Nicholas Busch

Dr. K. Veblen
Music 1800
29/11/2015
Myers, D. (2007). Freeing music education from schooling: Towards a lifespan
perspective on music teaching and learning. International Journal of
Community Music 1(1):49-61.

Right from the first paragraph, I could relate to this article, specifically
with the quote Budiansky is tired of performances of mediocre repertoire
written specifically for school
ensembles. Throughout my high school life, our band would only play
simple repertoire specifically arranged for a school band, and it was
extremely boring music. I also (painfully) agree with another quote Myers
took from an email that was sent to Budiansky: Weve turned music
education . . . into an assembly line that is pretty good at whipping together
a group of students who can push the right buttons on their instruments and
read music and produce something that sounds polished fairly quickly. And
then those kids leave high school and never touch their instruments again,
never go to classical or jazz concerts, never know how to make music on
their own, never have the curiosity to discover music that means something
to them. This sad truth was very evident in my high school, although I and
only a few other students were not turned away from music completely.

I find it shocking that 90% of parents think arts education is important

for a well-rounded education, yet it is still treated as less important than the
sciences and is still receiving large cutbacks. The parents of these students
should be able to influence the changes in funding, especially if the number
is so heavily weighted on the for music side. I also found it interesting that
more educated adults were more interested in attending music
performances. I thought it would matter more on the personality of the
individual, and not so much the educational background to determine what
kind of music they enjoy. I also found it somewhat frustrating that many
students actually believe that music is unimportant to their education before
they even reach the age of 11. When I was 11, I loved music even as just a
class that gave me a break from math, so it pains me to know that other
students at that age think music is a useless subject.
If I could ask Myers anything, it would be how would he plan to
incorporate more difficult repertoire into school bands with the same amount
of time? I completely agree that school music arrangements are too easy and
boring to the students, but if class cannot be extended then how do you plan
on properly teaching all of the material? Otherwise I agree with the entire
article.