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Another Example of Our MISeducation System. This Time It's Music.

protectionist

Governor
It seems like about every couple of months I discover another example of how far off the mark "our" education system is. Isn't it enough that we go through 16 years of schooling without a word being said about the LAWS that we are required to abide by ? And not a word is mentioned or instructed about guns or law enforcement, or how we NEED to behave when in a police confrontation ?..(if we want to stay alive that is).

So now it's music. Well, I might have known that our know-it-alls running the schools would botch that up too. I'm a music teacher in private industry, and it just came to my knowledge that one of our local schools is teaching kids to play the guitar, by reading standard classical musical notation.

For their edification, for most types of music (really for any type) the guitar and standard musical notation are not a well-matched pair. There might be an association for individuals (not orchestras) who play classical guitars, but to pair a modern electric guitar with standard musical notation, is about like pairing a Toyota with a horse saddle.

I use standard musical notation to play classical music by Bach and Beethoven on the violin and mandolin. But these have much fewer notes than a guitar. Looking at the long fingerboard of a guitar, you can find numerous choices of any single note. How many Gs are there ? How many Ds ? The disadvantage of the standard musical score is that it does not tell us WHICH G or D or A or C it wants us to play.

An advantage that standard musical notation has over tablature, is that it includes TIMING, which is generally absent from tablature, and from a musical notation that I myself invented, and which I give to my students. The inclusion of timing, in musical pieces that were written centuries ago, is merely a ramification of the fact that the 16th, 17th, 18th century folks did not have electricity, and electrical recording devices that we have today. In order for someone to know what the timing would be of a particular piece of music, without anything written, they would have had to have a well-qualified musician playing that music right in front of them - something that 90% of people were unlikely to do.

So, FOR THEM, without any electronic devices to play music, they needed written scores to ascertain what the timing of the notes are. FOR US, we only need to play the song/tune on our cell phone, tablet, CD, laptop, etc, and listen to it frequently enough, such that we know the timing of the notes very well.

So, what the schools are doing is teaching kids to play the guitar using a notation that is geared to the 17th century, while ignoring tablature, which is a much better notation, in that it is devised specially for the guitar (whereas standard musical notation is a general notation applicable to all instruments).

Maybe music teachers in schools could ask themselves this > when is the last time they saw the Rolling Stones, Beatles, or any Rock band, or Bluegrass band playing on stage, with a music stand in front of them ? :rolleyes:
 

protectionist

Governor
Those who don't have playing music as part of their lives, are only partially alive, as humans. From a musical perspective, they might as well have been born a dog or a cat.
 
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