There has always been a lot of talk about what has killed music, and I have done a lot of thinking on this lately. There is a lot of talk about radio, MTV, the record labels and they have all played their part in this....but and I think a deeper answer to this in our (US) culture is the cutting of music programs in our public schools.
I am not a parent, but my understanding is, is that there is little to no music education in our public schools anymore, and that there are no serious classes in even music appreciation. Even when I went to high school all there was, was the school marching band and the school choir. I was not in marching band I was in the choir and I remember we learned all our pieces by rote.
The end result is that kids have little to no appreciation for music or musicianship. They grow up with no appreciation for what it takes to become a professional or great musician.
The parallel that I draw to this is that sports are never cut. Sport flourish in our public schools, so kids grow up with a real appreciation for what it takes to be a professional athlete. They understand it because they have spent a lot of time trying to play these sports themselves whereas (unless the parents have enrolled them in private music lessons) they have spent no time trying to play a musical instrument.
So we have a generation of kids who grow up this way. For me this is evidenced by the fact that I see and hear from people who think that music is created as if by some magical means or that all music is created in a studio with samples.
Another thing that evidences this for me is some of the talkbacks I have read on youtube musical performance videos. A good example was a video I saw of Jewell performing one of her songs solo acoustic. There where endless comments about how pretty she is and how great she sings, but nowhere was there a comment on her guitar playing, or her songwriting. They understand singing (and pretty) but they show no appreciation for songwriting or musicianship
I get a lot of young people who ask me if playing guitar is hard. I am startled that they would even ask, but then I shouldn’t be. They have no music education.
I would be curious to hear from parents on this about what kind of music classes are offered (or not offered) in their kid’s public schools.
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