Well, let's not throw our musical babies out with the bath water. My dearest granddaughter and grandson have had excellent music training in their elementary and middle schools here in Redding, California. Granddaughter Grace had violin instruction in our Manzanita Elementary School and played at a young age with other string players, and now at Sequoia Middle School has fallen in love with percussion. Her parents (my daughter, Alexandra and David, her husband) have loving got her a drum set (you've got to really love to have those in the house (;-). She plays in the marching band and a fledgling jazz group at the school. Grandson William is following her at Manzanita and now plays the clarinet and the other day even played us the theme from Mahler's 1st, the ironic "Frère Jacques" in the minor key. He knows the Mahler from CD's. His parents play classical, jazz, and even folk recordings from CD's and our many varied FM stations. My
daughter plays her Chickering baby grand piano that my mother left to her and her bent is classical, too. I may have mentioned our North State Symphony that plays in our restored Cascade Theater, and Shasta College has a jazz band as well as many choral and orchestral concerts. Simpson University also has similar courses, programs and concerts all of which are well attended. So, even though we suffer from triple degree heat at times during our summers, we are not really one of those cultural deserts such as Tom seems to feel exists nation wide.
________________________________
From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 7:07 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Why Vinyl Is NOT Going To Save The Music Industry (And What Will) - Trust Me, I'm A Scientist
Hi Donald:
The only flaw in your logic is, school taxes are higher than ever. Blame the bloated administrations, generous pay for the top dogs and the teachers unions and their lush, lush contracts for starving all manner of learning. Public education is funded to a record per-pupil level in most districts in the U.S, and yet the quality of learning experience is vastly inferior to decades ago. Money isn't the issue, at all. It's priorities and values. Parenting is also terrible these days, and no one -- at any level -- is willing to take responsibility or enforce personal accountability. This is true in all levels of society, we are truly a decadent nation right now.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Donald Clarke" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Why Vinyl Is NOT Going To Save The Music Industry (And What Will) - Trust Me, I'm A Scientist
> This is spot on, Tom. I worked in a shopping mall until recently, and the junk that assaults our ears is astonishing. The kids who used to hang out in the music dept at Barnes & Noble are now sprawled all over the floor reading Japanese comic books.
> Max Roach made a good point some years ago. No matter what kind of poverty his old pals Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie came from, they got musical tuition in the schools, and instruments to practice on. But Americans don't want to pay taxes for anything, not even schools and certainly not music, while every generation has to make its own noise, so in NYC in the 1970s they used turntables and microphones and broke into lamp posts to steal electricity. What Roach said to the taxpayers was, "If you don't like rap, you're getting what you paid for."
>
> Donald Clarke
>
> On Aug 15, 2013, at 6:52 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>
> Hi Don:
>
> I think you are over-optimistic about today's youth. There is little music education in the public schools, at least in the U.S. If there is a "real" piano present, it is badly out of tune and may have been vandalized to the point of non-fuction. It's probably used as a prop in the auditorium. As for an acoustic guitar, unless you like music and have learned music or hang around musicians, you likely have not heard an acoustic guitar. Many kids dabble in cheap electric guitars, plus there is Guitar Band video gaming, but many fewer dabble in acoustic instruments. Some dabble with computer-generated "music" via GarageBand and other software and phone apps. But there is far less formal musical training and general education than one or two generations ago.
>
> Some in the young generartion, the sons of Richard and Cory for example, were drawn to music and received formal training and education. They have heard enough real, live music to understand a few things about sound and tone, and now they are pursuing advanced education which will likely expose them to further sound experiences to consider and absorb. They are the vast, vast minority. For most young folks, music is background noise, part of a relentless and constant buzz in their ears. They may know a few words (usually particularly filthy or violent raps), or a hum a few music phrases, but their relationship with music is very different from the days when a young person would sit down and LISTEN to an album. Even in those days, the majority of kids absorbed a constant drone of 3-minute singles from the AM radio. There was a very brief time in the history of the music business, basically when the baby boomers got some wealth and maturity, when many
people had a good sound system and sat down regularly to listen to an album's worth of music. The "long-hairs" (classical and jazz fans) were doing this from the dawn of the LP, but they were always a small minority of music buyers and listeners.
>
> I think music cheapened itself. When major rock and country artists started licensing their songs to TV shows and commercials, then phone ring-tones, then Guitar Band, that was it. Back when there was some idealism and "honor" among these musicians, it was considered a sell-out to license music for a TV commercial. Once Chevy ads and "CSI" TV shows started featuring Who songs, you knew the deal was done. The once-angry rebel band had completely sold out. Even songs from the once "rebel kings" Clash have turned up as sonic wallpaper. All of this cheapens the songs and thus the kids tune out and the music just becomes part of the roaring drone that is modern life.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 4:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Why Vinyl Is NOT Going To Save The Music Industry (And What Will) - Trust Me, I'm A Scientist
>
>
>> On 15/08/2013, Michael Biel wrote:
>>
>>> Don't forget it is not only us old farts with lousy hearing -- the
>>> kids have been ruining their hearing at a faster rate than we had.
>>> There is a thought some have that MP3 is BETTER for their ears than
>>> wideband now.
>>
>> MP3 files don't have less high frequency sound than uncompressed files.
>> They are simply less accurate.
>>
>>> Plus, most of them have never known what live unaugmented music
>>> sounds like. Pity.
>>>
>> I think everyone must have heard an acoustic guitar on its own. It is
>> still a big challenge for an audio system to reproduce the sound of a
>> solo acoustic guitar at a realistic level.
>>
>> And many will have heard a real piano.
>>
>> Regards
>> -- Don Cox
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>
>
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