It happened again the other day: an assistant principal I know asked me about a conversation she had with one her music teachers. The conversation focused on whether or not a particular artist that the assistant principal was fond of was an artist of quality. The music teacher didn't think so. It was cause for the assistant principal to wonder who own and defines quality in the … [Read more...] about How I Learned to Love Steve Reich: Quality in Arts, and Arts Education
Not So Fast Chairman Rocco: Arts Education Has A Marketplace Too
Okay, everyone is all abuzz about NEA (as in arts endowment, not the National Education Association) Chairman Rocco Landesman raising the issue in a recent blog of there being too much supply for the demand. In other words: there are too many arts organizations in America.It's tough to argue that point. I am just not quite sure what to do with it. Besides letting the … [Read more...] about Not So Fast Chairman Rocco: Arts Education Has A Marketplace Too
More on Belinda Reynolds’s Manifesto: Where Art Thou Composition in Music Ed?
Those who know music education, know that for many years research has indicated that creative music making, meaning composition and improvisation, is taught at a distinctly lower frequency than other types of musical activities not centered in musical creation, but instead interpretation.So, as a a follow-up to Belinda Reynolds's Manifesto, I thought it would be interesting to … [Read more...] about More on Belinda Reynolds’s Manifesto: Where Art Thou Composition in Music Ed?
Sell It To Children: A Manifesto for Composers, by Belinda Reynolds
(And, I would add that this manifesto should extend well beyond composers...)Years back, when I was regularly involved in helping artists prepare for work in K-12 schools and the community, I often said that if they would be sensitive to how children were responding to the arts they were bringing to the classroom, that they would learn a great deal about how people respond to … [Read more...] about Sell It To Children: A Manifesto for Composers, by Belinda Reynolds
A High Priest of Music: Milton Babbitt
In the big and wild ecology of music, there is a rarefied strata where composer/scientists explore the most complex of musical worlds. It's not any different from literature and other forms of arts and culture, and all you have to do is pick up Finnegans Wake to understand what I mean.In arts education, it relates to issues of English language arts or mathematics, where … [Read more...] about A High Priest of Music: Milton Babbitt