The study of music contributes in important ways to the quality of every student's life. Every musical work is a product of its time and place, although some works transcend their original settings and continue to appeal to humans through their timeless and universal attraction. Through singing, playing instruments, and composing, students can express themselves creatively, while the knowledge of notation and performance traditions enables them to learn new music independently throughout their lives.
Skills in analysis, evaluation, and synthesis are important because they enable students to recognize and pursue excellence in their musical experiences and to understand and enrich their environment. Because music is an integral part of history, the ability to listen with understanding is essential if students are to gain a broad cultural and historical perspective. The adult life of every student is enriched by the skills, knowledge, and habits acquired in the study of music.
Music Education at Risk is not a collection of anecdotes, theories, or opinions. It is an informative letter of the decline in music education. Although the news in the letter is dire, I doubt that anyone will be greatly surprised. Music Education at Risk merely states a huge cultural transformation that most Americans have already noted—our society’s massive shift toward electronic media for entertainment and information instead of live and in person cooperative education.
Music Education requires a degree of active attention and engagement. Indeed, music proficiency itself is a progressive skill that depends on years of education and practice. By contrast, most electronic media such as television, recordings, and radio make fewer demands on their audiences, and indeed often require no more than passive participation. Even interactive electronic media, such as video games and the Internet, foster shorter attention spans and accelerated gratification.
While oral culture has a rich immediacy that is not to be dismissed, and electronic media offer the considerable advantages of diversity and access, music education affords irreplaceable forms of focused attention and contemplation that make complex communications and insights possible. To lose such intellectual capability would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment.
More than music education is at stake. As this letter demonstrates, musicians play a more active and involved role in their communities. The decline in musicians, therefore, parallels a larger retreat from participation in civic and cultural life. The long-term implications of this not only affect music education but all the arts.
Music does make the difference. It affects people's lives, children's educations, and the quality of life in America's communities. Music programs have often been in jeopardy nationwide. To counteract this trend, in March 1991, the National Commission on Music Education released a report titled Growing Up Complete: The Imperative for Music Education. The report examines the serious decline of music and the other arts and makes a strong case for the value of music and music education for all young people.
Based on the commission's recommendations, MENC: The National Association for Music Education, NAMM: The International Music Products Association, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. formed the National Coalition for Music Education to represent the music community—music educators, performers, and people in the music business. This unprecedented coalition has initiated a national campaign to promote music education in the schools. MusiQuest will assist in this coalition.
To be successful, we will need the energy and support of many people and organizations. Everyone is encouraged to join in this effort. Although the problems facing music education are national in scope, they are manifested locally. Interested people must work together on the national, state, and local levels. Success will depend on communication, information, and determination.
Educational reform must grow from the roots up. Interested people must present decision makers—school board members, administrators, legislators, and the general public—with compelling reasons for making music and the other arts an essential part of the school program. Music education advocacy groups must work to ensure that decision makers heed their advice and implement appropriate programs.
What is to be done? There is surely no single solution to the present dilemma, just as there is no single cause. Each concerned group—writers, teachers, publishers, composers, lyricists, performing artists - all will view the situation from a different perspective, and each will offer their own recommendations. The important thing now is to understand that America can no longer take active and engaged music education for granted.
The music community, together with arts advocates and parents of music students, are the people with the motivation and the expertise to spread the message: Just as there can be no music without learning, no education is complete without music.
Corporate Sponsorship
· See A Video
MusiQuest™ - An Interactive Experience for "Artists and Students In Concert".
Utopia Artists, LLC · Jupiter, Fl 33458 Ph/Fx: 561-743-1990 Cell:
914-319-9995
