Jazz drummer Max Roach’s remark on music education and rap —
“People who voted for defunding of music education programs in public schools are getting what
they paid for” — drew comments. One reader wrote that the poet John Ashbery said somewhere:
“The only thing worse than rap is French rap.” Anybody know where? Another reader, the
composer Charles Mac Dermed, wrote:
Were it my prerogative, I’d see to it that “GRUPPEN” by Karl-Heinz
Stockhausen, a 21 min. symphonic piece for 3 full orchestras + supplementary percussion, was
daily performed at noon in Union Square, S.F., during which performance streets surrounding
Union Square would be barricaded against vehicular traffic and bicyclists could circle while the
spatially distributed instrumentalists play.
As an underpinning for this institution of “GRUPPEN” concerts, the principle responsibility of
the Bay Area schools would be to train musicians for this everyday occurrence. Sooner or later
the mind of S.F. citizenry would be enlightened by exposure to this phenomenon. I can attest to
the enlightening efficacy of this monumental work by Stockhausen. For me it is the supernal
culmination of human culture.
