Music, Education, and Technology

John J. Mahlmann, executive director of the National Association for Music Education, was recently quoted in the Washington Post as saying he is tired of having to defend the importance of music education. He often finds it necessary to rattle off statistics about how music improves the lives of people who study it. The sheer joy of playing and understanding music isn’t enough, he said.

So he has an unorthodox response to educators: “Why is math so high on the priority list?”

His answer: “Because we can test for it.”

The thing people forget, he said, is that musicians are assessed every time they play an instrument. “If you went to a concert and they only played 80 percent of the notes correctly, you wouldn’t like it,” he said. “Musicians strive for perfection. Lots of people don’t mind 80 percent on a math quiz.”

Here are some more “reasons” why music education matters, as collected and presented by Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.

1. Schools with music programs have graduation rates of 90.2 percent, as compared with a 72.9 percent rate for schools without music education, according to a 2006 Harris Interactive poll of high school principals funded by the National Association for Music Education and International Music Products Association (NAMM). The poll also found that schools with music programs have attendance rates of 93.3 percent, compared with 84.9 percent for those that don’t.

2. In 2006, SAT takers with course work or experience in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal portion of the college entrance exam and 43 points higher on the math portion than did students with no such experience in the arts. Scores of those with course work in music appreciation were 62 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, according to the College Board’s 2006 Profile of College-Bound Seniors National Report.

3. A November 2007 Harris poll found that 86 percent of college graduates had some music education when they were in school, compared with 65 percent for those who had not completed or completed only high school. Eighty-three percent of people earning $150,000 or more had a music education, the poll found.

For more “reasons,” there are many helpful resources such as musicforall.org, amc-music.com/ and schoolmusicmatters.com.

To me, the sheer joy of music making, for people from 0 to 100+, is reason enough! The rest is gravy!

How do you go from being thousands of miles away from your instructor in an online course, to several feet away from him onstage performing a show? Berkleemusic is the answer! Here’s Berkleemusic student Jeanine Guidry and her instructor, Dave Olsen’s story.

Berkleemusic business faculty, Dave Olsen was teaching Legal Aspects of the Music industry during the Spring 2007 semester. As Jeanine recalls, “During one weekly scheduled course chat, another student asked him if he played any instruments, and he said keyboards and a little bass,” Jeanine said. “I jokingly said he should come to Richmond next weekend because our band has two shows and because of high school graduations, we had no keyboards or bass. Well, turns out that Dave had to be in New York on Friday, and he just changed his plane ticket to stop in Richmond and played with us Saturday afternoon and late Sunday morning! It was an amazing weekend.”

Dave Olsen is also helping the band to reach one of its long-term goals. He was instrumental in signing the band Evanescence’s first sheet music publishing deal, is going to use some of his connections to help Offering publish one of its original songs.

“That brings me to one of the reasons I love Berkleemusic—the connections and contacts. If you invest yourself you can develop work/music relationships and even friendships that will last a long time,” Jeanine said.

There are lots of stories like this amongst the continuing education student body at Berkleemusic. It’s a vibrant learning community where professional connections that make a difference are made.