"We Ain't Got No Education!"

I asked earlier what was our current culture? What has been the culture of the United States? For one music has always been an integral part of our society. The entertainment industry based in Hollywood, California has always been a place of dreams, a place where “greater than life” things can happen. It used to be music was a vital part of that entertainment. What happened? Who decided that music would die in entertainment? As a few musicians may suspect, it began with the inception and use of MIDI on commercial sound stages. Once where were great recording halls, sound studios where orchestras would play live and be recorded for feature length films and television. Music was important! As a result it was good. It was quality. What determines quality in music? Whereas I used to be affluent in judging almost any kind of music, lately my senses have become dulled by the skewing of real music and thus music education. Music is not some mysterious anomaly that burgeoned when a folk singer picked up a guitar and started to sing. Way before the Hum Strummers there was a lineage of the history of music that began in Europe. Considering Europe has been around centuries and centuries longer than the existence of the United States, it stands to reason here is where we would have to look for the real origins of music. The subject of the history of music in America is different, vastly different. It is filled with names such as Steven Foster, George Gershwin, Scott Joplin, Bill Monroe, Cole Porter, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, and Miles Davis just to name a few. We must remember the history of music in no ways credits Rap, Hip Hop, R&B, Soul, Rock ‘n’ Roll, or Jazz. These are all derivative from where music came. Music in Europe was mostly centered around the church and the worship of God. Imagine! Music given to us by God to exalt in His glory. Music consequently is a naturally occurring phenomenon God has blessed us with from birth. The Suzuki and Kodaly methods of teaching capitalize on the “naturalness” of music flowing freely through the human soul. Universities and colleges, because they have to justify the arts to their administrators, put the history of music up in an ivory tower and often complicate the teaching of it to glorify themselves. It is actually very simple, from the music of the ancient Greeks to Schoenberg’s 12 tone method of composing. Music theory is a bit complex, but it has basic theorems that hold true and give it rationale. Creativity in helping to define music beautifully allows the bending of those rules in the sake of the natural expression of music. “If it sounds good, it is good,” some say. I don’t think music is sounding very good. What is good? I would like to define music directly as a product of the human soul and therefore human condition. Does it move me? Does it speak to me in some way that relates to me as a person? Does it try to explore a human condition? Does it enlighten in some way? These are the qualifications of music, NOT, “Will it sell a product?” There is nothing wrong with trying to sell a product with clever music. My masters degree was based upon this premise. Commercial music is commercial because it deals with commodities, whether they be products or the music itself. Being clever has always been a good selling factor for products, but it seems American media has forgotten this. Payola has all but destroyed commercial radio. Corporate monopolies have all but destroyed television and film. Still the cultural heritage of our very recent past should not just have suddenly disappeared like it seems. What happened? It seems “talent” is no longer a requirement in the production of entertainment removing entertainment from the arts. “Simple strokes for simple folks?” Media as a whole are and have been greatly underestimating the human soul. If we try to judge American mainstream society by their unwillingness to vote, then we are selling them short. If we try to judge them by the current state of public education, we are selling them short. The only way to know the American people is to listen to them, and not in the context of a contrived game show were they are asked to do repulsive things for money. Isn’t that just like the worst bully in your elementary school daring you to set the teacher’s desk on fire? Likewise isn’t subverting the vocation and craft of singing by suggesting any untrained, unskilled American can do it an underestimation? Where has our traditional system of education and therefore our recent cultural history gone? Have we separated education so far from the mainstream that they no longer may peacefully coexist? Has our current regime in government created such a chasm between our educational system and our youth population that our whole society has unraveled? It seems so, Number One.