the language of music
A student of music needs as long and as arduous a training to become a performer as a medical student needs to become a doctor.The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important.
??Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Most training is concerned with technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an athlete or a ballet dancer.Education knows no bounds. Singers practice breathing every day, as their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular support.It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or in the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm -- two entirely different movements.It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning.
??Singers and instrumentalists have to be able to get every note perfectly in tune.The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist.Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises. Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner's responsibility to tune the instrument for them.A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. But they have their own difficulties: the hammers that hit the strings have to be coaxed not to sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.People are engaged in education from infancy on. This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sounds with fanatical but selfless authority.Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term.
??Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and understanding.It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral part of one's entire life.
??Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in the language of music that they can enjoy performing works written in any century.Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on.
"There is forgiveness.The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught. When I'm embarrassingly loud and crazy at parties, Scott forgives me.For example, high school students know that they are not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. When he confessed losing some of our savings in the stock market, I gave him a hug and said, ""It's okay.There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.
"
. mp3 players It's only money. ""
There is sensitivity. world of warcraft gold Last week he walked through the door with that look that tells me it's been a tough day. After he spent some time with the kids, I asked him what happened. wow He told me about a 60-year-old woman who'd had a stroke. He wept as he recalled the woman's husband standing beside her bed, caressing her hand. wow gold How was he going to tell this husband of 40 years that his wife would probably never recover. I shed a few tears myself. wow gold kaufen Because of the medical crisis. Because there were still people who have been married 40 years. wow power leveling Because my husband is still moved and concerned after years of hospital rooms and dying patients.
There is faith. Last Tuesday a friend came over and confessed her fear that her husband is losing his courageous battle with cancer. On Wednesday I went to lunch with a friend who is struggling to reshape her life after divorce. On Thursday a neighbor called to talk about the frightening effects of Alzheimer's disease on her father-in-law's personality.
