Please Support Music Education

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

Czarivey, courage is a talent too, wouldn't you agree?

ivan_
Because the ones born with talent and courage want to become better or best.

One wasn't born with such may only desire and given that as a fact, ones that desire even without talent can achieve some limited results. 

Providing solfeggio or music theory in public schools is mostly useless. That requires student to be able to sing over the sheet music and ones that weren't born with natural hearing for music will never ever succeed and always have bad grades.

Public schools can introduce classical music and jazz in free form listening lessons-sessions with no grading involved, but that's about as far as it can go.

Yea, all I'm sayin' is to tame your fanatic activism and think what actually can be done and HOW instead of blindly promoting an idea that is in general good, but there are known limitations to deal with. Have y'all been introduced to solfeggio or piano keyboard and at least singing basics before you start judging what's needed/not? It's HARD work for those who has talent and natural hearing for music and school such as Jilliard or Berkeley should intent to make it easier for gifted and talented. Has any of these world's known schools of music taken ones with no natural hearing of music huh? 

I've been born with natural talent for music and had been picking up tunes on my harmonica since I was 4, but having no sufficient courage and parental support, I did not succeed to professional level, but at least learned to appreciate the hard work necessary to achieve a descent level of musician. Even after you're pro, you'll need to practice and learn new repertoire on daily bases before, during and after group, band or orchestra rehearsals.

Erik,

Your OP is certainly worthwhile and Czarivey's response is what it is.  I agree that making music education available to public school students is valuable - for pretty much the reasons that you state.  Will that type of exposure create a musical "great" where one would otherwise not have been?  Who knows? (Other than Czarivey, I guess.).  

Broader cultural education is IMO a good idea that's getting lost in the cost cutting pressures of the modern world.  As you note, that means that it's up to those of us who care to provide support. And I, along with many others in our community, do just that.  Through pretty extensive fund raising activities for our school system, a fairly big group of active parents has allowed the school to provide music, art, and other programs that were not otherwise doable within the schools' budgets.