Arts Education Research

Dear Santa...

If you are like most music educators, by the time you read this you will be on holiday break. Midwest Band has come and gone. Music for All’s Bands of America program has crowned LD Bell High School (TX) the new Grand National Champion. And you are now diving into the stack of magazines that has been piling up on the floor by your desk for the past four months. To provide you with a little mental break — and back by popular demand — is my annual letter to Santa asking to deliver what I believe will be meaningful presents to many girls and boys (naughty and nice) so they may use these gifts to prosper in the New Year! Dear Santa, Another year has come and gone and once again I ask that you indulge me by foregoing any gifts for me (I know I could really use that NY Health Club Membership!) and bring to some folks more deserving, or needy, than I the gifts they need the most. Let’s start with gifts for… PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES! • Mike Huckabee #1— My Name and Address. If he is serious about “deploying weapons of mass instruction” (meaning musical instruments) then I want to be Secretary of Defense! • Hillary Clinton — A Bucket. She has admitted herself she cannot carry a tune, but this has not stopped her from promoting her support for arts education. So the least we can do is give her a little help! • John Edwards and Bill Richardson — Parting Gifts. Neither one of these gentlemen will be their party’s nominee for president. But that does not mean we should not give them an “atta boy” for joining what is fast becoming a chorus or presidential candidates touting the benefits of music and arts education for every child. • Mike Huckabee #2 - Our Gratitude. How great is it that we have a candidate that is truly passionate for music and arts education and demonstrates his passion in his words and deeds? Whether you agree or disagree with him on other issues, he does deserve props for going to schools, sitting in and playing with music programs, and playing with his own band on the campaign trail at every opportunity. We have never had one presidential candidate speak about our issue… now we have four — this shows you how far we have come. How great is that?

The Funniest Political Commentary Ever?

As I was surfing around the net checking out the news I stopped off at the Daily Kos to see how they may be covering the Republican Presidential Debate in Baltimore. I must say I was disappointed by ALL of the coverage, or lack there of, about this gathering of candidates that promised to focus on more issues than the war. For keeping score this was the 6th Republican debate and STILL NO SUBSTANTIVE QUESTIONS ON EDUCATION. Last night they almost asked one. But, it was really a question regarding the Supreme Court ruling on Affirmative Action and the impact on education. But... I digress! As I scrolled through the Daily Kos homepage I stumbled upon this satirical commentary by one of the blog main blogger, Hunter. As I started to read, I started to laugh and the laughs just kept on coming.

The Obvious Greatness of My Presidential Candidate by Hunter I would like to take a moment to tell you all about why I favor my candidate for President of the United States. My candidate has made many statements on issues, has drafted many proposals for moving this nation forward, and has attended many locally significant gatherings. But none of that is particularly important, and it would be a waste of time to dwell on it. I would rather highlight the obvious greatness of my Democratic candidate by noting that your Democratic candidate is shamefully inferior. In fact, all the arguments for my candidate can be boiled down to the transparently obvious: my candidate is not your candidate, and your candidate, to put it bluntly, sucks.

The reason this is so funny is because it is so close to the truth when it comes to political discourse in this country today. The last statement above sums things up perfectly. It’s funny… but also a little sad. One would hope as a nation we could do better than that. Of course... if the candidates would spend a little bit of time focusing on education and our next president would actually do something constructive about it... maybe this would improve the level of political, and social, discourse in this country. That's my opinion and if you do not agree you can go... Daily Kos: The Obvious Greatness of My Presidential Candidate

And the winner is….

Our good friends at Americans for the Arts (Thanks, John!) did a poll of their arts education network to see which blogs the community enjoyed visiting. We are humbled by the results that the Blog of Music for All was the Number 1 choice. This was followed by my personal favorite, Andrew Taylor’s The Artful Manager. I personally think this is quite the achievement…. Not for us… but for Andrew. Think about it for a moment. His blog was the #2 choice with the arts education crowd. Not bad at all! Now ask yourself this: "Would the Blog of Music for All even register in a poll of the arts management types let alone come in second? Me thinks not! Happy to be in such good company. Have no illusions we are in the same league!

Fun with Holiday News Stories!

We have been busily researching the latest music stories for our readers and the reoccurring theme we have found is: Holiday Stuff! So here are some fun, sometimes sarcastic, always interesting stories to share: Do you hear what I hear? There has been no controversy this year That’s what one New Jersey paper had to say regarding the programming of school holiday music (New Jersey being the center of the universe when it comes to school holiday concert controversy – see below) Curtis & Kuby High School Christmas Carol/Chanukah Song Contest If your from the New York Metropolitan area then you may have heard of WABC’s morning show host Curtis (of Guardian Angles Fame and self described conservative) and Kuby (self described liberal defense attorney.) Well they decided they would hold a contest. The reason?

Some schools are so "PC" that they won't even let their students sing Christmas Carols or Chanukah songs anymore! Here at 77WABC, we think that is just plain STUPID. So for the second straight year, we've teamed up with our friends at Electronics Expo to bring you the great Curtis & Kuby High School Christmas Carol/Chanukah Song contest!

Yep… nothing says Christmas like a good PR stunt. The Greatest Christmas Songs of All Time Hey, who can resist another count down list! Here we have the top 5 GREATEST CHRISTMAS SONGS OF ALL TIME!Oh, and for good measure… they through in the worst! Hear’s a hint: Simply Having… Now it is stuck in your head and you have me to blame. A little holiday gift to you! Most Played Holiday Songs on Radio Last Week Since all the radio stations in the country went to an ALL HOLIDAY mix sometime around, oh, let’s say… THE FOURTH OF JULY… the good people at MediaGuide have been tracking the playlists and have released a list of the most played songs from the last week. All I can say is… THAN GOD FOR HALLOWEEN. This is the only thing keeping the beginning of the Holiday Shopping, Music, and mass commercialism season from creeping into LABOR DAY. Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE the holidays. I just don’t want them to go on for four months! To all of our readers… Merry, Merry, Merry, Happy, Happy, Happy, Busy, Busy, Busy, See you next year!

Welcome to the season when public school music teachers can never win

Last year at this time Nick Santoro, Arts Supervisor for the South Orange/Maplewood School District found himself at the center of a worldwide controversy. Forced to enforce an unbelievably idiotic holiday concert policy where if an instrumental arrangement is for a song that has words with any potential religious meaning it cannot be performed... even if the words themselves are NOT performed. Poor Nick was lampooned around the world as the Grinch that stole Christmas, in editorials and television news reports, taking the blame for someone else’s policy. This policy gave birth to my "New Rule" ... " A Musical Note is NOT a Religious Symbol (being a drummer I would usually spell this Cymbal.) In any event, the Boston Globe yesterday highlighted the issue in local terms making the case that we have now put our music teachers in a "no win" situation. No matter what they program for the holiday concert... someone is going to be pissed!

By Dorian Block, Globe Correspondent - December 18, 2005 As they choose music for concerts by student choruses, bands, and orchestras at this time of year, the teachers must deal with the perennial debate over how much Christmas is acceptable in public school where not everyone celebrates the holiday. Traditionally, schools have had to be sensitive to Jewish students, but in recent years the issue has become more complex with the influx of Muslim and Hindu students from India, China, and other countries. Now some schools call the December performance a holiday concert; others, a winter celebration. And some schools have moved December concerts to January to avoid the holiday dilemma.Local music teachers are criticized for including too much religion in their concerts or too little holiday cheer, or for excluding certain cultures entirely. Nationwide, 35 percent of teachers in an online survey conducted recently by the National Association for Music Education reported conflicts with parents on this issue, 25 percent with students, and 19 percent with school administrators.

Holiday concerts in tune with striking right chord - The Boston Globe

Mathematics for Musicians

One of the blogs I really and enjoy is The Artful Manager. Andrew Taylor continues to present great insights into the work of arts and culture in a very engaging way. Recently, he posted this exceerpt called Mathematics for Musicians. Always one who enjoys a good laugh... I thought it was worth sharing with you.

1. Wilma is tired of paying for clarinet reeds. If she adopts a policy of playing only on rejected reeds from her colleagues will she be able to retire on the money she has saved if she invests it in mutual bonds, yielding 8.7%, before she is fired from her job? If not, calculate the probability of her ever working in a professional symphony orchestra again. 2. Jethro has been playing the double bass in a symphony orchestra for twelve years, three months and seven days. Each day, his inclination to practice decreases by the equation: (Total days in the orchestra) x .000976 Assuming he stopped practicing altogether four years, six months and three days ago, how long will it be before he is completely unable to play the double bass? 3. Wilma plays in the second violin section, but specializes in making disparaging remarks about conductors and other musicians. The probability of her making a negative comment about any given musician is 4 chances in 7, and for conductors is 16 chances in 17. If there are 103 musicians in the orchestra and the orchestra sees 26 different conductors a year, how many negative comments does Wilma make in a two-year period? How does this change if five of the musicians are also conductors? What if six of the conductors are also musicians? 4. Horace is the General Manager of an important symphony orchestra. He tries to hear at least four concerts a year. Assuming that at each concert the orchestra plays a minimum of three pieces per concert, what are the chances that Horace can avoid hearing a single work by Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms in the next ten years? 6. Betty plays in the viola section. Despite her best efforts she is unable to play with the rest of the orchestra and, on average, plays .3528 seconds behind the rest of the viola section, which is already .16485 seconds behind the rest of the orchestra. If the orchestra is moving into a new concert hall with a reverberation time of 2.7 seconds, will she be able to continue playing this way undetected? 7. Ralph loves to drink coffee. Each week he drinks three more cups of coffee than Harold, who drinks exactly one third the amount that the entire brass section consumes in beer. How much longer is Ralph going to live? 8. Rosemary is unable to play in keys with more than three sharps or flats without making an inordinate number of mistakes. Because her colleagues in the cello section are also struggling in these passages she has so far been able to escape detection. What is the total number of hours they would all have to practice to play the complete works of Richard Strauss?

Thanks Andrew! Mathematics for Musicians

Battle of the Bands - Jersey Style

OK... who would have thought that the descision to vote for one candidate or another in the NJ Governor's race (still going on as I type this) would come down to "who's your favorite rock band?" But, for on enterprising voter.. this was the question as posted on politicsnj

"I'm voting around 5:30 p.m. Here is my sole issue: What is Forrester and/or Corzine's favorite rock band? In all the hubbub over who they're dating or formerly married to, no one has answered this question." The undecided voter added that if one of the candidates picks one band in particular, he can get his "wife and two girlfriends to vote for them too." (Not clear if he means the girlfriends of his wife, or girlfriends of his own).

Things are so tight with this election that each campaign's main spokesperson responed... within 30 minutes with an answer! So, as my last Homer public service of this election cycle... here ya go: Jon Corzine: Corzine strategist Tom Shea reports that his candidate's favorite rock band is The Band. "Although we are rockin' some Cream," he adds. Doug Forrester: "Moody Blues & U2," says communications director Sherry Sylvester. (Does Forrester have two favorites for everything??) Neither guessed correctly. The "magic" band that would have delivered the undecided voter's wife and girlfriends (Jethro Tull was). So who was the winner?

Our undecided voter has made up his mind. He wants to remain anonymous (probably because, as it turns out, his two girlfriends are not friends of his wife) but he has reviewed the candidates' favorite rock bands and decided to go with...Corzine. As you may recall, Corzine's pick was The Band, while Forrester went with U2 and The Moody Blues. Here's our voter's explanation: "The Moody Blues and U2 won't hack it. You can't like a progressive rock band and an anti-progressive rock band, it's just like saying the Eagles and the Giants are your favorite football teams. If Corzine wins by between 1 and 4 votes, this is the reason. Thanks again from me, my wife, and my two girl friends!"

The power of music!

Confessions of a college music major

You know the feeling... we have all been there (well... most of us). The distain you feel from the superior gaze that comes from someone after you tell them "I was a music major in college." Like choosing a career path in the arts was some sort of scarlet letter. For me, it was worse. Admitting that I was not only a music major but a drummer brought out instant ridicule, and major outbursts of laughter... followed by the obligatory bad drummers joke (insert your favorite drummer joke here).

You also know the feeling of the tremendous amount of restraint it takes to keep you from smacking the smug look off of the face of the person with whom you converse.

Be silent no more! Bart Mills gives a great backhand on behalf of all of us who have ever been on the receiving end of the snide "You were a MUSIC major in college" response in his hilarious editorial commentary for the Lima News: Confessions of a college music major

Pay your taxes or face the music (actually drumming) in India

Authorities hire drummers to play at homes that haven't paid

From the "Now I have Heard Everything" File:

HYDERABAD, India - Tax defaulters in southern India are being forced to face the music after city authorities hired drummers to play non-stop outside their homes until they pay up.

After many residents ignored repeated demands to settle overdue property taxes. authorities in a city in Andhra Pradesh state have sent 20 groups of drummers to play outside offenders' houses for the past week.

"They put up a spectacle outside the houses of defaulters, draw them out and explain their dues to them and the need to clear it at the earliest," said T.S.R. Anjaneyulu, municipal commissioner of Rajahmundry city.

"They don't stop until people agree to clear the dues."

The city, owed a total of 50 million rupees ($1.15 million), had been at its wits' end after sops like waiving interest and penalties had failed to recover the arrears.

The new method seems to be working, though. One week of incessant drumming has cleared 18 percent of the backlog.

Wow... a new career path for drummers!

Source: Reuters