MUSIC Monday: Please sing me your authograph!, Part 3 of 3

Written by Daryl Allison     www.muzartworld.org

We love our sports. We want our kids to be active. We encourage them with family activities and outings. We reward them by sending them to school for their athletic potential. We celebrate amateur stars before they ever turn professional.

Quick, name the last amateur musician drafted number one overall?

None? Okay, an easier one for you then: Name five aspiring musicians at your local university.

Try asking your coworkers those same questions. See how many can answer. I bet you won’t have any trouble finding coworkers who can name more than five local university athletes.

Imagine a world… Where next to every new basketball court we put in there was also a covered nook housing a grand piano. (Major sporting events use an organ to get the crowd excited, so why not?) Where every school bus stop had a karaoke machine. Where every playground had various string instruments scattered among the playscape: a harp next to the big spinning blocks, to explore notes like they do with shapes and colors; a horn at the top of the slide to announce to the world that the cavalry is coming! Where schools required 30 minutes of music education each day like they do for PE. Think about that for a minute. Students are required to jog, required to learn how to play various games. Music is known to directly benefit learning. And yet… music classes are an elective at best, for schools that can still afford to offer them.

As babies, we sing along before we can throw. We dance before we can run. Play music for a baby and see a smile. Put on a ball game and … well … hopefully the noise won’t induce crying. There’s no learning curve for appreciating music. We don’t need to have played it before we can feel how it moves us. Labor strife can shut down seasons. Life goes on just fine when those sports are paused. Imagine though if every MP3 player and every radio went on an extended strike.

Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate our priorities.


http://www.muzartworld.org/blog/2011/12/please-sing-me-your-autograph-part-3/

MUSIC Monday: Please sing me your autograph! – Part 2 of 3

Written by Daryl Allison     www.muzartworld.org

You remember sitting in the car listening to the radio, making mix tapes of your favorite bands, maybe a special one for your high school sweetheart. Today’s kids aren’t any different in their love for music. More have been moved at some point in their lives by a piece of music they listtened to than a game they watched.

How many families are heading out for a local, free concert in the park? How many kids can grab an instrument and go jam in the backyard with Dad?

We encourage our kids into Little League Baseball. High school football gets segments on local sports news. College football and basketball are huge industries. None of these are professions. They are all parts of our kids growth and education. Yes, being active is important in health. There are plenty of studies that show healthy competition, the discipline of sports, structure of teams, all these facets of sports benefits our children. There are an equal number of studies that show the benefits that music education has on learning as a whole. I could list plenty of those studies, but instead I’m going to share with you this quote that I love from Nina Kraus, a prominent brain researcher at Northwestern University, “Music training leads to changes throughout the auditory system that prime musicians for listening challenges beyond music processing…music training does for brain fitness what exercise does for body fitness.”

With how we push and promote our kids into sports, surely we care about their minds as much as their bodies, right? Where’s the encouragement for kids to register for their seasonal, organized jam sessions? Where’s the local media covering the local amateur bands every Friday night? Where’s the March Madness Battle of the Bands?

Did you know over one billion dollars are given out in athletic scholarships every year? The average athletic scholarship exceeds $10,000. The average music scholarship is in the neighborhood of 20% of that total, with far fewer of them awarded. College is the highest level of education. Every family wants their children to go. Our system says playing sports is the smart choice, that being an athlete makes college more likely an affordable option, yet it’s music that makes college more likely to be an option in the first place.

Next Monday, Part 3

http://www.muzartworld.org/blog/2011/11/please-sing-me-your-autograph-part-2/

MUSIC Monday: Please sing me your autograph! – Part 1 of 3

Written by Daryl Allison          www.muzartworld.org

Bottom of the ninth…

Game 7, the season comes down to this…

5, game tied … 4, he pulls up at the 3-point line … 2, the ball is in the air…

Selected with the first pick of the draft…

We know these moments. We live for them. We’ve lived in them – at the edge of our seats, excitement, suspense. Some have waited years, even a lifetime, for events to converge into such a moment. We dream of them as children, for the chance to be the hero, to lead our team and fans to victory.

All this passion devoted to … a game.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I was born with baseball in my veins. Now living in as devoted a college sports town as Austin, I could not resist succumbing to the enthralling energy that surrounds me. I bleed burnt orange like I never thought possible. This town lives and dies by its teams. We know to turn our sights to the UT campus clock tower each night. We may not know which big game was played that day – we don’t need to know! If it’s glowing orange then WE won; on that day WE are victorious, transcendent.

Imagine a world where, with all the energy we have wrapped in sports, we lavished an equal amount upon music; where music was the Super Bowl, not its halftime show. Sure, music has its celebrities. You can name a few of them as easily as you can name some sports stars. I’m not talking about the ranks of stardom. I’m talking about the inner workings of our families, our schools, our communities. Lucky for me, Austin is such a place, the “Live Music Capital of the World”. Musical expression is as revered as athletic accomplishment. Communities rally around its bands as much as its teams. Those same people find ways to give back, organizations holding free events for families to enjoy music and fundraisers to ensure education resists government budget cuts. We here in Austin are lucky, because we here in Austin do something about it.

How about for you and your community? Are you able to consider yourself as lucky? In your neighborhood how many TVs turn on to watch sports? How many families spend time, energy, resources to attend games? I’m sure you won’t struggle finding a household where the kids can pick up a ball and go throw in the backyard or at a park down the street. Those kids see their sports heroes on TV. They’re encouraged by their parents, their older siblings, their friends, and even the marketing of athletes on TV. Those kids imagine themselves coming to bat as the winning run; making that pass; taking that shot.

How many of those same kids listen to music?

Next Monday, Part 2

http://www.muzartworld.org/blog/2011/11/please-sing-me-your-autograph/

MUSIC Monday: Power Of A Song - Each One Teach One

www.muzartworld.org         by Elizabeth Cobb

MuzArt World Foundation™ will demonstrate how the power of a song can empower children across the globe; the understanding they can make a difference with the mainstream release of the song “Each One Teach One.”

The project will encompass the development of the song “Each One Teach One” in both audio and visual form, and be released globally into the mainstream media.  The project will benefit charities all over the world that are specific to children and their well being. 

Project Producers:  Ken Kragen, founder and creator of We Are The World, Hands Across America, Live Aid together with Pat Melfi, Former VP MCA, Five Time Promoter of the Year, Concert Tour Management for The Eagles, Alabama, Rod Stewart, and Tom Petty & The Heart Breakers will develop, produce and market the project.

We are certain that as you ponder these initial thoughts, you will see all of the areas YOU can participate in and with your abilities and talents, make a meaningful contribution in this program with us.  We all know we have to turn this train around by empowering the children of tomorrow with accurate knowledge. 

We are interested in many areas that center around the re-development of “quality work ethic” “generational mindset change leading to a greater peace in the home, school, and community”, “financial literacy”  and “child empowerment” in children’s minds across the world.  We are intending to do that with the development of a beautiful song that Pat Melfi and partner Ken Kragen discovered along their journey. We can pull this off with the support of community members across the world that are truly dedicated to youth. This is an incredible opportunity to pass a life changing message to children through children…a peer-to-peer passage. 

Companies across the globe can be a part of that process.  While we seem to be a divided world on many topics, one of those topics, is not our children.  As parents, we all want one thing for our children; a real shot at their success…and that requires additional education.  That being said, we have to re-direct their thought process from “entitlement” to “privilege”.   Back to a place that gets them on track, a place that gets them to understand hard work will help them achieve their dreams, a place that allows them to understand it is OK to have differences in opinion, but those differences can co-exist in peace.  A hope and change they can truly believe in, and for the benefit of each child one filled with accountability. 

Phase One:  Develop campaign in schools across the world with a strategic plan to engrain into the minds of children, but we must take action.  We must get back to the core ethics our grandparents gave us.  In a turbulent world, such as the one we live in today, we have an opportunity to change the environment we live in.  This is at the very core of our drive, passion and enthusiasm for the “Each One Teach One” project. 

Corporate sponsor desiring to align their corporate image with youth, around the world to design, and distribute a poster campaign. In addition, to develop with our team campaigns pertaining to contests for children to submit social impact deeds, as well as enlist teachers as teachers with the goal of getting their children in their school districts to perform “Each One Teach One” with their choirs.

Let’s begin the revolution of the MuzArt World Foundation™!!!