Music Matters

Another Music In Our Schools Month®

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

According to NAfME, March is Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®). Because of this, let’s revisit some of the values of music. And know the values of music have become increasingly clear. Why now and how so?

During pandemic-based online classes last Fall, one of my graduate students announced: “I’m so grateful to have a job; but I hate teaching music online. I miss seeing my kids’ faces; I miss being with them; I miss making actual music in an actual room with one another.”

Another said: “Nothing, no online virtual choir, can take the place of feeling-through live music making together.”

Another said, in tears, “I’m trying so hard to be positive, but I found myself crying after teaching chorus online today… music is a human art. Not connecting with students through music makes me feel like a part of me is missing…”

Beyond hearing from teachers in NJ, I visited a kindergarten music class online this time last year. I won’t go into the entire class’s musical happenings. But at the very end of the class, one student refused to leave the class’s online “room.” The teacher said: “But class is over. It’s time for you to go to your next class.” The student said, “Yeah but I’ve created a song for you. Don’t you want to hear it?” How could the teacher not have allowed her to perform her song? So on the spot—it was quite clear she just didn’t want to leave, and did what she could to keep their time together going—this student proceeded to make up a “song” and sing, “Mr. Wallington, I love you, and I love music class, and I want to sing and sing and sing all day long…”

So, why were music teachers crying? Why was this kindergarten student doing everything in her power to stay in music class?

The real question is: Why does music matter related to one’s education? Or, stated differently, Why does music matter for one’s life? Here are 3 values. They aren’t the most comprehensive. Still, they’re potential values to all kinds of music making and sharing.

  1. Self-other understanding. Experiencing and expressing oneself through music and accepting and receiving an other through music. This understanding depends and is contingent upon many factors. When I experience and express myself through music—when I compose a pop song, perform in an ensemble, or dance through, say, West African drumming, singing, and dancing—I gain a sense of self-knowledge (and self-other knowledge), self-growth (and self-other growth), and self-esteem I couldn’t gain otherwise. Why? When musical challenges meet (or slightly enhance) my abilities, I experience flow (also known as optimal experience). “Flow” describes a kind of experience that’s so engaging that it’s worth doing for the doing itself. The arts and sports are typical sources of flow. What sets musics apart from all other sources of flow and self-other understandings is the unique materials and requirements of musics, namely sonic-musical events created and shared by and for others at specific times and places.
  2. Community. A key value of music, music sharing, and music education is community. Music connects us to those we engage with musically. There are numerous reasons for this. First, music making can be emotionally engaging and arousing. When I’m emotionally engaged, I’m likely to connect with those who are part of this emotional engagement. Also, I become in-sync with others. Being in-sync connects me to others I wouldn’t otherwise be connected with. Relationships form because of musical experiences, and a community is born. With that can come trust, care, commitment, fellowship, well-being, and so on. The value of community yields exponential dividends. However, this isn’t the only kind of community that music education yields. By engaging with musics written by and for others—for example, Mahler’s 1st Symphony, the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Snow (Hey, Oh),” “Siyahamba,” or Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige—I can connect to people, places, and times far removed from my own here and now. That kind of time/space travel and communality is greatly rewarding.
  3. Happiness. A key value of musical engagement is happiness, or, stated differently, Aristotle’s notion of “human flourishing.” While some may think that happiness is a “soft” value like “fun,” it’s not. Happiness is the pursuit of a life well lived. Living well isn’t simplistic or easily achieved. So, when engaged in music making and sharing, we contribute to our life’s happiness. What more can be said about music and happiness? Perhaps it’s something only to be felt and experienced. So, listen, make, and engage – with, in, and through music.

So, to celebrate MIOSM®, allow yourself to know and feel that music education matters. Our profession matters when things in the world seem to be going smoothly. However, our profession matters even more when things in the world seem to be difficult and challenging. Indeed, when we engage in the teaching and learning of music, we provide avenues and pathways that can help our students to understand themselves and one another.

Great music making and listening provide important reminders for why we need to “show up” for each other each and every day. Let’s harness this world’s uncertainty and remember what’s important: Being present for each other. And music making, listening, and sharing can help us get there; we just need to be open to its numerous benefits.

Music In Our Schools Month®

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

According to NAfME, March is Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®). I don’t think there is a music educator out there who doesn’t wholeheartedly believe that each and every day should acknowledge, highlight, and celebrate music—and lots of music—in schools. Whether it be through improvising over the chord changes to “C Jam Blues” in a jazz combo, remixing Lauryn Hill’s “Everything is everything” with a Jimi Hendrix solo, singing a sea shanty, or salsa dancing, music teaching and learning matters in schools. Why?

Because the pursuit of musical meaning and meaning making can help us become—to use the words of James Mursell— “stronger, better, happier, more cooperative” people who may succeed at being human and humane. Therefore it makes sense to make more music, and to make it more and more.

So let us sing out loud and sing out strong during the month of March and every month throughout the year! Musical being and being musical can help us build a life worth living. Let’s try to remember this when faced with that which gets in the way of building that life.

We teach music in schools so students will experience personal, artistic, social, empathetic, and ethical growth and fulfillment; health and well-being for oneself and others; self-efficacy and self-esteem; happiness for oneself and others; and a means of engaging positively with the community and the world. In fact, to celebrate MIOSM® let’s promise to find ways that we—ourselves and our students—can experience joy of many kinds in school through music.

Music education matters. Our profession matters when things in the world seem to be going smoothly. However, our profession matters even more when things in the world seem to be difficult and challenging. How so? When we engage in the educative teaching and learning of music, we provide avenues and pathways that can help us understand ourselves and each other.

Great music teachers provide important reminders for why we need to “show up” for each other each and every day. For the remainder of the school year, let’s harness the uncertainty as best as we can and remember what’s most important: Being present for each other through music.

Music and a Meal

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

I was asked by an undergraduate student yesterday, “Do you think it’s important to keep learning? And if so, what’s the best way?”

The first question yielded an immediate answer: YES!

The second question was not nearly as easy to answer, but I think I might know what is best for me to keep learning. For me, I learn best by asking lots of questions, and by listening – and listening a lot.

One of the very good things about social media is the ways it can immediately connect people to one another. So, when I ask a question on social media and send it out into the “interwebs,” I’m not sure if or who will respond. Still, it’s so exciting – for me – to get a response, to listen to that response, and to learn as much as I can about that response.

My most recent question may seem trite, but I asked it in earnest: If you could have a meal with any music maker, past or present, who would you choose and why?

Responses came from around the globe, from people of all ages, and taught me so many things about people, music, and the power of sharing. I’m still thinking about the answers people gave and the implications of them for music making, music teaching and learning, and the values people deem important.  And because I’m still learning by thinking-through all these variables, for now, please find just some of the music from the music makers chosen to share a meal. They are in alphabetical order.

Laurie Anderson

Jacob Bannon

Sara Bareilles

Ludwig von Beethoven

Elliott Carter

Diamanda Galás

Woody Guthrie

Jimi Hendrix

Elton John

Lyle Mays

Charlie Parker

Selena

Music Making Hope

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

In our previous Music Matters blogs we’ve discussed and shown many ways that music is employed and deployed to express or mirror the problems and triumphs in our worlds, to question the status quo, and to bring people together in their hopes for change.

Today, in the midst of the horrible coronavirus pandemic, people everywhere have a crying need to feel united, to express their pain, to hope, and to fight for a better tomorrow.

Music is at the center of all these universal human needs. For example, the Academy of Country Music Awards was aired on a CBS special online, social-distance broadcast called Our Country. This live-streamed event not only showcased some of today’s great country music performers, it offered a chance for audiences to join in solidarity through song, and to thereby be comforted and uplifted.

In what ways are current artists singing about present circumstances? Consider some of the following online concerts, performances, and social media “thank yous” through music.

In another example, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free” – written by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas – is a one of many songs that propelled the Civil Rights Movement. But how might it now embody the needs of the great cross-section of people in the grips of the current plague? Nina Simone most famously covered this track in the 1960s, and throughout her career as a jazz legend. Numerous artists past and present also performed this moving tribute to freedom. Consider the following versions of this song and the many different ways it “means” to/for people, right here and now.

And there are more examples of music making connections across quarantined spaces.

And these youngsters in Africa dance and showcase their courage and strength and hope. Let us keep hope alive through music.

Once More: Music Matters Because People Matter

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

We are living in trying times. Around the globe, people are isolated, panicked, quarantined, unwell, and uncertain about what tomorrow may or may not bring. Despite this, and regardless of social distancing, there are wonderful stories that showcase the unification of spirit and soul. And many such stories include music making and sharing from professionals and amateurs alike.

As experienced via Twitter, Yo Yo Ma stated and shared the following:

Similarly in Italy, and even though the country is on lock-down, people nationwide are coming to their windows to sing. Yes, sing! Singing for those who are at “ear’s length,” singing for themselves, and singing for all of us around the world to communicate that hope and joy are ever-present in the hearts and minds of those confined at home.

 

Also, like the above-mentioned model of Yo Yo Ma, and in order to provide comfort and solace in their community, two young Ohio cellists serenade on the front porch of a quarantined neighbor.

Speaking of confined at home, for public and private school students who are no longer be able to perform school concerts, performances, and musical theater productions, Broadway star Laura Benanti called such students to share their songs with her via social media.

We could provide dozens and dozens more examples where people are coming together via social media through music making and sharing. Let’s not forget music’s potential power to unite, communicate, and transform for good. Even when we are seemingly on our own, we are united and can be even closer. Indeed, while at home practicing social distancing, Pink treats us with her rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love.” As she stated via Instagram: “Free concert slash piano lessons from my heart to yours … To make you feel my love 😍 rehearsals.”

Let’s remember we are responsible for one another, even at a distance…

 

 

Kodi Lee

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

It’s clear that we believe that music matters. And every day we’re reminded, again and again, how we’re not alone in this widely-held view.

And while we can argue about the merit – or not – of a show like “America’s Got Talent,” the following case about music’s significance in the lives of people was found there.

As reported on CNN, among other news channels and online media outlets, pianist and singer Kodi Lee shows how much music matters to him and to his mom through his rendition of “A Song For You.”

Rather than go into all the benefits and “goods” this mother and son experience from music making and listening and sharing, we’ll let this musicing speak for itself.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. And that’s reason enough to consider some connections between music, mothers, and their children.

By the last trimester, an unborn child has fully functioning hearing. An unborn can recognize a mother’s voice, and can differentiate this voice from any other. As Ruth Fridman explains, singing to an unborn child establishes “a prenatal bond which contains tenderness on the part of the parents to be, a promise of protection, and the wish to see and hold the baby in their arms . . . It is of great significance for babies to hear music . . . during the gestation period. The mother’s emotional expressions benefit both herself and her baby.”

Moreover, parents and other adult caregivers are predisposed to interact with their infants by means of emotionally charged proto-musical vocalizations, or “motherese” (sometimes called baby talk, parentese, and so on). Motherese combines variations of pitch (melodic-type contours), timbre, rhythm, and accents that are the sonic building blocks of more sophisticated adult singing (such as lullabies). Because humans acquire the ability to distinguish changes in pitch and loudness in utero, it’s not surprising that infants learn to match some proto-musical elements after repeated parent-infant interactions.

Caregivers use motherese to sooth, arouse, communicate, and play in caring and loving ways with their pre-linguistic infants. The musical-affective characteristics of adult-infant interactions establish and strengthen emotional bonds between caregivers and infants. Motherese also includes proto-musical play, and proto-musical play gives infants a way of engaging in and acquiring the foundations of social competence and confidence in a safe, risk-free, enjoyable, and participatory context that is fundamental to the development of their social cognition and “domain-general cultural competence.” If such emotional bonding or “primary intersubjectivity” fails to occur via early motherese and proto-musical interactions, infants may suffer.

The values of motherese are clear. In a highly social species like ours, an infant’s chances of surviving depend on “fitness” beyond physical fitness, namely, “cultural fitness” and social-emotional fitness. These qualities follow from parent-infant bonding and primary intersubjectivity and anchor an individual’s ability to interact cooperatively with others and contribute to group cohesion.

Lullabies Matter

There are numerous projects around the world that support the above. For example, in a women’s prison near Oporto, Portugal, early childhood music specialists help incarcerated mothers learn lullabies they can sing to their infants to promote mother-infant bonding.

Additionally, meet “The Lullaby Project.” According to Carnegie Hall:

The Lullaby Project pairs pregnant women and new mothers with professional artists to write and sing personal lullabies for their babies, supporting maternal health, aiding child development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child. In New York City, the project reaches mothers in hospitals, homeless shelters, schools, and at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. Extending across the country and through several international pilot programs, the Lullaby Project enables partner organizations to support families in their own communities.

Hear Rhiannon Giddens performing one of the lullabies, “Mansell’s Waltz,” from the new album, released April 20, 2018 for Decca Records.

In Pursuit of a “Good Life” Through Music

Posted on by Marissa Silvermann

Given that it’s the holiday season, we thought it important to ask, again: Why engage in music education? One answer is that music education potentially paves the way to a “good life” — a life of happiness, creativity, fellowship, personal meaningfulness, self-knowledge, care for oneself and others, ethical relationships, and other values that occur at the intersection of music making and human life. In combination, these values make up the ancient Greek concept of “eudaimonia.” Music education philosopher Wayne Bowman puts it this way:

Music, and therefore education in it, is crucial to human flourishing, or eudaimonia as the ancient Greeks called it. Music teaches us things about our common humanity that are worth knowing, and renders us less vulnerable to forces that subvert or compromise human well-being. Studying and making music changes who we are and what we expect from life.

Do we know examples of music education that can lead to eudaimonia for every person? Yes. There are many. Here’s one.

Music and a “Good Life”

Meet music educator Adam Goldberg. Goldberg teaches at PS 177 in Queens, NY, a school that serves exceptional children. The mission of the school is based on its “new core standards” or CARE: Communicating, Applauding, Researching, and Educating. All these “standards” are, frankly, what good teaching-and-learning should do: harness the potential of the entire community to help students be their most complete selves, both now and for the future. Goldberg sees music making as a fundamental means for achieving this important lifelong goal.

Through active music making, Goldberg’s students not only achieve musical understanding. They achieve a pathway to eudaimonia, and a shared engagement with/for others through music.

Thank you, Adam Goldberg!

Thank you to all music educators who care for others and their communities…

Happy holidays!