It Is Especially When the Times Are Tough That We Need Music Most.

So, there’s this rumor that as a result of Minnesota’s “budget crisis” certain departments within the school system may experience big cuts in the year to come. I’d love to do my best to make sure the music department I’m currently a part of at MSUM will not be one of the areas deemed “too expensive to maintain,” or however it will be worded, and this is my first step toward that goal.

I’ve heard that the music department is being looked at as inefficient because in the Science and English departments the professors teach up to thirty, forty, or more students at a time.  In the music department there are a lot of one-on-one lessons where it’s just one professor and one student in the classroom, and herein lies the “inefficiency.” Could you imagine a classroom situation with thirty trumpets trying to figure out what to do with each other, or thirty drummers, or guitar players, or any instrument? It would be chaos. It is not inefficient to have 1-on-1 lessons, if you consider the quality of education that is coming out of them, and as this is what we pay to attend school for – quality education, I can tell you I am currently receiving the best education I have yet in my life. As somebody who’s been in school since he was five, I have a great deal of experience in gauging this assessment. I had been the cram-for-tests-the-night-before guy for my whole life, and I cannot get away with this anymore in the music department at MSUM.  Finally, somebody is making me learn.  These professors can see it from a mile away, to use cliché, if I have not practiced my curriculum for the week.  There is no way to cram one week’s worth of music practice in one night, and trust me, I’ve tried. Music shows you right away if you’re learning what you’re being taught or not. It is a clear distinction. There is no “memorize, test, and forget.” It’s “learn, retain, and perform” in the music department, and they make you want to do it. The emphasis is on personal growth. With music I can’t cheat myself like I had for so long by paying for an education I wasn’t trying to get.

MSUM and the whole state of Minnesota need to stand proud and hold on to their Music and Arts programs.  These elements are intrinsic to human nature and have helped shape the creatures we were into the people we are.  Too many schools from all over this country are cutting these departments out.  Financial reasons shouldn’t be a consideration considering the importance of this subject.  It will be much more expensive to restart these programs once the mistake is realized.

It won’t just be yourselves you’ve let down if you make these cuts, MSUM.  There is a community out there that attends your concerts. They love it; it’s a part of their holiday season. It’s something to do in the winter when there is not much else to do. Your faculty is currently the only faculty in town providing weekly entertainment for the Fargo-Moorhead Jazz scene that didn’t exist in this magnitude before they put it together. This is big. Your name is being portrayed in a very pleasant light every week.  People think positively about what is going on with this all star team MSUM has assembled. To send them away from our community would be a loss. To send all of the students away who currently study music with us, and the students who will study music in the coming years at MSUM, would be a huge loss, and a sad one at that.  Please be proud that you stuck it out when times got tough.

I finally have some direction in my life after five years of “undeclared” study at MSUM. I never found this much inspiration in the large classroom settings I was a part of for so long, cramming and jamming, skipping and dipping. I can’t get away with that in the intimate setting of my lessons and small class sizes in the music department.

So, where would I be without this department in my life in the coming years? – Probably washed up and doing that soak routine at a pub somewhere sulking on the pile of my dreams I will have carried with me to that point that never facilitated – a sort of pile of deflated balloons I can’t throw away.  I want to live my dreams and watch them blossom in front of me.  This faculty is helping me make that happen, and that says it right there.  They are making me make this happen. I am learning. And MSUM is going to be the place that turned me loose in the world, learned and ready to tackle my hopes and dreams, please.