Mr. Budiansky has replied to my posts on this blog and has further elaborated on his thoughts on the subject. If you have anything further to add, please press the comment button below and chime in with your 2¢ worth. And please visit Mr. Budiansky's own web site to read his original article and follow up articles.
Here's part of the email dialogue that has transpired over the past couple of days:
Budiansky: "By the way, on the "Dr Suess" analogy -- which I see RW Smith promotes,too, on his web page -- I really think this is bogus. For one thing, there is so much great music by great composers or for that matter traditional folk music etc that is accessible to beginners there's no need for Dr Suessoid material. And, it's absurd to suggest that this is "adults imposing their tastes on children" -- this is giving them the real McCoy instead of pandering to what they imagine kids need but in fact is just a way for a bunch of bad publishers to keep the money flowing in.
Second, if kids were still reading Dr Suess in middle school and high school I think everyone would agree they were suffering from a severe case of remedial education. There's just no excuse for middle and high school (and for that matter even college bands) to be playing the garbage when they could be playing real music. Imposing "adult tastes" indeed -- how
about imposing GOOD taste.
Third, I have yet to encounter the musical equivalent of Dr Suess in any of the "educational music" for band I've heard or looked at -- it's mostly the equivalent of "My Butt Went Psycho" or other such great works of modern children's literature. Dr Suess was WAY better than this stuff."
Crompton: "What rang true with the the Dr. Seuss analogy is that it is incredibly difficult to find descent quality repertoire with minimal technical challenges when the medium for teaching the music is performance in band. I was disheartened a number of years ago by an article in the Instrumentalist magazine that quoted at least one of the biggest name composers for young bands as saying that it was impossible to write good music at an easily playable level. If they can't write it, who can? There has to be some balance point that brings quality music, through original compositions and quality transcriptions of "the great music" to young players. Seuss and others have done so in literature. We didn't read a "transcribed" version of "War and Piece" as young kids! the struggle is to find it in music. I think that it is worth the struggle and that is why I attend the conferences and wade through the publisher's CDs. Amongst all the crap, there has to be quality repertoire for the younger players. I'm not suggesting that we feed Seuss to 12th graders.
What many of my colleagues are afraid to teach is the music that students won't immediately like on first hearing. They don't want to challenge the students for fear that they might quit their elective courses. Unfortunately, it is the brighter kids that they loose and then they feel they have to play music that is yet more dumbed-down. I guess that I am saying that the adults have to impose their tastes on the students. Where else are the students going to develop an opportunity to think critically about the music that they play."
Budiansky: "One more point on "Dr Suess": I really just don't buy this analogy at all. The Tolstoy comparison is a reductio ad absurdum, because the fact is that there is a lot of good music that is both easy and authentic. Yes, there are some terrible cutesy "transcriptions," or rather adaptations, of famous pieces that are not worth playing. But there are a lot of nonsimplified transcriptions of real music that are worth playing and are accessible to beginning players. And again, even if there is some small justification for using this made-for-school music at the very beginning levels, there cannot possibly be any defensible reason to still be using it at high school and college levels -- where it is rampant.
But I just don't see that you need to pander to the imagined childish tastes of beginning players to get them into music. All the evidence shows that when you present even younger kids with the real thing, they respond with enthusiasm and have their taste whetted for more good things."
Crompton: "I guess that the value I see in the Seuss analogy is that we have to teach the students about form, harmonic language, melodic language, etc. To thrust an Ives march parody on young, first-year players who have never played a march is unfair. They can't possibly understand how the parody is brilliant without first understanding the conventions of march form and style. I know that I am guilty, at times, of putting music in the hands of younger players that they might be able to handle from a technical standpoint but not conceptually. Seuss, to me, is quality writing that allows young readers an opportunity to learn form, rhyme and vocabulary that will point them toward Shakespeare. I agree whole-heartedly that if a college musician is being fed the formulaic, non-imaginative crap that we are talking about, the music education system is failing miserably."
I am very interested in hearing other's opinions, whether you are a music educator, parent, composer, publisher or school music grad. Press the comment button below and chime in!
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