A new day

After having resisted blogging for such a long time, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring here, and share with world all of my trivial thoughts, well not all, but my trivial thoughts on music and politics. This thread got started when I was having a discussion about learning music as a kid the other day with Katie and her parents. Her mom asked if I took piano lessons as a kid, and I said that I did, but none of it really stuck with me. I'm sure there's some muscle memory there, and that whole spatial thinking thing that kids supposedly improve through playing piano, but nothing concrete. I don't play the things I played as a kid. It was rote reproduction. And this is the problem with music education (and mostly every type of education). Creativity isn't valued, being able to do as your told is valued. So it's no wonder that many kids, forced into music lessons or school band, abandon music shortly after they are no longer forced to go. If creativity was valued, if kids were taught not only the fundamentals, but also how to compose a piece or write a song, then I think more people would continue to play music after the lessons are done, and our world would be a richer place for it.