Re: Re: Re: Re: Importance of learning scales


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Posted by Rick Denney on February 22, 2004 at 13:09:54:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Importance of learning scales posted by Leland on February 22, 2004 at 01:56:35:

Well, knowing scales doesn't make up for lack of talent, heh, heh.

But this sub-thread brings up an excellent point. Part of why music educators are so up in arms about the cutting back of music programs is because they present music education as an academic pursuit in its own right, with similar academic benefits to learning, say, a foreign language.

It seems to me that they have to back up that claim by presenting band as an academic subject with rigorous academic standards.

In language class, we read and analyzed literature, and the teacher had us do the reading partly so that we would learn to enjoy doing it. But we only did that about half the time. The other half of the time, we were learning grammar and vocabulary. That, to me, is an academic approach. Could we have read and analyzed literature without grammar? Sure. But we would not have learned to produce our own literature. In music, you have to produce it. Therefore, you have to have the grammar and vocabulary as the starting point. Guess what scales are?

I fear that some music educators are so intent on making their programs popular by not being academically rigorous that they forget that the students most likely to pursue music with real enjoyment and devotion are those who need and (even if they won't admit it) want academic rigor. As I think back, almost all of the best members of my school bands were also the best students in their other classes. If band had not been demanding, it would have bored them, like compulsory PE did.

Rick "who thinks music is a part of a true education" Denney


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