Klarinet Archive - Posting 000182.txt from 2006/04

From: Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Business aspects of music performance & education
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 06:22:11 -0400

At 02:14 AM 4/18/2006, Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:
>Even when primitive populations prepared for war or summoned their gods,
>they sang and danced and played instruments. They still do.

Eh, music will never die (witness the ubiquitous iPod). Music played
on acoustic instruments such as... as he deftly works back to the
topic of the list... the clarinet, I'm not so sure. I say this with
sadness, I might add.

Besides, we're really talking about music education. Last I checked
you don't need to study music formally to prepare for war or summon
gods. Having no experience in either preparing for war or either
successfully or unsuccessfully summoning gods, I could be wrong.
Perhaps if everyone attempting to summon gods had studied clarinet,
the gods would have acquiesced. One does have to wonder whether
successfully summoning gods is a *good* thing, though.

[...]

>Art is equally an inescapable and necessary part of our existence, a
>part of communication, and it deserves attention too.

Easy to say when one isn't starving. Any serious look into the
history of music *education* will show that food on the table and
shelter overhead *always* came first. Kids leaving our schools right
now lack either the basic skills of a trade or the three Rs to
succeed in almost any college based field.

To brutally paraphrase the apocryphal quote by Marie Antoniette:

Students can't find work because they were taught nothing? Let them
all play clarinet in a major symphony orchestra!

Yeah, I know, ad absurdum. Ahem.

-Adam

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