Klarinet Archive - Posting 000583.txt from 2003/02

From: "Elizabeth Berry" <MarchinCharger88@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Music vs. language --- school cutbacks
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 15:13:29 -0500

Our school district has a new superintendent and he has this "great" idea
that will help us do better on our tests. We will take these little
examinations every few weeks and when we don't get an above average score on
them, we will be taken out of our elective classes. For me, that means
Spanish, 2 band classes. !!! This is outrageous !!! I do not think a foreign
language should be an elective on account of if you plan to ever graduate
from college, you HAVE to take 4 years of a foreign language. And SECONDLY,
they should take us out of PE or even the class that we're not doing well
in. What about those people that are going to have a career in music? Why
don't they just have classes that they are required to attend afterschool?
Or do it during the lunch hour. Why are there "Save The Music!!" campaigns
and yet they're trying to take it away from us? Our community would rather
see our marching band go before PE classes. For crying out loud, practically
nobody likes PE!

Sorry, just had to vent a bit.

Elizabeth

----- Original Message -----
From: "B. Rite" <b1rite@-----.net>
Subject: [kl] Music vs. language --- school cutbacks

> My own perception (perhaps mistaken) that music and language are related
> more closely than most people give credit, and also our local school
> districts' need to cut budgets somehow (music programs are an obvious
> candidate --- "Music isn't one of the 3 R's"), prompts me to quote:
>
>
>
> (The comments enclosed in "[ ]" are intended to summarize what the
> author states earlier in his book, not to offer my own opinions.)
>
> "Conceptual thought requires the separation of thinking from feeling, of
> object from subject, of mind from body. We have already observed the
> divergence [during the course of human history] between song and speech,
> and the development of language as the vehicle of rational thinking as
> distinct from emotional expression. Human beings require the division
> if they are to function efficiently as objective thinkers; but they also
> need to bridge the Cartesian gulf between mind and body if they are to
> live life as creatures enjoying a full complement of human feelings. A
> great deal of what is generally considered to be 'real life' is woefully
> one-sided. [....]
>
> "Music began as a way of enhancing and co-ordinating group feelings.
> Today [with the advent of recording technology and our ability to be
> Solitary Listeners], music is often a means of recovering personal
> feelings from which we have become alienated. [....]
>
> "If I want to recapture [from my memory] the opening of Beethoven's
> [....] or Brahms's [....], I can do so without difficulty, although I
> might not be able to remember the whole of [it] accurately. This is
> evidence that music can become part of our mental furniture. Because
> of this, I believe that music not only has a positive function in
> organizing our muscular actions, but also, less obviously, our thoughts
> and the words in which we express them."
>
> ---from "Music and The Mind", Anthony Storr, Chapter 6
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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