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It's hard to credit @robinhanson's argument when it seems to hinge on taking for granted that the reasons fellow parents enroll their kids in music lessons is THE reason why people do it. @HeerJeet/1294849023988207616Permalink On twitter.com
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Also, using that logic, we shouldn't be "forcing" kids to learn trig or read poetry or local lit or try out basic science experiments like we do in schools. (I don't do simple physics experiments or geotrig much these days. Much basic education is "useless" in this way.)Permalink On twitter.com
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Or, say, history. It feels like the equivalent argument would be, "Why force kids to write history papers? When's the last time you wrote a paper about history?" I mean... why DO we ask kids to learn history? Because it rounds them out. It makes them less ignorant and illiterate.Permalink On twitter.com
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Because we think people shouldn't be ignorant about history. We mock politicians (ahem) who tweet utterly ignorant things about history because we expect a passably educated person to at least know the basics. So why not for music too?Permalink On twitter.com
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FWIW I'd argue that the obvious value of musical education is obviously that it helps kids become less musically illiterate. (A condition that's incredibly widespread today, and which leaves people less equipped to appreciate diverse music of all kinds.)Permalink On twitter.com
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This is not to say, "leaves people less equipped to appreciate 'obviously superior] classical music": whatever you enjoy, you enjoy it more/get more out of it/appreciate the skill/art of it when you're literate and have the tools to listen critically and respond thoughtfully.Permalink On twitter.com
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Can someone not formally trained develop that? Obviously yes. But it's way harder if you have no basic grounding/instruction, and it almost never happens with people who also never learn an instrument.Permalink On twitter.com
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Interesting experiment: ask your friends, "Why do you like this music?" They will talk about fashion, style, the beat, mood, tone, or often the lyrics. "Okay, so musically supports that?" Most people can't even manage, "It's in a minor key," or "It's heavily syncopated."Permalink On twitter.com
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Not that you should quiz your friends to shame them. It's just that musical illiteracy is pretty much the norm these days, and maybe we should recognize that as an educational failing.Permalink On twitter.com
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And of course, some people will say, "So what?" They're almost always musically illiterate—just as science illiterates don't get why kids should learn science, or straight-up illiterate people don't see a point in English lit classes. (We "force" some kids in these areas too.)Permalink On twitter.com
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It's not because it makes you classier: it's just that it gives you the capacity to better appreciate more kinds of music (and, I'd argue, some other forms of art) *if you want to* than you would be capable of managing absent this basic grounding.Permalink On twitter.com
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As for instrument-learning: it's just the quickest route to literacy. I took a music appreciation class in school with kids who didn't play anything: the teacher was stuck pretty much only ever discussing song lyrics. (Anything else would have been gibberish to most students.)Permalink On twitter.com
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(That's not to say there aren't issues with how music education is implemented in schools. Serious issues. But... that's a much bigger cake that won't fit on this particular plate I have handy today.)Permalink On twitter.com
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Finally: as a writer/language teacher, I often use all kinds of things I picked up learning music. Structure & structural analysis. Theme/variation invention. Patient revision resembles focused practicing. Improvisation. In collaborative writing, "blending voices" & polyphony.On twitter.com
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But those are side effects. The primary benefit is that I'm musically more literate than I would have been without musical education, and can approach and follow all kinds of music I would have struggled much harder to understand without that basic grounding.Permalink On twitter.com