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Music Education


TheLizard

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This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I can't really attest to schools in other countries, obviously, but in America the lack of support for music, or any of the arts really, in public education is disgusting. English classes are required every year, but art and music classes are optional. I'm not saying that literature isn't an important art form, but who decided that Shakespeare and Hemingway are more important and culturally relevant than Mozart and The Beatles? Wouldn't it be just as educational to analyze the themes and devices in Dark Side of the Moon or Beethoven's Fifth as it is to analyze themes and devices in 1984? Historically, isn't music a major aspect of change (the Renaissance, the Summer of Love)? Musicians are generally more apt to do better in other classes, so shouldn't every student be offered and encouraged to take music classes, or (if I had my way, anyway) require mandatory music classes just as there are mandatory English, math, and social studies classes?

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It's ridiculous, really, but it's not just the higher-ups that're the problem. It's sorta like people have an aversion to learning or absorbing new things. At my community college, they have recitals. They're sorta like miniconcerts, where they bring in musicians from nearby areas to play (they actually get too many offers from musicians to be able to fit them all in). They have a really hard time filling up the bloody seats, even though it's a required class for most people in music courses.

It boggles my mind why people would totally skip out on a "class" that only involves sitting there and listening to music for an hour.

At the same place, though, the higher-ups are trying to cut out some of those music classes. Apparently they're not even going to make the recital mandatory anymore. It's like a constant downsizing down there, and I don't get it.

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It's incomprehensible to me that music education is being cut out in so many school districts. 100 years ago when I was in high school it WAS required. I took a year of guitar classes to fill the requirement.

And while I completely agree that music should never be cut out entirely of a curriculum, perhaps English classes are required because language is necessary to survive, whereas music is considered more an elective... just a guess.

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Is English class really helping any of our youth? If they have learned a single thing in school, they certainly don't put it to use, "homie".

Wazzup? Yo, dawg!

They may as well trash the entire english studies and make music mandatory. Kids aren't listening to the english teacher...

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Is English class really helping any of our youth? If they have learned a single thing in school, they certainly don't put it to use, "homie".

Wazzup? Yo, dawg!

They may as well trash the entire english studies and make music mandatory. Kids aren't listening to the english teacher...

That's not entirely true....

Music needs english classes or the next generation of music will have lyrics with "Yo!" and "Dawg" in it....

And do we really want that....I know I don't.....

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Cutting out English is a terrible idea. Have you seen half the Internet? No one reads books beyond school these days, so they don't know how to spell anything (because they never even seen half the words they use on a daily basis).

English courses would improve a songwriter's ability to convey his lyrics and such, too, just not so much in that "dawg" way.

What they really need to get rid of is the foreign language courses. We'll all be speaking English in ten years. :P

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I can't really attest to schools in other countries, obviously, but in America the lack of support for music, or any of the arts really, in public education is disgusting.

I can speak for France, and I can tell you there´s no such things as "art" as a subject. Music and painting are optionnal subjects, and anyways, you don´t learn how to play anythings there.

Music needs english classes or the next generation of music will have lyrics with "Yo!" and "Dawg" in it....

English classes are necessary constantly, though English is quite simple if you compare it with French, German, Russian and other languages. But people seem to forget about grammar and orthography because not everybody is used to read books every day... which helps a lot.

....imagine the Dictionary's....Oxfard'sDictionary will be spelt "Oxxxphard's Dikshonarieee, LOL, tats funni"....

Johnny, pls, tell me this was part of the joke... :shades:

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I think English is far more important than Music. Knowing Sgt Pepper and being able to lecture someone for half an hour on Mozart doesn't get you anywhere in life, with the exception of those (few) people who study Music later on. English on the other hand is absolutely essential... Not only spelling and grammar, but I think literature teaches you a lot more about history and society than music ever could.

And cutting out foreign language classes isn't a good idea either in my eyes. True, mostly everyone will speak English soon, but so what? :P

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