Music in School NOT Actually Helpful
December 17th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
No, not a headline from The Onion. Just a fact. And a true mindfuck.
So I’m reading The Devil’s Horn which I’ve mentioned elsewhere and was thrown a real curveball halfway through it when author Michael Segell shares the story of how the Conn music company, recognizing the monetary benefits to be exploited thanks to the Saxophone’s popularity, lobbied the government to include music classes in public school’s curriculum partly by suggesting their health benefits to students’ development.
As Segell explains, “Self-serving or not, the Conn Company’s efforts, underwritten by its enormous saxophone profits, helped establish a musical curriculum in American public schools that became a model for the rest of the world.”
As a result of the saxophone’s great popularity in the twenties and thirties, fierce and unscrupulous competition emerged among the manufacturers. “Unrestrained by truth-in-advertising laws or simple common sense, the competitor’s marketing campaigns strove to outdo each other in their outlandish claims. ‘Learning to play the Saxophone is much the same as a youngster learning numbers and letters by moving blocks – and almost as simple,’ declared the Buescher company.
Even though Segell explains that, “National educator’s conferences repeatedly affirmed the value of music education,” what if all the hype about how beneficial and necessary music and art curriculum is to students is all just another example of corporate bullshit being crammed down the throats of innocent citizens by their own government?
What if “math’s importance” is just a big scam by Texas Instruments in order to sell tons of TI-83 graphing calculators?
What if history and geography’s “importance” is just a longstanding nefarious scheme purported by Rand McNally to sell more maps?
Has Garmin been lacing America’s water supply with an additive that renders the male population spatially challenged and overly stubborn when it comes to asking for directions so that they could sell a shitload of GPS guides?
Ok. Enough of the paranoia. You’ve had your fun. Go turn on some Stan Getz. Calm down. And read This Is Your Brain on Music. Or The Rest is Noise. Or Musicophilia.
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