MUSIC EDUCATION

This, of course, entirely depends upon what is meant by Music Education. Every snippet of music we hear and see performed in the media is educational in one way or another. But then the phrase "genre" tends to rear its ugly head.
I know teenagers who would not dare admit to liking classical or jazz music for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. So they keep it quiet about it, thereby perpetrating the myth that the only thing worth listening to is something in the pop charts!

Up front, if I hear something I like then I'm going to say so and to blazes with current company. That's if I'm moved to say anything at all!

Most people do not have educated opinions of the music they hear (and why should they?); mostly they express opinions gleaned from the circles they move in. This can often be covered by the phrase "...where ignorance is bliss, it's folly to be wise..." The language may be old-fashioned but the meaning is bang up to date! This syndrome is one of the governing factors in music education today.
And I'm talking about the nuts-and-bolts, crochets and quavers type of education. The kind that leads to the ability to play whichever kind of music you choose, or - more importantly - are paid to play! This kind of music education is going from mediocre to lamentable.
Each day that passes, or so it seems to me, the whole thing is dumbed further and further down in efforts to get more and more bums on the seats, and keep them there. Let's not put the poor devils off by giving them stuff that they actually have to work on!

As in education generally there are more and more people being "educated", whilst less and less are able to actually do stuff.

Here is a slant from one of the foremost performers/educators of jazz music in the world today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz2jRHA9fo

Yes, I hear you...who gives a damn about jazz anyway! To think that would be to miss the point entirely. I can tell you from personal experience that the opinions expressed in that link are true in all genre of music education.

GRADED EXAMINATIONS

The grade exam system could be a potent force for good in the music world. I do not know how it runs in the rest of the U.K. but in my county generally it's about as useful as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. It suffers from a derivative of the same bums-on-seats mentality that plagues education as a whole. Nothing seems to matter but possession the actual piece of paper itself.

The problem is that students are taught the 3 tunes and the few scales required for a particular grade, to the exclusion of everything else. The exam is then taken and passed, at which point the student is moved to the next 3 tunes and the next group of scales etc, seemingly actively encouraged to completely forget the knowledge gained in the previous grade. But they did not reach a "grade", they learned 3 tunes and a few scales. There is a vast difference. If that same student is presented with the music for one of the other tunes of the previous grade, they are lost. And, pretty soon, they forget how to play the very tunes they did learn!

I am very aware that there are exceptions; students who transcend the system, and make it. I'm more interested in the whole picture.

If grades are to fulfil the function for which they were designed, students should be taught to a certain level of competency before even considering taking a graded exam. Ideally, they should be handed the tune/scale list on the day of the exam, this would make pretty damned certain that they are truly at the required level.

Parents, naturally, have a built-in desire to see their children do well. And exams and qualifications are their yardstick. So they will actively encourage participation. All very commendable. They assume that if their child passes, say, a grade 4 exam, then their child is at a grade 4 level of competency. All too often this is some distance short of the truth.