Larry Sherwood writes:

>Indeed, Western classical music is embraced by Koreans in a way
>the Americans do not, and I think a large part of that is tied to
>child-rearing.  An awareness of music is part of middle class culture:
>if you have children, it is expected you will give them music lessons.

What I think this discussion highlights is the fact that in the English
speaking world music lessons are no longer regarded a desirable part of
general education in the way that sport for example is.  This was certainly
true of the education I received in this part of the world.  Exposure to
musical education was much wider in my part time exposure to the Japanese
education system.  I recall turning up to class in Japan after spending
most of my life in Australasia.  We had regular music classes and everyone
could play the recorder except me - I felt so left out.  Apparently the
person who introduced this educational practice to the Japanese education
system was interested in early music and performance practice.  I would say
the likes of Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan are offspring of
this foresight.  I think it is a sad thing that this sort of systematic
musical education has fallen by the wayside in the English speaking world.
I suspect that the influence is American.  Even then there was a time when
the whole of America tuned in when Toscanini's concerts were broadcast
across America.  Toscanini even managed to upstage the football and
baseball in popularity!

People today are too used to seeing music as a kind of wallpaper.  In
fact today I turned on the TV to briefly find a Salvation Army band playing
some ghastly pop-music sacred hymn.  The musical LANGUAGE (!) of pop has
penetrated so deeply that people play it in churches, during services,
weddings and even funerals.  It has become the musical lingua franca
of our times.  All more complex musical language (and I don't just mean
dodecaphony) now immediately strikes people as frighteningly alien.  I
think that the only thing we can do is to encourage our children to play
an instrument and to try to get the educators to take musical education
seriously in schools at an early age.  Only then will the status of music
rise again amongst the arts, where it once stood as the mightiest of them
all.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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