Please Support Music Education

Juilliard graduates, for example, have included: Miles Davis, Itzhak Perlman, Bernard Herrmann, Yo-Yo Ma and others.

Once again it’s Talent + Courage and they were all waking up as musicians from day 1.

@czarivey

You miss half the point of music education. All of elementary education isn’t about getting a job. All of music education isn’t about making great musicians. It’s about literacy the same way that exposure to great writers from around the world is.

What good is Yo Yo ma in a world where everyone else is an illiterate consumer of whatever pablum comes down the music industry next?

Not having musically literate citizens is like having citizens who are illiterate in math or science, or history.

How many of these great musicians have made it a priority to go back and teach themselves?  I think that alone speaks volumes about whether they feel music education is worthwhile, but again, music education includes history, culture, politics. It's not just about whether person X has the mojo or not.

Best,


Erik

Thank god my surgeon didn’t go to school. He woke up one day and started cutting a PB&J sandwich and said "Hey, I’m pretty good!"

The entire San Francisco orchestra is like that too. No education at all, in fact the conductor him/hserself is really just there to keep the whining down. Truth is they don’t need him.  Just a little advice from the salesperson at the music store and they were concert ready.  Yep, hear it all the time.  Every radio show I ever hear with great young musicians, they say this.  Their teachers suck and it's by pure grit they got to where they are.

Erik

Maxnewid, well said. 
By the way, Miles Davis quit that school after a year, I think. But he asked for his father's opinion before doing it, and though his father had doubts, there was no objection.
Yes, music and other kinds of 'organized sounds' are extremely important for development, communication and sense of belonging. There are serious articles on the subject.

I'm not here to promote 1 single narrative about how music culture happens. Some do best in school, some learning elsewhere. I'm lucky to be able to listen to both.

Some, like Winton Marsalis, feel it is so important they devote some of their time to teach music as history, and music as culture to anyone who would listen, musician and lay person alike.  This goes far beyond teaching performance, he is a convincing advocate that music is never just about music, and education isn't just about jobs and product.

Best,

Erik