wisconsin music educators association president
Bridging the Gap Jim Scheuer, WMEA President
As I write my final article as WMEA president, I am par- ticularly struck by the theme of this is- sue of the magazine. “Bridging the Gap” is a very broad con- cept that can likely be applied to a great
deal of what we do as music educators. But in my years as a teacher, as the technology available to our students has exploded, I have witnessed a new gap develop that concerns me. That is the gap between pas- sive and active musical involvement.
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Technology has provided our students and us with wonderful tools for access to an incredible amount of music. When I was young all that was available to me outside of live performances was the music I could hear on the radio (which was pretty limited in scope) and the records I could afford to buy or manage to borrow from friends or the library. Today our students have nearly unlimited online access to music of every imaginable style, including world music that was almost impossible to find when I was young. There are countless positive aspects to this technology explosion, most notably in the ability of our students to be exposed to the huge variety of music that is out there. As teachers, most of us are finding many exciting ways to use that access to music in our teaching. However, I fear something is being lost.
Up until about 60 years ago, music making was an important part of our culture and our family lives. It was fairly common for a typical household to have a piano in a prominent place in the house, and gather- ing family or friends around the piano to sing and play was a fairly common event. Today it seems as if the home piano has been replaced by television, computers, mp3 players and smart phones. And while that technology gives us access to an in- credible range of musical performances, I fear that it may be turning music into a “spectator sport” that people watch, and not something that we participate in. Even the amazing technology that exists for creative music making is often used merely for the purpose of manipulating (often through looping) and combining pre-existing musical material rather than for the creation of new creative work. And I fear that this trend tends to reinforce the fairly common perception that music performance and composition are some- thing for only a talented few, rather than for everyone.
As music educators, we have an important gap to bridge for many of our students, as well as their parents and our communities. We need to advocate for the importance of active musical involvement by all students and not just for a select few. Yes, listening is an important component of music education and an important part of music making, but let’s be certain that we include active musical participation at all levels, and that we are doing whatever it takes to reach ALL students, and not just traditional band/orchestra/choir students. It is our job to bridge the gap between music for a select few and music for ALL, and the gap between passive and active musical involvement.
Finally, as I wrap up my final president’s article, I want to thank the WMEA mem- bership for entrusting this important role to me, and to thank all the members of the WMEA Executive Board and Council that I have had the pleasure of working with. Special thanks go to past presidents Rich Tengowski and Leyla Sanyer for their help and tremendous example, and president- elect Lynn Seidl (who takes over as presi- dent on July 1) for her help during the past two years. Our WMEA “presidential trio” truly functions as a team, which takes a lot of the pressure off each of us individually. I also want to thank Executive Director Tim Schaid for his outstanding work for the association, as well as members of the entire staff at the Wisconsin Center for Music Education, who do most of the real work to make things happen for this association. It has been an honor and a tremendous learning experience for me to serve as your president, and I look forward to my continued work over the next two years as immediate past president.
Jim Scheuer retired from teaching band and other music classes for 33 years in the School District of Owen-Withee. Email:
jimscheuer@charter.net
6
April 2016
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