Mr. De Silva writes:

>Why not [have a national CM program]?  For roughly $10, a kid can get
>six weeks of tennis instruction in any one of thousands of public courts
>throughout the country; that's about 30 hours of mixed instruction and
>entertainment (and babysitting).  Surely for a little more money we can do
>a little less?  And keep our music professional in the style to which they
>are accustomed?

It's kind of ironic, because I was going to state why I thought the
program would be unfeasible, but I thought better (although I probably
should have said it).  Basically...  CM is uncool.  It's as simple as that.
I never meant to dictate to everyone what type of music they should like,
but I always thought there could be a way to make it more popular, and that
I could do something about it, instead of just sitting around and moping
(which I do not do, it just seemed a decent illustration).  The first
thing, before any national CM program could become successful, would be to
make CM, if not cool, then acceptable.  Like, for kids bored on a Friday
night, upset that their favorite place to go is closed, one might say "hey,
why don't we try the Symphony?" That may not be replied to with great deals
of enthusiasm, but at least "Sure, that might be pretty cool." We must make
that scenario possible before any other improvement, I think.

One final response:

>Appreciation of what?  It behooves the music teacher to be popular with
>the parents and the kids (we're talking of a person's livelihood here),
>so it's as important, or more important to concentrate on such things as
>B. B. King and Joplin than Mozart Bach and Beethoven.

Of course it's as important to concentrate on jazz legends (although you
may have been equating this generation of kids with those from a couple
of generations ago).  I never said otherwise.  But you may not realize
that this is being done, entirely successfully.  There are many kids
in the local band system who love jazz, actively, they seek out local
performances, have favorite jazz musicians, etc.  The jazz program is
thriving, at least in the middle of Indiana.  So why couldn't this be
possible for CM? (I know I'm not really arguing against Mr. DeSilva
anymore...  there was no misunderstanding here).

I thank you for naming me an idealist, but your final paragraph could
have come straight from me.  In your letter, you argued, as well as I could
have, quite a few of my own thoughts.  And, in view of some of the recent
"arguments" on this list, I appreciate immensely the civility of this
discussion.

If anyone has any thoughts on how to make CM "cool," I think we could get
some good ideas going.  I'll add some of my own next time (if a thread
actually gets started.)

~John~