# Music education is now only for the white and wealthy - The Guardian



## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Hello all
Not sure if it was posted here before,
i just read it one hour ago and decided to share here:

https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2017/...t-of-signatories/comment-page-9/#comment-9993

(and I made my own answer too)

All the best
Artur


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

It was in the Guardian- I don't need to say anything no one should take the Guardian seriously and I'm a left leaning dude but they nuts


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Always cool when even the left can tell Fake News.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

neoshredder said:


> Always cool when even the left can tell Fake News.


I'm not following this, sorry. So which part is fake new and how. Like is the Guardian story april's fool or what do you mean?

Actually, it's all the same. I agree fully with cimirro's reply. That's how I see things also in general, not only when it comes to music education. Interwebs gives and takes!


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## topo morto (Apr 9, 2017)

The main body of the article seems to focus on the idea that learning SN shouldn't be the only route into academic 'achievement' at music, which seems a perfectly reasonable argument. 

The fact that the rich get more of everything... 'twas ever thus.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> It was in the Guardian- I don't need to say anything no one should take the Guardian seriously and I'm a left leaning dude but they nuts


Yes. Ridiculous.

So what happened to the many white, wealthy people in the US who remain classical music-ignorant?


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I added my reply. 

:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

topo morto said:


> The main body of the article seems to focus on the idea that learning SN shouldn't be the only route into academic 'achievement' at music, which seems a perfectly reasonable argument.


By SN I assume you mean sheet notation. And I'm inclined to agree: one should really first learn to sing and play by ear. The problem is, most people simply don't have much of an ear. Music notation makes it possible for any monkey to play an instrument like a typewriter: see the note, mechanically play it. It's also a convenient way to make music education one-size-fits-all, and to set standardized tests.

As with all subjects, schooling is all very well, and very necessary for some sorts of things, but don't confuse it with an education.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

What's so bad about the "romanticisation of illiteracy"?

That's how I live with myself.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

I read the article too - but the argument that only m/c white kids have the means to learn theory is nonsense. It can be learned from a book for zilch.

what cannot be learned from a book reliably - and something not tackled in the piece - is instrumental tuition - the cost of which is a barrier to kids from poor families.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

stomanek said:


> I read the article too - but the argument that only m/c white kids have the means to learn theory is nonsense. It can be learned from a book for zilch.
> 
> what cannot be learned from a book reliably - and something not tackled in the piece - is instrumental tuition - the cost of which is a barrier to kids from poor families.


But coming back to this cost of instrumental tuition - if we are talking about a 6 y/o child playing piano and have 1 lesson per week for 10 years at - say £50 an hour. That is a total cost of £30,000 over that time - excluding costs of getting child to lesson etc. And the cost of the instrument - can be substantial. These figures are conservative - as such children also attend various courses etc.

who excatly is supposed to pay this cost? certainly not the government - in a world where people cant go into hospital for ops because there are not enough beds - not one penny should come out of the public purse for instrumental tuition. Though it does in fact - via the govts music and dance scheme. But that is only for children whose parents have already shelled out big money over the years and for children whose talent is validated by the education centre (ie menuhin school, chetham's or other). 
But for those that are not going into the profession - the parents must pay. It may well be money down the drain - in fact probably will be - as most kids who take up an instrument will drop it once they can make their own choices in life.

So in short - all this crying that classical music is a m/c kids domain - tough! It is a luxury - not a necessity.

And for those kids who are determined and talented - and whose parents dont have money for lessons - many will find a way - and some wont. That's life.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Typical piece of smug _Guardianista_ agitprop - if they were talking about a century or so ago they may have had more of a point.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

I like The Guardian quite a bit. Not only for quality, in-depth news, but for perspectives on issues not available elsewhere. They do some very good investigative journalism. But I think opinion pieces on culture should be taken as just that - opinions. Some British online tabloids that are questionable and sometimes laughable are Daily Mail, Express, and Daily Mirror.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Richard8655 said:


> I like The Guardian quite a bit. Not only for quality, in-depth news, but for perspectives on issues not available elsewhere. They do some very good investigative journalism. But I think opinion pieces on culture should be taken as just that - opinions. Some British online tabloids that are questionable and sometimes laughable are Daily Mail, Express, and Daily Mirror.


I often think these opinions are media culture driving forces to destroy the human culture because of political reasons (money) of those who want the people to become a great flock for their own pleasure.

I can't imagine art as "luxury" as mentioned in other post. Art is a knowledge of the same importance of any area.
And it is important to say I have a total respect for the "popular culture" which is completely different from the terrible "media culture" I mentioned.

Concerning "who exactly is supposed to pay this cost?" I would say the government.
of course this will not happen because the royal princess need a new dress each day (or the people will be scandalized all over the world), 
and who will pay the golden carriage for the royal families and other "very necessary things"?

Here in Brazil we do not pay for a royal family - we are stolen by all the politicians families - and sometimes I believe the people enjoy being part of this stolen flock...
Of course, the mass of Brazilian people would love to have a princess too, I know. 
That doesn't mean I agree with these systems.

Charlotte C. Gill contributes, with such article, for a hideous world.
I already made mine against her "opinions" (for the ones who would like to waste some time reading)
http://www.arturcimirro.com.br/answer.htm

All the best
Artur Cimirro


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Weird. I play (classical) piano and am mainly dots based. I also play folk where the emphasis is almost totally on learning by ear. It's interesting to note that the Royal Scottish Conservatoire offers graded exams in folk music where you can either use dots or play by ear. The exams are designed to give traditional music parity of esteem with classical music.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Actually, the majority of my piano students are Asian, not white. If my studio is any indication, music education is now primarily for Asian kids from wealthy families (or, if not necessarily wealthy, at least financially comfortable).


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## quietfire (Mar 13, 2017)

Well considering all of (good) Western classical music was commissioned for white and wealthy people...


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## quietfire (Mar 13, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Actually, the majority of my piano students are Asian, not white. If my studio is any indication, music education is now primarily for Asian kids from wealthy families (or, if not necessarily wealthy, at least financially comfortable).


The conservatory I sometimes visit has exclusively Asian and white kids who dress very fancily. I feel very out of place there lol.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Learning musical notation is in no way comparable to learning Latin.

I'm all for more musical education in schools, including education in traditions other than Western classical that might not involve written music, but the idea that learning it is this enormous esoteric undertaking that only rich kids could ever hope to complete is ludicrous. Musical notation isn't very complicated.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bettina said:


> Actually, the majority of my piano students are Asian, not white. If my studio is any indication, music education is now primarily for Asian kids from wealthy families (or, if not necessarily wealthy, at least financially comfortable).


At the beginning of a semester on the first day, if I saw a lot of Asian kids in the room, I knew I was going to have a fullfilling five months teaching chemistry. It's not just the intellect, but also the work ethic and seriousness.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

isorhythm said:


> Learning musical notation is in no way comparable to learning Latin.
> 
> I'm all for more musical education in schools, including education in traditions other than Western classical that might not involve written music, but the idea that learning it is this enormous esoteric undertaking that only rich kids could ever hope to complete is ludicrous. Musical notation isn't very complicated.


That, and learning musical notation is actually useful and adds value to the the lives of many who learn it! As a kid who learned Latin from grades 3-8 at a classical school, the only thing its helped me with so far is being able to read the lyrics of Bach's Mass in B minor (which I admit, is pretty cool)!


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Sounds like some crappy journalist who wasn't smart or talented enough to hack it at music blaming her deficiencies on "white society." Welcome to 21st century journalism.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Complete and utter bullcrap. In a society where liberal arts is viewed by a growing number of people as a useless waste of time that will doom you to poverty, how can you even make the argument that it's about race? Talk to any public school guidance counselor, and you'll be told that STEM is where the money's at and music will make you end up living under the highway overpass. So why encourage a poor inner city student to go into it? Modern journalism has a funny way of blaming everything on racism.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

The thing that worries me is the proportion of new increasingly rich people not having a clue or giving a damn about anybodyelse, which usually includes our little piece of the culture pie if not high culture in general.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The original article has a point but makes it badly by resorting to lazy stereotypes. Music teaching is being squeezed out of schools in the UK, meaning that kids from households where music does not figure never get the opportunity to find out if it is 'for' them or whether they have any particular talent for music-making. Personally, having had pretty much that background in the late 1950s-60s, I think that's very sad. Our two boys grew up hearing all manner of music at home and, having a composer/conductor uncle and musician aunt, learned that musicians are more or less ordinary human beings who do a particular thing especially well. At the height of his troubled teens, our elder boy admitted to a love of the Arctic Monkeys, Delta blues and Mussorgsky. 

A number of factors are causing this impoverishment of state school provision. The obvious one is money: it costs a school money to hire in music tutors, and the obvious recourse is to shift that cost onto those parents who (a) can afford it and (b) see the point of affording it. And I suspect that (b) is the key factor there. Another important factor is the increasing focus on exam performance in a limited set of subjects. Though I am not a school teacher, I believe it would be easier to hot-house a group of kids to achieve a good overall performance in, say, a History exam than in music, where predisposition and talent would likely have more of an effect. Our state schools are rated on their success or otherwise in getting young people through a rather limited set of exams. Producing a couple of excellent musicians or a really happy swing band would merit a pat on the head, but not much in the key statistics.

Several prominent musicians in the UK have been speaking out about this issue, notably Peter Donahoe. It is, I think, a serious problem but it is not helped by simplistic, class-war-derived journalism.

Sorry, an unusually serious and from-the-heart post from me, because I think this issue is important.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

bz3 said:


> Sounds like some crappy journalist who wasn't smart or talented enough to hack it at music blaming her deficiencies on "white society." Welcome to 21st century journalism.


Called fake news nowadays.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

bz3 said:


> Sounds like some crappy journalist who wasn't smart or talented enough to hack it at music blaming her deficiencies on "white society." Welcome to 21st century journalism.


Yes, if only I were not a straight, white, baby-boomer male, I could really have made something of myself.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

I wouldn't take anything one reads in the Guardian too seriously. The columnists always seem to be in a state of perpetual outrage about something.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

*Music Theory *section? :tiphat:


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## quietfire (Mar 13, 2017)

chill782002 said:


> I wouldn't take anything one reads in the Guardian too seriously. The columnists always seem to be in a state of perpetual outrage about something.


They want to draw in readers, and they succeeded.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

chill782002 said:


> I wouldn't take anything one reads in the Guardian too seriously. The columnists always seem to be in a state of perpetual outrage about something.


I wouldn't take anything I read in any newspaper seriously. At best, it's all noise and little signal; at worst, it's just gossip.

What they choose to ram down children's throats at school is largely irrelevant to getting an actual education anyway.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Sloe said:


> Ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd


You're making a compelling argument.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I'm white but I'm not wealthy. Music and its education is available to anyone willing to learn. Fact.


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## eric444 (Nov 16, 2017)

Newspapers/columnists do not always provide info based on what is fact and real. Sometimes, they just give their own opinion and criticize. If anyone believes in them 100%, they're ******' idiot.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> It was in the Guardian- I don't need to say anything no one should take the Guardian seriously and I'm a left leaning dude but they nuts


It seems the editorial staff and columnists consist entirely of middle class marxists straight out of university. I've seen the Guardian decline from a respectable and somewhat pluralistic paper into a whiney ideological rag. Shame.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Tallisman said:


> It seems the editorial staff and columnists consist entirely of middle class marxists straight out of university. I've seen the Guardian decline from a respectable and somewhat pluralistic paper into a whiney ideological rag. Shame.


Be glad you're old enough to remember when basically all journalism wasn't total drivel.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Pat Fairlea said:


> The original article has a point but makes it badly by resorting to lazy stereotypes. Music teaching is being squeezed out of schools in the UK, meaning that kids from households where music does not figure never get the opportunity to find out if it is 'for' them or whether they have any particular talent for music-making. Personally, having had pretty much that background in the late 1950s-60s, I think that's very sad. Our two boys grew up hearing all manner of music at home and, having a composer/conductor uncle and musician aunt, learned that musicians are more or less ordinary human beings who do a particular thing especially well. At the height of his troubled teens, our elder boy admitted to a love of the Arctic Monkeys, Delta blues and Mussorgsky.
> 
> A number of factors are causing this impoverishment of state school provision. The obvious one is money: it costs a school money to hire in music tutors, and the obvious recourse is to shift that cost onto those parents who (a) can afford it and (b) see the point of affording it. And I suspect that (b) is the key factor there. Another important factor is the increasing focus on exam performance in a limited set of subjects. Though I am not a school teacher, I believe it would be easier to hot-house a group of kids to achieve a good overall performance in, say, a History exam than in music, where predisposition and talent would likely have more of an effect. Our state schools are rated on their success or otherwise in getting young people through a rather limited set of exams. Producing a couple of excellent musicians or a really happy swing band would merit a pat on the head, but not much in the key statistics.
> 
> ...


A great point, and yes, much of the problem is geographical, political, cultural, you name it. I grew up in the Bronx where music was not a main offering (schools that I attended had no music programs for the most part, even at my high school, a catholic school with exorbitant tuition fees no less). So accessibility is a problem for those in typically low income areas. The tides are turning in that regard, but very slowly and unevenly.


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