Assignment 16: Speech (Tyler Gorman)

Why Music Matters – Tyler Gorman

                I want you all to think of your favorite song. It doesn’t have to be something you’ve heard on the radio, or even something that’s been written in the last hundred years. Just some piece of music that you heard and enjoyed at some point in life.

                Now I want you to think of the person who wrote that song. Beethoven? Louis Armstrong? Miley Cyrus? Whoever it is, to get as famous as they did they had to have been exposed to music from a very young age.

                Now imagine if that person had never learned music. Who would Mozart be if you took away the beautiful pieces he composed? A poor drunkard who died at age 35. What would there be left on the radio to listen to if there were no music? I, for one, would spend all of my car rides in silence if I had to listen to nothing but radio commercials on an infinite loop.

                So take that scenario I just had you imagine, and apply it to our children, and our grandchildren, and their children, and so on. That’s what’s being forced onto future generations because those in charge don’t think the arts are “important enough” to be taught alongside subjects like calculus, English, and physics.

                As a result of a recent $20 million budget cut in the Fayette County Public School district, the jobs of band and orchestra teachers throughout the county are in jeopardy because there are those who see music and the arts as unnecessary compared to other subjects.

                Study after study after study has shown that the average music student performs on a higher level academically than a student not involved in any extracurricular activities. According to musicforall.org, “students involved in public school music programs [score] 107 points higher on the SAT than students with no participation.” U.S. Department of Education statistics show that music students show “significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12” than those who aren’t involved in music. “Secondary students who participated in band or orchestra reported the lowest lifetime and current use of all substances (alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs)” (musicforall.org) according to the Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

                Now that’s all well and good, you say, but isn’t it more important that I’m able to integrate the derivative of the limit of a certain function as x approaches—no. The answer is no, it isn’t. Now if you pursue a career in, say, economics, or a specific field that actually applies those skills, then great, good for you, I’m glad you’re learning something in math you’ll use for the rest of your life. As for the rest of you, who want to be teachers, or doctors, or lawyers, or presidents, I’d be willing to bet your calculus skills won’t exactly be at the top of your priorities list.  

                Whenever a district or school goes through a budget cut, you never hear anyone say “Well, looks like we’re gonna have to cut history out of the curriculum.” It’s always the arts they target. What life skills do you learn from history? The ability to regurgitate the date that Alexander Hamilton established a national bank? Music, on the other hand, teaches skills applicable to countless fields: problem solving, decision making, teamwork, self-confidence, performing under pressure, self-discipline, and so many more that I would elaborate on if I had time.  Educators and politicians seeing music and arts education as “extra” is exactly the kind of thinking that threatens to eradicate it.

                What’s always baffled me is why so much focus is put upon students’ mastery of core classes and then ones where we actually learn important life skills get shoved aside into the “extracurricular” category. And I’m not just referring to music. Visual arts, drama, sports, foreign languages, and creative writing are all perfect examples of classes that teach these skills but, like music, are put in danger when money gets tight.

                Is it because these are the only classes that allow us to express ourselves? Is it because they encourage us to actually use our brains for something more than spewing out facts and formulas and formats? If anything that should make them more important than knowing how to find, say, the coefficient of friction between a box and a table.

                Something’s going to have to give, and soon. Otherwise the next time the district loses $20 million, it’ll be band. Or orchestra. Or chorus. Or art, or drama, or Chinese, or lacrosse, or some other club or activity that someone in this room is passionate about. The American education system is screwed up on so many levels; I mean look at our school lunches. They don’t care if we’re happy, they only care about “educating” us up until we get to college. And if that means eliminating classes that make students happy and teach them real skills just to save a few bucks, I think we all know they aren’t above doing just that.