Why Music Education Is Important for Everyone

[TheStruggleUK.]

I'm right with you Robert, surviving isn't what life is about, life would be unbearable without music and the arts, if the boards of education were to ask students which classes they would like to keep I am pretty sure music would be near the top of the list.  

[gammaltkonto]

Music is one of the most magnificient things we have in the world. Also, I would like to add, music brings an inner peace and tolerement to the individual (and society). Many musicians are of good temperement. 

[MsFlamingFlamer]

Your sister is a piano teacher on the west side of Cleveland? I live on the west side of Cleveland so I think I just learned who my new piano teacher will be (after not playing for 10 years).

[monterreyMEDICINA]

This is one of the best teaching videos of your great channel Robert, playing piano for me it what give me the most joy of my life, love piano music, love all about piano, and I learn a lot about piano music with yours videos. best regards from Mexico. Luis

[frankieseymour]

I love your videos sir, I watch them everyday. Please keep em coming!

[thepianoplayer]

Good presentation. First, some positive news: there are many successful music programs across the country including the Harmony Program in LA and the Opus 118 in NYC founded by Roberta Guaspari the violin teacher who was featured in the 1999 movie "Music of the Heart" with Meryl Streep as the lead actor. For many years public school funding is a problem. Many schools tend to focus on the core subjects (reading, math & science). Many parents ended up doing P/T fundraising for their schools to keep music programs and other extracurricular activities. The Opus 118 program is no exception. When it was about to be cut by the school district, Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri String Quartet came to the rescue and eventually got Isaac Stern to arrange a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall.

If music education is funded by the federal government and freely available to all citizens in a country, we would end up with the El Sistema program in Venezuela where every kid would be given an instrument as an after-school activity to keep them from joining gangs. The success story out of El Sistema is Gustavo Dudamel who became the conductor of the LA Philharmonic. In a country like the US, we end up with a situation where the rich who can afford to send their kids to private schools and those in the middle class with the financial means to enroll their kids into a music program or pay for private lessons would get the benefits of music education. Once well-paying F/T jobs were plentiful so even paying for a private piano teacher wasn't much of an issue. Now there is a growing gap between the rich & the poor and music education is caught in the middle.

1 yr ago came across videos on importance of music
education including brain studies by Dr. Ani Patel (parents from India)
who plays the clarinet.

[vectrix]

This is great video my teacher showed me this

[thepianoplayer]

Music appreciation is a personal thing. There are people who had music lessons early in life who would go back to playing many years later such as after their retirement. There are also others who had such a negative experience with music lessons that they would never touch the instruments they learned to play again. 1 aspect of music is that it is a form of entertainment / personal enjoyment like watching a good sports game on TV. The other aspect is the academic exercise which can enhance memory and other brain activities. If you overemphasize the technical aspects of learning to play an instrument such as a piano, people will lose interest. And you need to stress the fun aspect of making music outside the classroom or private teachers. Several people in my family took piano lessons and passed their conservatory exams but would never touch piano again (I may be the only exception).

[TuNguyen-trqe]

I'm not quite sure which part are you talking about: Practical (how to play) or theoratical (Music understanding) or both. The one teaching me how to play piano right now doesn't have much music theory knowledge. He always tells me that you are learning because you want to play the piano, right? I think i have a very big whole in music theory and i'm trying to learn it myself instead but internet is so diversed that i don't know where to begin with.