What kind of impact does music have on your life?
Band Is Best!
The title for this month’s blog should be band, orchestra, choir, the study of music, listening to music, and music in general is the best.
But I like alliteration, therefore I decided on Band is best.
The American Scientist published an article highlighting a program called, Harmony Project and its founder, Margaret Martin. Martin started the Harmony Project in Los Angeles, California, in order to benefit underprivileged students with the opportunity to participate in music.
I have included a link to the article.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-argument-for-music-education
Those of us who have music oozing through our veins understand the importance of music and the intangible value it has on our lives. Sometimes, a lot of times, well, almost all of the time, it is difficult to explain to someone the way music affects us. We can’t explain the way music relaxes us, eases our emotions and feelings, increases our sense of elation, and comforts us in times of sadness.
I have seen people share pop songs, instrumental music, and playlists with others as a way to express their feelings and thoughts.
Music is powerful.
The following is an excerpt from the American Scientist article:
Music education manifestly supports child development in ways both easy and difficult to measure. Augmented sound processing in the brain makes young musicians better learners, which can generalize to benchmarks such as standardized tests and grades that society values in education. If the goal of public education is to equip children to be productive members of society, then the intangible argument makes the most vital points about the importance of music education. As Leonard Bernstein once said, music “can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”
I have chosen one article to support my claim that people participating in music enjoy benefits in their lives. Many studies have been conducted that support this stance, and quite honestly, I have never found a study that has shown negative impacts of studying music.
Here is where the fun begins.
Wouldn’t you think that a school administrator or administrators would encourage the participation of music in their schools and school district?
Wouldn’t you think that the desire to see students learn life-long skills that promote memory, cross-disciplinary learning, and positive social interaction with the community be a priority?
Well, one would think that administrators who state, “The student’s overall success is top priority.”, would look at the data and think, let’s encourage music, instead of, “We need to pull students out of music class because they are not doing as well on state tests”.
Better yet, they decide that it is more important to pull students involved in sports out of class so they can participate in away games.
They leave academic classes to participate in an extracurricular sport.
Let me say that again, in a little different way.
Students who have been chosen to participate in a sport are excused from core classes in order to play a sport. A sport that does not support or learning of academic principles or enhance their state test scores.
Yet, music, an intra-curricular class (involving the use of all core subjects, foreign languages, and social enhancing properties), does not hand pick students, does not choose students to make the team or weed students out and leave them standing on the sideline, has students pulled from music class or removed from those classes because they are struggling in an academic setting.
Before you get your little self in a tizzy and say, “Hey, they pull kids off teams that fail classes.”
My answer is, “Yeah, right.” I have talked to teachers who have been encouraged to give students who make an impact on sports teams another chance or extra work to raise their grade, so the student does not fail.
Don’t blow a gasket and think that I am trashing school sports. I am not, and I have had some awesome sports students in band as well as general music classes that were bright and very successful musically and athletically.
The issue is the lack of support and encouragement by the administration as well as the community towards music.
The high school band director, in a school district I had formally taught, has transformed a band from not being able to read music, into a group that is winning contests, receiving superior ratings from individual judges, sweeping all captions in marching band contests, teaching and coaching students to participate in solo and ensemble contests, and then watching those students receive superior ratings with distinction at state level, witnessing students continue their post-high school education by studying music in college, and not receive any recognition by the school district or community.
This director has directed and encouraged students to think, act, and perform as a unified entity as well as succeed as individuals. The students realize the importance of being a strong individual in a team setting in order to represent the organization in a positive way in the community.
Music classes are called “Dump classes” in the district where I taught. Why dump classes? Because students who have not signed up for an elective are dumped into the music classes. The other electives receive dumped students, too; however, many of those electives are not performing groups. They are not classes that teach a student a new concept starting in middle school, reading music, learning to play an instrument, and performing in front of judges. Music is a progressive course, and administrators fail to recognize and appreciate the hard work students put in so that they can perform. When students who have no interest or experience in music are dumped into an 8th-grade band class next to students who are in their third year of specified musical training, it is frustrating for both levels of students.
When students were dumped into my classes, I had a conversation with the school counselors (the people responsible for scheduling) and requested that the students with no experience be taken out of the 7th and 8th grade band classes and placed into the beginning 6th grade classes so that they would have a chance to succeed.
I was informed that it wouldn’t be possible because of scheduling. So, I requested that they be removed from the class. The students didn’t wish to be in the class, and some were breaking school instruments on purpose. I provided a couple of instruments that were trashed by students as evidence. The counselors stated that they couldn’t do that because they didn’t “Have any other place to dump the students.”
After receiving that information, I kindly informed them that they are the reason that students are failing and that they couldn’t care less about student success.
Now, let’s contrast that with a certain sports team in that school district.
I had made a statement and was laughed at by numerous people after my utterance. The laughing mob included administrators, teachers, and students.
What was my statement?
“There should not be tryouts for sports teams. If student A wants to play football and wants to be the quarterback even though they have never played a sport before, they should be placed as a quarterback on the team. If student B wants to play basketball and has always wanted to play shooting guard. Put them on the team as a shooting guard. If student C has no interest in playing a sport, too bad. They will be placed on a sports team because they need to be placed somewhere.”
It makes sense. Right?
Actually, it may have been best for the school I had taught.
The football team has had a losing season for the last three years. In those three years, they have only won two games. In almost every loss, the team had scored zero points. They have been skunked in nearly every game.
Yet, the community is still showing up and supporting the kids. As they should. But they are making excuses too.
“They need a new coach.” The coach has been replaced a couple of times.
“The community needs to choose the coach.” This is a very bad idea.
“The kids just refuse to show up for conditioning.” This was said by the coaches when I worked at the school.
“The coaches won’t set up times for conditioning, and when we are practicing, we don’t run fundamental drills.” Stated by some of the student-athletes I had in class.
“We need to give them new equipment.” The school installed a new field, the team received new equipment, and the athletes received free meals before the games.
I am not pointing fingers at the athletes, coaches, community, or administration as to the cause of the losing streak. I understand that sports are used to garner school pride, community participation, and fundraising. But, where are the academic benefits?
Some may say that the student athletes learn valuable lessons about working together as a team and community involvement.
(Insert dead silence followed by cricket sounds here as I stare at the comment maker while shaking my head)
Where can someone experience team concepts, community involvement, individual importance, academic enrichment, intense micro analysis, and criticism in order to obtain macro results of success, and peer support rolled all into one?
MUSIC!!!!!!!
A music rehearsal involves all of those traits and more. Band, Orchestra, and Choir encompass academics, aesthetics, athleticism, listening, comprehending, interpreting, individual thought, individual analysis, group analysis, and so much more.
I have been blessed by working with quite a few music groups over the years, and I plan on continuing to be blessed. Music students are weird, and it is such an awesome and lovely kind of weird that it is intoxicating. We can’t explain what music means to us to those who refuse to understand; however, we will continue to play, learn, and be the music that is needed to enhance ourselves and the community.