MUSIC Monday: Raise Your Hands, and Your Spirit Higher

This story was written by Daryl Allison       www.muzartworld.org

We all do it. Admit it, you do too. What’s the saying? 90% of people do it, the other 10% are lying. We sing in the shower. We sing along with the radio while driving. For those who haven’t taken the plunge, some part of us secretly wishes for the courage to get up there and sing karaoke.

Try hopping on a treadmill without music. Booooring! Now put some headphones on, play some upbeat music, and run further then you thought possible. Where did the time go?

When thinking, we scratch our heads, but when we feel passionate about something we touch our hearts – where our spirits live. Music, in its purest form, is all heart and soul. We have natural rhythm built into us – our heartbeats. Soft, slow, peaceful music slows our rhythm, relaxes us. Uptempo music excites us. Our hearts dance along. Our spirit takes the queue, embracing what it hears.

When listening to the greatest works of music, whether your spirit calls to Beethoven or some of the best 70’s rock, we close our eyes, we feel it, it washes over us. We can’t remain in a down mood. We can’t help but feel inspired, invigorated.

What would movies be without music? The drama, the suspense, the crescendo, … gone. I could do without those jolting startles, but I’ll never sacrifice the many great experiences.

Try and tell me you don’t hear what I hear: Jaws – The great white, lurking somewhere in the dark waters. Terminator – The mechanical skeleton rising from molten metal, coming to replace us. Star Wars – Hope, regardless the odds.

Heck, imagine Tom Cruise’s career without some good Old Time Rock ‘n Roll. Rocky, he was all heart if not also the Eye of the Tiger.

Ever been to a birthday party where they didn’t sing? A wedding where there wasn’t music to dance to? The moments we celebrate in life, when our spirits are lifted highest, it’s music laying the red carpet. All languages. All cultures.

Turn the volume up on the inside. Take a moment to listen to your favorite song. Give your spirit something to celebrate.


http://www.muzartworld.org/blog/2011/12/raise-your-hands-and-your-spirit-higher/

photo by woodleywonderworks

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: Public School Music Funding Needs a Hearing Aid

by Daryl Allison      www.muzartworld.org    

 

Do you hear that?  Listen closely, behind the silence.  This isn’t a sweet silence, not to frame a pin drop.  Missing are strings stretching, horns waking.  Missing are rising waves of creative expression, cacophonies of misplaced, amateurish, aspiring, beautiful notes.  That joyous, clanging clutter was what it sounded like before, when we took for granted the funding of our public school music programs.

Before long … The music room is empty save for old instruments collecting dust.  Few students know what’s behind that door, locked since before they first attended this school.  None would know the names of those strange contraptions anyway.

Do you hear it now?  It’s the lurking contagion of apathy. Echoing off the concert walls: Yawns. Bored students who don’t know that with our help school can be fun again, a place of personal and social creative exploration.

Big sports make big bucks.  We wouldn’t dream of cutting them.  Not every child is has athletic aspirations.  For all the others, what is their outlet?

We all know how integral music is in the developmental years.  Can you imagine a kindergarten class without it?  Countless facts sing music’s benefits on a child’s learning.  But we don’t need research data.  We know in our hearts this is true.  If we know music aids learning, and we wouldn’t dare take it from our kindergartners, then why are so many deaf to what is happening in our middle schools and high schools: funding for music programs being cut at an alarming rate.

The value of music:

·         SATs – Music Performance students scored 57 points higher on verbal, 41 higher on math; Music Appreciation students: 63 points higher on verbal, 44 higher on math.

·         A study of 237 second grade children used piano training and math software to demonstrate improvement in math skills. The group scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children who used only the software.

·         Students who participated in band or orchestra reported the lowest lifetime and current use of all substances (alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs).

The value funding places on music:

·         3 to 5 times as many schools see funding for music cut on a yearly basis than schools that see their funding increase.

Funding isn’t diminishing solely due to a rough economy.  The market crashed in 2007, right?  Check the charts linked in that last bullet.  The data looks the same since 2005, and probably before.  What was the excuse then?

Music funding is needed most in a down economy.  As funding is lost, so go talented teachers.  If we wait for things to turn themselves around, what then for the students who must suffer the consequences of actions too little, too late.

photo by minkymonkeymoo