Response to Carlesta Spearman's

"How Will Societal and Technological Changes

Affect the Teaching of Music'"

Sandy Feldstein

Sandy Feldstein is president of Carl Fischer LLC.

It is a pleasure to be able to respond to Carlesta Spearman's paper. It was not until this morning that I realized her connection with Rawn Spearman with whom I had the pleasure of working when we were both getting our doctorates and performing recitals in New York.

I think Dr. Spearman's paper states facts that we can all agree upon. There are changes in society that are going to affect all of us. The average age of our society is increasing and lifelong learning is going to be essential. More of our society is going to be made up of people of Asian, African-American, and Hispanic descent, where in the past our population was made up of more people of European descent. All of this is going to affect what we have to do in education. On the technology side the paper points out the importance of the working environment and the learning environment becoming more decentralized. Moving the workplace away from the central office and moving education away from the traditional school setting, as we know it, also is going to have a great impact on us.

The Internet is obviously having an impact, as are interactive television and all of the other technologies. The implications of all these things on music teacher training are immense. Teachers must know technology, both how it works and how to use it effectively in their teaching. Today's teachers and teachers who will be teaching in the

future must also know the music of other cultures. And the teaching population needs to reflect the cultural diversity of the student body, which means we have to recruit. But teacher recruitment in general is at a crisis stage for us. The crisis is not only in music, but it definitely is in music. We have been working very hard to keep music programs alive, and now that we have made some progress in keeping programs, we do not have the teachers to supply them. We are going to lose those programs if we do not create a pool of talented creative educators.

This need is going to mean changes in certification. Indeed, we must have alternative types of certification. I implore you to lookat enlisting the help of professional musicians, many of whom, besides being talented performers, are educators as well. We must come up with ways of getting them certified so they can help in alternative learning situations. This will include developing programs that can have short residencies so that people can continue "with their day gig" while they start to learn more about education.

In my comments, I would like to present various random ideas for you to consider that I believe can help open other avenues for discussion.

We must learn to understand the music that children like. You heard it in the first statement from Libby Larsen (Housewright Symposium keynote speaker) and you have heard it since. I am not saying you have to embrace it and go home and put it on your CD player. I do not expect you to refit your cars with big bass amplifiers, but you must at least show your students that you care about what they listen to. You must know the names of the artists. If we do that, we will have more opportunities to transfer learning.

Current teachers need this same training; so the implications for in-service are tremendous. Someone mentioned the other day, "Just what I really want to do after a full day is go home, put on the television and take a course." Well, you know, we are going to have to. No one said that devoting your life to music education was going to be easy. And we are at a crisis situation where we are going to have to put in the time and the effort to do what is necessary to bring our profession to the year 2020.

All of this will have a great impact on the curriculum. I would like to propose the idea that music must help make kids want to stay in school. There are tremendous numbers of dropouts in certain communities, and music can be a terrific tool in having kids turned on about school in general. This will not happen with the programs we now are providing for them, but future programs should address this. We should teach not only skills and concepts but obviously how they relate to life.

We must treat all of the students equally. Our goal should not be to get a grade A in level 6 band. That should be an outcome of a strong overall music program for all students, and if we do not change our mind-set as educators, we are not going to get there.

I am sorry that at the last moment, Remo Belli was not able to be here. He has a great analogy when he talks about physical education. In school every student takes physical education, everyone is exposed to it, and then they may make a choice. "I'd like to be on the girl's volleyball team." "I'd like to be on the basketball team." "I'd like to be in the football program." But before that, everyone is involved in physical education. This model is one we might want to look at more deeply as a concept for music education.

Our fear of teaching music for any reason other than its intrinsic value is unfounded. We must get away from that. We should teach music but not be afraid when is it "used" in other areas of education.

After reading all of the papers, I basically said, "Why am I here, Why was I asked to speak?"

I assumed I was asked to be here to give an industry perspective, and that is what I am going to do. In his paper, Paul Lehman said, "Implementing this program will require the cooperation and support of all who value the arts." Industry and education must work together. But except for a brief moment in time, when MENC, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (NARAS), and NAMM joined forces for the National Coalition for Music Education, we have not been very good at working together.

The opening paper emphasized what we have accomplished since Tanglewood. It included positive concepts about the inclusion of music and the other arts in the Goals 2000 legislation. The implication was that MENC did that. Well, in fact, MENC did not do that alone. The National Coalition did that. And that showed the best of how a coalition works.

If you remember those years (and they were not that long ago), Michael Greene from NARAS took one minute on national television during the Grammy Awards and accomplished what we were not able to accomplish for ten years by ourselves. He brought to the table what he did well, having a minute to talk to a billion people about music education. NAMM came to the table and brought funding and coordination to try to bring these elements together, and MENC did the rest: supplying the content, the excitement, and the concept of working as a group. The Coalition was terrific. I would like to see it happening every day.

I was very excited speaking with Joe Lamond, who is here representing NAMM, over the past two days. There is a new advocacy kit coming out from the Coalition, the Music Education Advocates Toolkit, and the Coalition actually has been expanded. Besides the original three, VH-I, the American Music Conference, the National School Boards Association, the Iowa Alliance, and the Music Publishers Association are all now involved in this new pro gram.

Most of you have already started to hear the buzz about the new Miramax movie, Music of the Heart. The Coalition is supporting it, and hopefully we will have the same kind of responses we did with Mr. Holland’s Opus. This is another positive thing that one group could not do on its own.

But all too often, each of us is there only for the glory of our own group. The industry is at fault just as well as education. We have too many organizations. We have too many egos. But luckily most of them fall under the umbrella of NAMM, which is a real umbrella (not just a verbal one containing listings under a name). NAMM represents an effective interaction of groups working together to reach goals that are important for everyone.

In education we have a profession with more splinter groups than any profession I have ever seen. It is mind-boggling. Just think about instrumental music, or forget that, just think about band. We have NBA, CBDNA, and ABA. Then you start going into the states and we have TBA, OBA, and on and on. Every state has an individual band organization, besides the three major band organizations. And if that is not enough, the people who play any one of the band instruments think that those organizations are not doing anything. So we have a flute organization and a double-reed organization. We do not even have a woodwind group—evidently that is too broad. I have a theory that in music education there are as many organizations as there are people who want to be the president of something.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we took the time, energy, and money spent in these splinter organizations and put those resources behind one single mission. And what are we trying to accomplish? I was taken aback when reading in one of the papers presented at this forum that, "goals of industry and education are sometimes at odds." That is ludicrous.

We all want people to experience the joy of music making. We all want to develop more music makers. That is part of MENC's mission statement. That is part of NAMM's mission statement. We agree that our goal is to develop more music makers. And if we develop more music makers, will it be good for the industry? Obviously it will. We will sell more instruments and we will sell more publications. There will become more music-making opportunities and the business will be kept alive. But it also will be good for the music education business—excuse me, profession. It will provide an opportunity for the employment of those people involved in the profession of music education. There is a major difference, though. The industry cannot fail and stay in business. If we do not do a good ob our employees do not have a job— our employees do not have tenure.

If music education in the traditional setting is not meeting the challenge of making more music makers who will love music for a lifetime, then we are going to have to do it alone. We cannot wait. But doing it alone is wrong. The challenge is to do it together, and the Coalition proves that working together works.

I believe that most music educators do not realize the depth of resources that are available in the industry. Of course, we are always asked for money; we are asked for money to fund anything and everything. But we are rarely asked to input our expertise. You should realize that industry people are highly trained musicians. Many are past music educators. We can add a lot if you give us the opportunity.

I also believe most music educators are not aware of what the music industry does. One of the papers being presented at this symposium talks about technology. It states you can go on the Internet, put in music, and look at all of these lesser-known sites. Among them were Banjo in the Hollow, Off Wall Street Jam, and a lot of esoteric sites. But in the middle of this listing was AMC, the American Music Conference. If you do not know what the American Music Conference is, and you feel it is a lesser-known site, then you have not done your homework.

Last year the American Music Conference was responsible for 1.2 billion impressions on advocacy in music education—1.2 billion impressions to the general public. This is not preaching to the choir, and it is listed in one of our papers as a lesser-known organization. It should not be. We in the industry have not done our job in letting you know what we do.

Why does a local music store give lessons? To make money? Maybe. But I say that more likely it is to fill the need of the community that is not being serviced by traditional music education.

Why do papers at this forum ask for a source of reference for music education research? Don't they know about the Foundationfor Music Research, where NAMM has invested over one and a half million dollars in the last few years and is scheduled to go up to five million dollars for music education research? And speaking of research, why do we always rain on our own parade when something is happening that is valuable to us?

It may be that some people have been a little overzealous in stating what the research findings imply. But in reality it is the first time we have had a volume of material (and an ever-growing volume of material) that looks at the positive aspects of music from a research standpoint. And instead of embracing it, we, even at this forum, say, "But it doesn't really make you smarter...." Why are we looking at the negatives? Every time there is one research finding that says something positive, there are ten other researchers who are going to prove it wrong. That's human nature.

We cannot embrace that type of activity. We have to be positive about the good aspects of the research. Of course, we must be careful not to exaggerate. We should not say that because of one little piece of research every child is going to get smarter, or that every baby that listens to Mozart is going to be an asset to the community. But we do have a volume of positive research material. We as an industry and we as educators must support the positive and not jump on the negative bandwagon.

The New Horizons Band has been mentioned a few times and I think that is wonderful. No one mentioned the fact that the financial support that made the Horizons Band possible (and helped Roy Ernst expand the wonderful job he's doing) came from the industry.

Nothing was said about the Weekend Warrior program, which is a big industry initiative similar to what Roy's doing, but geared for people who want to be in garage bands and who played in the '50s and now want to play again. So, we are doing the same thing for "pop music" as we are for concert band music.

And what about the Music Making and Wellness research at the University of Miami? It is showing a tremendous relationship between music and wellness for senior citizens. You know, we are all going to be one of those—hopefully.

Why did the music industry start TI:ME, to train teachers in technology? They did not want to do it, but they believed that it was not being adequately addressed by traditional music education. It should not be that way; it should be done together. I think the challenge for all of you is not only to look into your profession but also to look to the industry that serves you. Do what you do best but encourage us to do what we do best.

If you remember the We Are the World recording, Quincy Jones had a major problem in that he had a room full of the biggest pop personalities in one room. And I will never forget the sign he had hanging on the door, going into the studio. It was a big sign that said, Leave your egos at the door." I think we have to do that. We have to leave our egos at the door and work together for the benefit of the kids. And speaking of kids, in a day and a half I have heard kids mentioned only in Paul Lehman's paper. I mean isn't that what we're here for? If we do what's right for the kids, we'll be doing what's right for your profession and our industry.

Wynton Marsalis has a great way of teaching collective improvisation to young children. He speaks about it as the clearest form of democracy. How's that for interdisciplinary transfer of learning? He says, first you have to listen to each other, then you interact with each other, and then you use elements that are around you and you add your own personality to it. And you end up with something complete that is the creative work of all of us.

We are here to begin that process in music education, and if ever there was an opportunity to guarantee the role of music in ourpresent and future society, the time is now.