Food for Thought
What shall we suppose is the spark that attracts our children’s motivation? Is it the exhilaration of sport? Is it the need to join in, and be alike? Is it the need to set out, and be different? Much has been written and legislated in the desire to find the elusive formula that will spark and educate each generation to a sense of responsibility and, if we’re lucky, leadership.
Beyond these things, however, is another siren which transports young men and women. It has the power to call middle-aged people away from known paths into new commitments. It reconciles old people more deeply into their wisdom. It’s used to lead men into battle. It announces solemn ceremonies. It precedes our call to prayer and ends our burial rites. It is the stuff of visionary plans and pragmatic advertisements. It’s a mysterious and transporting cadence of innovation and creativity. It’s called music.
No one can dispute the impact and effect of music in our lives. Why then, is music not integrated into our children’s education? Why is it relegated to an afterthought within our classroom curriculum—the first subject to be cut when budgets are tight, the first to be classified as insignificant when compared to reading and mathematics?
Yet, without music in our lives, we are all left—without comprehension even—behind our own dreams.
Numerous studies show the positive impact of music within math and science instruction. And just this week, an article in the New York Times described the health benefits of listening to Mozart. Music teaches that the fundamental beat of living has meaning beyond the mundane; and our singular American songbook teaches that there is music in words and sentences, prose and poetry, rhetoric and everyday conversation. Indeed, to read great writing is to hear great music.
Walt Whitman:
A child said What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he…
Carlos Fuentes:
Human kind will prevail. And it will prevail because, in spite of the reaction of history, novels tell that art restores right in us that was disregarded by history. History is being what was, then literature offers what history has not always been.
Calderon de la Barca:
…Qué es la vida? Un frenesí. ¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión, una sombra, una ficción, y el mayor bien es pequeño: que toda la vida es sueño, y los sueños, sueños son. ...
In San Jose, the spark of the farm worker’s clap and cry sounded a superb cadence of music: “Si–se–pue–de! Si-se-pue-de, si se puede, si se puede, sisepuede!” It is a forceful descendant of other songs which do not lay claim to the land so much as claim its emotional heart—Shenandoah’s haunting reverie, for instance, or the Mexican ballad about two little trees whose growth is so intertwined they can never be parted.
Seven of San Jose’s schools are now among the national vanguard in music instruction so that, in words of Octavio Paz, its language becomes a transcendent reality, reaching beyond borders and historical entities. These music classes are provided by the Mexican Heritage Corporation with funding from the school district, revenue earned at San Jose’s mariachi festival, and contributions from philanthropy and individual donors. They are a lesson in musical fusion—of heritage and cadence and storytelling. I’ve seen how they create graceful rhythm from young men who might otherwise be engaged, or exuberant jam sessions that end up on You Tube. The musical classes are lessons in Mexico’s folk music—the son of the mariachi and jarocho ensemble.
Yet, for lack of a mandated test of music’s ability to instruct, rather than inspire, its value is debated, ignored and underfunded. Now California’s budget is in yet another crisis, and funding for music instruction in the schools, which was only restored last year, is at risk. Two of the schools where we teach music have had their funding cut and are scrambling to ensure the music program survives. In the meantime, Sacramento has a creative idea to pay the bills: securitize future lottery income. Let’s hope the Governor does not gamble with an investment that already has delivered its “ROI” to the community. The state’s budget for music instruction in our public schools should not be the last “child” left behind.
Marcela Davison Aviles is the President and CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corporation and the Executive Producer of the San Jose International Mariachi Festival.
We’re continually being haranged about the richness and strength of Mexican culture. Aren’t there opportunities for young people to learn mariachi from their parents? To perform at family functions, restaurants, etc.?
Why is it that mariachi music needs to be propped up with tax dollars?
Ms. Aviles reminds me of Professor Harold Hill, exhorting the innocent, gullible townsfolk of River City to give him their money so he can save their children from the evils of the world by organizing them into marching bands.
Flim-flam artists have become a lot more sophisticated since then. They have learned to bypass the people and go directly to the City Council since they’re quite eager to spend other people’s money.
Recently, we celebrated our only sister’s birthday, at her home. Having survived a serious stroke, followed by the death of her husband She was left her with many issues. She had given up on life! Nothing we did seemed to helped her mental state.
A trio was present to sing the old ballads, which were popular in the early days of her 74 years of life.
A most amazing transformation occurred. The trio sang and played her favorite ballads. Anna immediately began to cry and shed may tears for 20 minutes. I was asked to go to her side to comfort her. I did not. I allowed her to express her emotion, with out interruption. The music touched her sprit so deeply, she came to life. Than when the tears stopped, for the next 20 minutes she burst out into gritos, as the Mariachi delivered ballad after ballad of her favorite songs.
Do I understand what happened to my lovely sister’s sprit? Of course I do. We cannot live with out our music. Something dies in us when we cannot here the sounds of our childhood.
Anna found herself that afternoon. Yes she still has to get help in and out of her wheel chair, but now she is getting ready to tend her garden, we built a planter that is wheel chair high, and she walks now to and from the back yard. We seven brothers simply smile and look on in awe. We have our sister back!
Inspriation, Anna reconnected with her youth. What Dr. could have touched her so deeply? Anna photographed our family in the fourties and fiftys. Thousands of photos of our heritage working in the fields and orchards of our then bountiful Valley of Hearts Delight. She captured our Youth and that of our Valley forever!
I found myself in envy as Anna cried and as she belted out her gritos. The Music found it’s mark! Viva Mariachi! Viva La Musica de Mi Jente!
You are doing a wonderful job Marcela keeping our music alive. Anna’s story is but one of millions, I’m sure!
John,
What do you do to bring music into people’s lives?
Mr Galt,
Are you not aware that prior to the establishment of public schools and public programs music did not exist? If you are so foolish as to believe that in those long ago days children grew-up listening to the music of their parents and getting misty-eyed listening to grandfather singing songs of love for grandmother, then you are sadly mistaken. There was no state funding, thus there was no music.
Music, like art, ethnic pride, personal self-esteem, and righteousness, were invented by the state.
Now, let’s all get together and sing L’Internationale.
I thought I’d share this wonderful article with you:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9424926
WE?
John, who is we?
I’m feeling you are troubled by the fact that my lovely sister, simply succumed to her emotions, and was allowed to feel the beauty of her youth, with out interuption and with tears and eventually screams of pride and passion.
What was the music of your childhood? What do you recall of the magic of what your family held dear, danced to and felt blessed to pass on?
The three men that played the music of Anna’s youth were simply that, three men that had held other jobs most of their lives and simply played the music of their childhood as a way to make a bit of money and enjoy the community and give something back.
This week end the Greek festival will be a big part of Santa Clara. I will be there.
There are many men and women as you have read about the past months here, that represented the faction that did not want Marcela to diviate from the so called traditional Mariachi music. , Well I’m the guy that was to break the news to the Galts of this Village, this Mariachi Music has it’s roots in Germany.
There are perhaps hundreds of men and women that gather after their day jobs as secretaries, CEO’s, janitors, teachers,farm workers, and play the music of their childhood, at parties, funerals, births, marriages, and deaths.
Listen to me John Galt, I’m embracing you. You are the one that needs to listen to the music and react to it . Surrender, as my sister did, That is what healed her sprit.
Marcela is the catalyst, it is you and I that will change this world. Marcela knows that she is ready. Are You?
Gil Hernandez
Frustrated flim flam,
You are so educated you have gone where no man has gone before. Allow us mere mortals to live thru our emotions and accept the only thing that allows us to feel as a part of our community. Have you ever been at an event, and the Bag Pipes began to resonate prior to the event or march? My chest fills with pride, my pulse heightens. I don’t know why, I simply live in the moment.