We don't need no (music) education

While walking a beach one time, I overheard two locals commenting on the vacation crowd. "If it's tourist season, can we shoot them?" Well, lately it's budget season, and right in the target is music education.

Like it always seems to be.

I recalled (with the help of IMDB) a few lines from the film "Mr. Holland's Opus", starting with this exchange in the office:

Vice Principal Wolters: "I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division.

Mr. Holland: "Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren't going to have anything to read or write about."

... which lead to this testimony before the school board ...

Mr. Holland: "The day they cut the football budget in this state, that will be the end of Western Civilization as we know it!"

Now, here is a not so secret observation about the movie: It is 15 years old, the same age as our freshman class! And so, I got to thinking, especially in this time of real budget shortfalls, are we in a position to make the case once again about saving music education, or will this be seen as yet another round of crying wolf?

While I firmly believe in the academic value of music, if "we" are going to preserve scholastic music education, we have to start at the bottom - cultivating the kids from elementary school on up - and we have to be prepared to do it outside of the school budgets, and especially support the kids who can't afford it otherwise.

In other words, we are going to have to find a way of doing things differently. This means new ideas, and change ... and the realization that this is going to be very, very hard, and perhaps painful, too.

Funny, though. It is exactly how athletic programs do it. They cultivate the kids in programs where the coaches volunteer, watch, support, and advise.

My Dad was a coach ... who dabbled in the Baritone, once, I recall (my Mom was the multi-talented musician ... voice, violin, piano, classical tastes!), yet even during his time as a school principal and as a district athletic director he understood the value of music education right up there with the value of athletics. But we can't count on this type of broadmindedness, and so maybe instead of envy at their position, participation, and - yes - budgets, it's time we started learning something from them.

Otherwise, we are going to hit "The Wall".

(A quick side note : While I wrote most of this, the TV was on Cinimax. Will some band out there do "Far and Away"? Such good music ... I still remember Southwind doing it in 1993!)

Storyboards & Soundtracks

I've been on a posting tear now - three in a row - maybe because it's final exam season and I'm pretending my boys are reading this for inspiration. (1)

I got to thinking that besides sheer physical volume (see 7Ps below) of practice, there also is the mental preparation side of practice, which brings me to this topic.

Storyboards … Watching “Shrek The Third” with the family the other night, we took in the "deleted scenes" DVD feature. This was different from other delete scenes features, however, it that there were three camera shots on the screen – the shot on top featured each storyboard, with the bottom left showing the person telling the story and the bottom right showing the audience.

I could not help but wonder how many marching bands “storyboard” their show. I don't mean just computer music playing to the to the computer drill, but an actual storyboard of the visuals. Then I got to thinking, how many people storyboard important events? Weddings? Important presentations (and I don't mean just PowerPoint!)?

Storyboarding can take place in your mind, but maybe we should all use paper, not computers, and storyboard ... whatever needs to be storyboarded. Paper is cool and can be recycled. It can be dug out of the trash. It can be marked up. My paper of choice is in several sizes, but about two years ago I ditched the typical legal pad for grid/graph paper. Click here for some other cool tools.

Soundtracks … I chose the name Soundtracker because originally I was going to write about probably my favorite “type” of music, movie soundtracks. (Or, as they say in the business, "film scores.") Some soundtracks are original music, some are adapted from familiar themes, and some are old hits in a new form.

But without music, TV and movies can never be “best pictures”. Music sets the tone. Think about it – we hear a song, and picturesque memories or fantasies come to life.

My Mom told me I learned to like classical music from Loony Tunes. (Hmmm. Maybe my Mom was saying that I was looney tunes ...?) I mean, who can forget Bugs Bunny and "The Rabbit (Barber) of Seville"!

I’ve told people in the past that there is nothing more to be said in the world, that we can just sing our way though conversations. (It certainly would make peace talks more interesting!)

Tony singing “Maria” in "West Side Story" – pretty romantic, guys, no matter how you propose! (We used “One Hand One Heart” in our wedding. And "Sunrise Sunset" from "Fiddler on the Roof", come to think of it. And ... well, I'll quit with that.)

So ANYWAY, this is I think why I have the passion for marching band. Visual storyboards, told purely with a soundtrack.

Storyboards. Soundtracks. As the great Yogi Berra (not Yogi Bear, but he's great too ... see the storyboard!) said, “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.” (Yogi said a lot of other things that are allegedly about baseball. More on that later.)

(1) Finals have been going on for the past week. Studying? Hmmm.