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Date: | Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:14:44 -0800 |
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Robert Stieger writes:
>Lack of exposure might be one reason, but exposure for exposure's sake ends
>up with little to gain, if the children aren't taught the analytical and
>aethetics skills necessary to appreciate the music, skills that are very
>much lacking in our public institutions, yet are so valuable is so many
>different fields.
When I first started teaching at the elementary level, I'll never forget
the hideous response I received after delivering a beautiful lecture, (with
musical examples), entitled "Would there be a Shostakovich without a
Stalin?"
Those obnoxious nine-year-olds.......
I learned a valuable lesson. Children learn music much better as
performers than listening as part of some passive audience. The sublime
comes much later.
I must mention an interesting observation from Daniel Boorstin's book,
"The Creators," where he comments that a long time ago, what was once an
activity called *ritual,* (community-wide participation in some event),
slowly split into what we now call performers and audience. (It's
interesting to think that for a long time it never occurred to anyone
that there could be such a thing as an audience.)
Western Culture has drawn a much more distinctive line between the two
than other cultures.
In many cultures everyone can actively participate in some type of
community-wide artistic experience at some level with no apologies. We
separate our artists from the audience with stages, curtains, and tuxedos.
Look at how many people sound timid introducing themselves on this
list--and this is just to *talk* about music.
John Smyth <[log in to unmask]>
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