Last night people all over the country stopped what they were doing to not only watch the Super Bowl, but also the much anticipated Halftime show. Can you imagine a Halftime show without music or an infamous Super Bowl commercial without any music at all? What would that even look like?
I have an idea that at some point I might pursue. As a music community, we should take one day and boycott music entirely. That means that there would be no music on the radio or TV; no music playing in stores, restaurants or bars; no one could sing or play an instrument for the entire day. For in that one day, the community would have to live without the very thing that is thought of as an “extra” in school curriculum. Society would get a real sense of what the world would be like if music education were not present in our schools. It could be the great awakening that we need!
This would never happen, though. Too many companies would have to shut down entirely. They would not agree to it because they would lose a great deal of money; the very thing we need to keep quality music education in our schools. They owe their businesses to the music teachers that taught them or to whom they employ. Although many companies donate to “Save the Music” and the like, I wonder how many of them do not. I am going to look into this and will get back to you. It would make sense for ALL of them to donate and lobby for quality music education. It affects their businesses directly.
We forget in this country that good education is profitable in that if children come out of school well skilled and knowledgeable, they will tend to contribute to society in a meaningful way. Its certainly not all about dollars and cents, but a clear bonus. Music education is not an “extra”, rather a core subject like math or language arts. We would easily be able to show this if we had just one day without music. That would be something.