The Day the Music Thrived and Why Music Education

It was one of the great pleasures of my life to see our dream of creating a pan-Northampton Public School concert/celebrations/fundraiser for YesNorthampton.org become a reality last Sunday. On June 9, musical and theatrical groups from Jackson Street, JFK and NHS along with my band, The Nields, came together at First Churches of Northampton to create a neat 90 minute (to the second!) show called The Day The Music Thrived. The amazing Expandable Brass Band did an incredible flash mob lead-up to the event, rocking the sidewalk outside the church with a “Vote Yes” song. Everyone volunteered their time and services. The event went so seamlessly because everyone gave 110%. It was Northampton at its best.


As a mother and musician, I am deeply disturbed by the proposed budget cuts, especially the ones that put the jobs of several music teachers on the chopping block. Before the concert, my outrage was purely theoretical. Though I’d witnessed my kids’ own wonderful music teacher Kim O’Connell in action, I had only heard about the legendary Claire-anne Williams, band and all-around music teacher for JFK, whose award winning Jazz band blew everyone away with a cover of “Birdland” on Sunday. I had only heard tell of the Northamptones, NHS’s signature a cappella group led by the fantastic Beau Flahive. I'd only assumed that the theatre program was fantastic. Now that I have seen these wonderful teachers in action, I feel more strongly than ever the particular potential loss rather than the theoretical. Time to remind ourselves why kids need music in the schools.

1. Music education correlates with better attention and self-control—great for kids with ADHD, Asperger’s, but also great for neurotypical kids–– to foster focus and attention, two attributes which are the bedrock for all other learning.
2. Learning music is akin to learning a language—kids who know music are essentially bilingual and can “converse” with people all over the globe.
3. It’s the one academic discipline that works both the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain equally.
4. Playing an instrument increases fine motor skills.
5. Performing in front of others is a basic executive skill not generally taught.
6. Band and Chorus kids are less likely to do drugs, abuse alcohol, and become teen parents.
7. Kids who take music lessons have better spatial relations abilities
8. Kids who take music lessons have, on average, a 50 point higher SAT score.
9. Kids involved in music are less lonely. Middle school and high school years can be anxiety provoking to say the least. Putting socially anxious kids in a band or chorus where there are definite tasks, roles, goals, alleviates the anxiety and facilitates cohesion, camaraderie—all without drugs or alcohol or inappropriate sexual behavior.
10. It’s what they’ll remember, years from now, when they look back on their school experience.
So I’d ask this: rather than talking about cutting music teachers, why don’t we have more music teachers? My sister Katryna’s kids go to public school in Conway. They have music five days a week. Why shouldn’t we?
Vote YES on June 25 to preserve what we have. And then let’s roll up our sleeves to change what’s wrong systemically in Massachusetts and in the federal government; let’s rethink our whole attitude towards the arts. Let’s give our kids what they need to be the responsible, creative thinkers the 21st Century needs.



And finally--NPR covered our event! Listen: http://www.nepr.net/sites/default/files/arts-funding-noho-spot.WAV

What Do You Remember About Music?

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of holding a baby just 10 days old. It was mid afternoon, and I was guessing her poor mama hadn't really slept since the birth. Elle and I took turns cuddling the baby, while my friend crept upstairs for a much needed nap. After a few minutes, the baby began fussing. I picked her up, walked around the room, sang our version of "Hush Little Baby." Still gritchy. I switched to "All the Pretty Horsies" and did a gentle canter-y gait. More fussing. Then I started in on Ledbelly's "Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie." The baby pulled her head off my shoulder (strong baby!) and stared at me as if in disbelief. She stopped crying and listened as I sang. When her mother came downstairs fifteen minutes later, I told her what had happened.

"No wonder," said her mother. "We played that song and sang that song many times while she was in the womb, and since birth."

I'd certainly heard of this happening--baby recognizing pre-womb music post-womb--and in fact, we wrote about this phenomenon in our book All Together Singing in the Kitchen: Creative Ways to Make and Listen to Music as a Family. But I'd never witnessed it so directly. (Well, maybe I did. Maybe it happened with my own kids, but I was so sleep deprived then, I have no recollection.)

Today in Jay's Suzuki class the teacher had the four-year-old pre-twinklers form a circle. She played "pass the Twinkle," playing the first line of "Mississippi Stop Stop" to the child on her left, who in turn, wordlessly passed it on to the child on his left, and so on, around the circle. "Isn't it amazing," she said. "How you all knew what to do, and could do it without even saying any words. Music is a language we can all understand."

Plans for SOS-SOA are looking up. Emails are circulating. I am making phone calls, juggling schedules, refining our focus. Meanwhile, doing a lot of thinking about the role of music in our children's lives. Why fight to keep music in the schools?
-it's a language we all share.
-it cuts through reason and goes right to the heart.
-when I look back on my own school memories, so many of them have to do with music class, performing, practicing an instrument. Maybe that's just because I am a musician, but I can't imagine growing up without all the music I had.
-it unites a group of disperate kids
-it's the only academic discipline that is equally left-brained and right-brained

What about you? What do you remember about music education growing up?

For more about music education, visit the National Association for Music Education.

Shiva, Shakti, Seeger, Suzuki

Today in yoga class, our teacher Amy Reed, talked about the dance between Shiva (our bare, pure awareness) and Shakti (the ways in which we harness our awareness to engage with the world.) The two are always at play with one another, going back and forth. Some times we are more introverted--more Shiva--observing the world as it goes by, just noticing, not getting all hooked up in the story. And at other times, we are plunging in, seeing where the holes are that only we can fill. "Blessed are those that play, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," wrote Emily Dickinson. As a musician, I think about Shiva and Shakti all the time. Musicians need, primarily, to be listeners before they ever strike, sing, pluck or blow a note. We need to observe what the others are playing, or even what the silence is compelling us to. And then, at just the right moment, we engage. We come in. We join the symphony, the chorus, the jam, with the part that is ours and only ours to share.

All of which makes me think about my new career as Suzuki Mom. If a year ago you had said, "Hey, Nerissa. What is your biggest parenting nightmare?" I would have said: any situation that would put me in a position to force my daughter to do something on a daily basis. Make that one thing "music" and we move from nightmare to horror show. How could forcing a child to practice for a half hour a day breed anything other than resentment? I would resent her for not wanting to practice, and she would resent me for...well, for being me. Queen of the Daily Practice (be it unloading the dishwasher, writing a song per day, running, yoga, making gratitude lists-whatever if might be, you can be sure I will be compulsive about it. This is not so bad when it's just me we're dealing with, but I feared exposing someone I loved, especially one of my children to this facet of myself.) When the phrase "Suzuki" was mentioned, I cringed at the vision I saw before me. Me barking, "Stand up straight! Bow hold! Bow hold!" My daughter in therapy twenty years later, telling some long suffering analyst how her love for music had been drained out of her one Twinkle variation at a time.

Besides that, I had made a career for myself espousing an alternative approach to traditional music education. "Music should be fun! Just make a joyful noise! Dance like Snoopy! Sing loud and don't worry about the on-key part! Shake an egg to the music! Technique schmechnique!"

I didn't grow up with Suzuki. I learned to play piano when I became literate, which is to say I was discouraged from the kind of exploration that all kids lucky enough to have a piano take on: fists on the piano, arms on the piano, one-fingered chicken scratch on the piano, poking out the melodies I heard around me. I was taught in a structured way, to identify those black ant-like marks on a clef with the corresponding white and black keys on the keyboard. I was yelled at to practice, but always by someone in the next room.

And yet, I became a Suzuki mom. Here's how.

In September 2009, when Elle was just three, Katryna and I were booked to be a part of a Pete Seeger Tribute at the Academy of Music in our hometown, Northampton. My parents love Pete Seeger; their second date was a Seeger concert, and they discovered their love for each other over "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream." They came to town, and before the show, we got take-out from Paul & Elizabeth's restaurant. As we exited Thornes Marketplace, Elle spied a busker on the street playing a fiddle. She'd seen a violin a few weeks earlier in the Elmo version of "Peter and The Wolf."

"Mama!" she shouted pointing. "I want to play that!" I didn't take this too seriously. Since "Peter and the Wolf," she'd also decided to play the flute and the French horn. I'd had to explain to her that she was too little for woodwinds or horns (one needs a certain amount of lung power not usually achieved till the age of 8 or 9). But I knew little kids could play the violin, so I said, "Well, you can if you want."

We proceeded to the venue. Backstage, the promoter introduced us to Emily Greene, a friendly looking woman holding a guitar. "Emily teaches Suzuki violin," mentioned the promoter.

"That's funny!" I said. "Elle just said she wanted to play violin."

Elle started jumping up and down and attached herself to Emily's legs right about then, and so I took her number. I looked up and said, "Good luck tonight. What song are you playing?"

She smiled and answered, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream."

Emily sent us a packet of information that terrified me so much that I kept it on the far corner of my desk for the next nine months. Suzuki parents were expected to practice with their child for a half hour a day, listen to a CD daily, and attend with the child not only a weekly private lesson, but two monthly group lessons! Not only that, we were expected to read Shinichi Suzuki's book Nurtured By Love and join a group discussion to talk about how it might shape our world view. As Katryna and I were on the road almost weekly doing gigs, and cramming to write our book All Together Singing In the Kitchen (a how-to and why-to raise musical children) I just didn't have the time, although it did occur to me in a guilty kind of way that maybe--just maybe-- being a Suzuki mom could inform my writing.

But Elle persisted. For nine months, she asked me steadily when we would start to play the violin. So in June, tiny violin in hand, we marched up to Emily's studio.


Right off the bat, Emily put us at ease. We didn't have to practice a half hour--only five minutes at first. We had some simple tasks: listen to the CD, hold the violin, make a "bow hold." Elle wasn't even allowed to touch it to the violin. And we were given a chart and some stickers. Every day we did these things, we got a sticker. My inner perfectionist was gratified.

And so was Elle. This, I thought, might just work.

Recently--well, since giving up caffeine--I have noticed the pause in between Shiva and Shakti, the moment before the partners take hands for the dance. And this is a good thing for me. I tend to act without thinking; to leap before I look. Taking the time to really think about Suzuki was unusual for me in that sense. But I believed that if I had let Elle go forward right away with the violin that I would have burned out and given up before the practice could take hold. And while I might be able to do that to myself, I felt I couldn't do that to my child. And so when we finally went forward, I made a deal with myself, similar to the deal I made when I became a parent. "I will do the best I can, and I will make a lot of mistakes. I will not be great, but I will be good enough."

This attitude, when I remember to maintain it, works very well in terms of our practice. We don't practice every day, but we never do less than five days a week. I do get impatient, but I have yet to threaten to burn her dollhouse. (See previous post). And when I do feel my temper rising--when she throws her rented violin on the floor in frustration, when she hits her brother with the bow, when she purposely plays the pieces twice as fast or three times as slow as they're supposed to be played (I recognize that these crimes might seem wildly divergent to you, but to a musician, they're all about the same)--I sometimes, OK, often, raise my voice. And then the image comes back of the poor tortured twentysomething in the analyst's office cursing Mommy Dearest. And that's when I get to soften, as we do in yoga when we find ourselves trying too damn hard. And I say, "I am so sorry. Let's take a break. Let's cuddle." And she puts down that tiny violin, crawls into my lap and we sit. We listen. We observe. And when we are ready, we pick up the violin again and play.