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Main Menu Home About Us Contact Us MHS eNewsletter Composers Conductors Instrumentalists Vocalists Featured Artists & Groups Reviews Donors Search Site for... Links Newsflash Fun Stuff Hot Topic! Predicting the Future of Orchestras Classical Music & Today's Youths Ghana @ 50: Journals of Rodger French Solos for Treble Instruments--Sheet Music Education and the Diversity Dilemma, Pt. 2 Education & the Diversity Dilemma, Pt. 1 Walker Sonata No. 1 for Solo Piano Hope Briggs & SFO Black Orchestras Pt. 10 Black Orchestras Pt. 9 A Message from Sinfo-Nia Black Orchestras Pt. 8 Black Orchestras Pt. 7 Black Orchestras Pt. 6 Black Orchestras Pt. 5 Black Orchestras Pt. 4 New Research on Arts Audience Attitudes and Behavior Support Fisk University Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Black Orchestras Pt. 3 Wendell Weaver--Music Ed (1) Black in Canada want Black-focused school Wendell Weaver--Music Ed (2) December eNewsletter correction Wendell Weaver--Music Ed (3) On Black Men & Boys Wendell Weaver--Music Ed (4) The Power of Words Wendell Weaver--Music Ed (5) Hope Briggs returns Celebrating Dr. King Part 2 Institutionalized Racism Musings on Mentors and Mentees Black Orchestras Pt. 2 Beethoven was BLACK! Black Orchestras Pt. 1 Call for Diversity in Orchestras Relevancy of CMOC Children at Concerts Talking to Audiences Concert Hall Etiquette Defining Black Music US Black Classical Instrument Discrimination Love for Sale? Bibliography Events Myrtle on the Web Guestbook Finding the truth is not enough. What we also have to find is justice.                                ~Rigoberta Menchu Classical Music and Today's Youths: How to Make it Relevant to Their Lives Monday, 17 December 2007 You remember Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, right? That dramatic tragedy by about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose "untimely deaths" ultimately unite their feuding households. I read it in high school around the same time that I played Tchaikovsky’s and heard Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Around the same time, I saw the version with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes three times at the movies and sobbed every single time starting right around the time that R&J meet at the fish tank at her mother’s masquerade party. I think I started crying for a few reasons: 1) I’m a hopeless sappy romantic and 2) I knew their fate. In my mid-teens, I couldn’t understand why these two kids around my age were kept apart by their families. Same feelings I got when I watched West Side Story for the first time, although I did understand issues of race more or better than I understood issues of class which is what R&J is based on. What I now wish had happened is the reason for today’s article. Teachers, conductors and other instructors of music, today I write to you. As you can tell from last week’s article on Black Men and Boys, our youths are having some serious problems trying to stay alive, trying to figure out the world and their place in it and ultimately trying to thrive in a society that appears to disregard their opinion and their lives. No one appears to speak to them. No one seems to want to deal with the responsibility of having to teach them anything more than whatever is on Bush’s standardized tests. But there are plenty of opportunities to listen to the youths and teach them a number of relevant things. It’s unbelievable what they know that you have no idea that they’re even thinking about. There are so many reasons to speak to youths and to find out about them. Oftentimes, music teachers think “I only have 30 minutes per week to teach these kids and I don’t want to waste time with chatter.” My students often do that—if they haven’t practiced, they will try to talk to me as a waste of time. I understand that it’s a red herring and I don’t give in. Therefore I win because I make them really talk to me and learn something. But perhaps if the conversation were still about the piece, it’d be well worth the time. Think about this… Music is social commentary. There isn’t a piece out there that didn’t stem from some environmental circumstance. Life and art are interrelated. No way around it. So it makes sense to use music as a conversation piece for a number of reasons including building a trusting, open relationship with a youth. Maybe when they’re in trouble or there’s something they feel they can’t communicate to a parent or other advisor, they’ll come to you instead of turning to drugs or worse. But I digress. Point is, if you can, be methodical in your music selection. Do your research and be interested in your students. No doubt they will come prepared more often if they know that it’s about them and not just about a perfect recital, about which they may have no real care. As concerns Romeo & Juliet, English teachers and/or conductors should talk to students, especially Black students if the ensemble is of color, to make it relate to their lives. For instance, what do they think about gang violence? Capulets vs. Montagues are like Bloods and Crips. Is it ever alright to fight? Is suicide the answer to life’s problems? On and on. It’s hard-hitting stuff, but you’d be surprised just how relevant that conversation is to their lives. A conversation like such will make their playing more expressive and deepen their understanding of social issues connecting 16th century to the present. I’m not saying psychoanalyze your students, but if we’re looking to make classical music relevant in a hip hop society, we need to connect it on a social level where it starts. Personally, I decided to be more conscious about the music that I perform. As a harpist, my music has no lyrics, but it still has meaning. I suggested to some collaborators this week that we use the music in our youth group as a vehicle to get the youths talking. For instance, let's say you choose to have an ensemble perform On Emancipation Day by Will Marion Cook. What an excellent opportunity to talk about human rights or talk about civil rights! Maybe some have brothers or uncles in the war in Iraq. There are many things from which we can emancipate ourselves. In addition to the tune, you can talk to your kids about Will Marion Cook, their choices about college (he attend Oberlin Conservatory), black musicals, etc. This gives them options in addition to information. Send them away thinking about life and music and its interconnectedness. Why just play music when you can live it? Why not make black dots on white paper come to life for youths more than aurally? Help youths understand classical music’s relevance in their lives and its place in society through conversation.   < Prev   Next > [ Back ]       © 2012 myrtlehart.org Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.

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