The idea of communal music fascinates my imagination, yet also brings feelings of frustration and anxiety. Music Education advocates consistently boasts the power of music and its ability to create, build, and maintain a community. The highlight the role music played during the civil rights movement as a token to advance the interests of music programs, while choral directors stress the importance of ensemble singing, teamwork, and active participation. At first these tenets provide a feeling of comfort. However, after much reflection and study, one may be compelled to say that music education as a profession has failed to full fill the tenets we promote in our advertisements. We continue to marginalize certain genres of music, citing artistic integrity and discredit music that is assessable to the students. The conversation we hold with members of our profession and those whom are not, continue to focus on the problems that plague our community, which inevitably recreates a retributive community that continually inhibits the creation of a truly authentic and restorative music community.
The Frustration and anxiety is born from the struggle for music education. Nationwide, advocates of the arts continually struggle to support music and art programs and for some this struggle is dire. Many of the advocates use the play book used by political candidates that promotes the use of slogans, TV Commercials, finger pointing, and fear. The struggle for the inclusion of the creative arts in our public is certainly a reality for all and cannot be addressed in a 30 second TV Commercial. However, my frustration is derived from how we as a profession choose to confront the challenges that face our profession, but most of all our students. Block talked a great deal about how challenges within a community are created. He states that many issues that arise within a community is due to a breakdown in community. We as teachers and advocates of music have fallen into a vicious spiral. The conversation we engage contribute to the breakdown of our community, which fuels the challenges we face. Block suggests that we as community builders should view the issues surrounding our community not as problems to be solved but as challenges to be overcome as a community.
The first step that we must take as a member of the community is to change the language we use and ultimately the conversations we engage in. Block promotes the use of small groups that are tightly bound in associational living and dedicated to restoring the aliveness within their community. Secondly we must move into the future and imagine the possibility rather than leading from the past. Block states that a community builder who chooses to lead from the past often markets fear and fault as a means to gain support. If one continues to employ fear as a means to promote music in our schools we run the risk of marginalizing some within our community and perpetuating the further breakdown of our community. Lastly, we must envision the role music plays within the overarching community. We must not only claim our seat at the table in a restorative way, but also yield our allegiance to the greater good. Music cannot live for musics sake. By nature the musical phenomenon is interdisciplinary and shatters boundaries. Music has the innate ability to educate and promote a well rounded citizen. We must embrace that philosophy as a possibility and use it as a agent of change.
The gift of music in undeniable. Music has the power to assemble the community and promote communal transformation. However, we as leaders within the community must be mindful and reflect upon our actions as community builders, to ensure that our practices are in harmony with the ideals that communal music making promote. If we are not mindful of our actions than we run the risk diluting the communal power of music.
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