue against funding the arts on those grounds must be ready to allow me to de-fund the military.

Peace Train
 
Now I've been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun
 
Oh I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, some day it's going to come
 
Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again
 
Now I've been smiling lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun
 
Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train
Come on now peace train
Yes, peace train holy roller
 
Everyone jump upon the peace train
Come on now peace train
 
Get your bags together, go bring your good friends too
Cause it's getting nearer, it soon will be with you
 
Now come and join the living, it's not so far from you
And it's getting nearer, soon it will all be true
 
Now I've been crying lately, thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating, why can't we live in bliss
 
Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again

Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens)