One good thing about the new translation of the liturgy is that it is bringing up all kinds of discussions in many quarters about the utter lack of musical education in most cities in the U.S. I appreciate the link to the Chant Cafe and enjoyed the blog about the need for better education in order to sing chant. I’ve said so many times on this forum and I’m glad that some of the chant experts agree with me.
Our city is particularly depressing, as not only have the public schools been hit with a deseg lawsuit back in the 1990s that have left them decimated, but they have also struggled unsuccessfully to comply with No Child Left Behind (every high school and middle school in our city is on the “watch list”, and many of the grade schools). Our drop-out rate among African-American males is at 25%. And the standardized testing scores in our public schools are way below the national average.
All of these circumstances have led to a public outcry for “more basics,” and this means that the arts, including music, have been cut to a bare minimum. Most grade school classes in our city have music once a week, and music teachers do not have a “base school,” but are shared between several schools.
Also, there is a public outcry for more “ethnically-sensitive” music and art classes. This means that many of the music classes have become “sing-alongs,” or rather, “dance-alongs,” featuring hip-hop and other contemporary music styles. Reading music is generally not taught in most schools.
Also, of course, any music with any mention of the Christian God or heritage is forbidden, even Christmas carols–even SECULAR Christmas carols that mention Santa or any of the secular Christmas legends.
It is indeed a sad situation, and those of us who work with children in various community music groups have seen the sorry results of this music mish-mosh. Most children and teenagers simply cannot sing. They can’t even match a pitch, let alone sing an entire line of music.
And these children grow up into adults who cannot sing.
Are the private schools better? Yes, definitely, and so are the home schools. Those of us who work with children in community theater and music find that many of these children CAN read music, sing correctly, and enjoy singing a variety of styles of music. More and more children are being educated in private and home schools, so hopefully, we will see more adults who can sing.
But right now, we are still in a desert of music in our city, and I’m guessing that many cities in the U.S. are in the same situation we are.
As for our community music organizations, we are lucky to have quite a few in our city. But just a few weeks ago, our arts budgets were slashed by 50%. This same thing happened last year, so essentially our community arts programs receive virtually no funding other than from the private sector. So far, the private sector (the rich, in case anyone is wondering who I am referring to–those fat cats and corporations that are supposed to pay more taxes) have been reasonably generous. But they are under strong community pressure to give more money to help the poor with basic needs of life (food, shelter, health care, job search, etc.), and arts are often on the bottom of their donation list.
As I said in the first sentence of this post, all of this has been discussed much more openly in the last year, as the new liturgy includes new music, and many of us wonder exactly how that will happen when people are not capable of singing “Mary Had A Little Lamb”. I believe that the parishes in our city will probably continue much of the “old music” (meaning all the OCP stuff that so many of the CAF members despise) mainly out of necessity. But at least there is discussion and brewing disastisfaction with the current state of music education in our city. Without good music education, there will be no significant changes in liturgical music.
Now the acquisition of organists or any keyboardists or ANY instrumentalists, including guitarists–that’s another sad issue for another sad thread.
