Whilst I can only agree that the notes themselves can't hurt you, I really believe that music, with its power to carry any message or paint the most vivid picture, can actually be quite dangerous. Teachers experimenting with this danger need to tread carefully. Getting it wrong might deny the awe and wonder that all people yearn for, whether they know it or not.
Musical experiences are profoundly memorable - somehow adding a potency to every other phenomenon - film, theatre, football games. We reach for music to express our histories and identify our cultures lest our memories disappear in the passage of time.
So, why do music teachers, burdened with the enourmous responsibility of heightening this musical experience, so often succeed only in putting this whole marvelous, mystical aspect of our very being into an airtight box that is only opened once a week, when its time to pour into the classroom for a weekly dose of clap this or hit that.
Dangerous? Why? - Because a failure to connect with music on some level might well mean that one is subliminally disconnecting from culture or even society as a whole. What is worse is that it is so difficult to pinpoint the moment at which this born musical connection becomes apparent and measurable by the individual. Music teachers can reduce this connection to an ability to sing some chart hit or count the number of times the clock chimes in Danse Macabre. (neither of which, by the way, are totally pointless activities either.)
We need to make our schools more musical, and our students need to better understand the connection they have with the music that is all around them, as well as the music that is connected to everything that they will ever learn about or feel. Armed with the confidence that this connection will never let them down, they need to create and perform and listen.
And music teachers need to watch when this happens, and understand how to draw out the ideas and aspirations and give them wings.
I don't just want to be yet another guy that watched a hoard of youngsters jump for joy when they finally gave up the violin.
Musical experiences are profoundly memorable - somehow adding a potency to every other phenomenon - film, theatre, football games. We reach for music to express our histories and identify our cultures lest our memories disappear in the passage of time.
So, why do music teachers, burdened with the enourmous responsibility of heightening this musical experience, so often succeed only in putting this whole marvelous, mystical aspect of our very being into an airtight box that is only opened once a week, when its time to pour into the classroom for a weekly dose of clap this or hit that.
Dangerous? Why? - Because a failure to connect with music on some level might well mean that one is subliminally disconnecting from culture or even society as a whole. What is worse is that it is so difficult to pinpoint the moment at which this born musical connection becomes apparent and measurable by the individual. Music teachers can reduce this connection to an ability to sing some chart hit or count the number of times the clock chimes in Danse Macabre. (neither of which, by the way, are totally pointless activities either.)
We need to make our schools more musical, and our students need to better understand the connection they have with the music that is all around them, as well as the music that is connected to everything that they will ever learn about or feel. Armed with the confidence that this connection will never let them down, they need to create and perform and listen.
And music teachers need to watch when this happens, and understand how to draw out the ideas and aspirations and give them wings.
I don't just want to be yet another guy that watched a hoard of youngsters jump for joy when they finally gave up the violin.
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