Travis J. Weller

Ironically enough my readings this past week at Kent State, a Facebook discussion thread, and  Valentine’s Day collided at spawned this post. Pushing students to achieve levels of tonal and rhythmic accuracy is important – it is all part of getting them to a point where they have the technical proficiency they need to execute the big fundamental structure of a piece of music.  Tone quality and intonation awareness are two other dimensions that if mastered, start to create degrees of separation in the quality of the ensembles we hear.  When we can educate the individual musician (the musician inside their head) they can use the instrument as a vehicle of communication to as they display phrasing, dynamic contrast, and stylistic interpretation.  These are all worthwhile and important goals of instrumental music education – but if a trophy on the wall is more important than guiding students towards a meaningful life-long relationship with music…

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To say I have been buried and been behind – including postings on the blog – this fall is like saying “Sales for Chrysler have been a little down lately”.  There have been a lot of busy things happening, a lot of demanding things happening, and some good things happening in there too.  Parts of my studies at Kent State this fall have included a Seminar in Music Education Class that has given me plenty to think of.  It has been interesting getting to some of the writings of Randall Allsup, and revisiting a few entrenched beliefs I have thanks to Bennett Reimer.  Though he is new to me,  the following is inspired by the writing of Steven Kelly and his book “Teaching Music in an American Society”.  First of all, it is a great read – I would recommend it to any teacher educator in music programs.  Kelly really brings a great lens to examine our profession from the standpoint of political, socioeconomic, and cultural perspectives that is very revealing.  This post has been brewing for a few weeks after reading some thoughts by good friend and colleague Dr. Joseph M. Pisano over at Mustech.net.  Some food for thought for those of you on your lunch break…

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I hope Ed Rendell reads this.  I hope he reads and gets off whatever horse that apparently got him elected.  Saying he’s a friend of education is like saying Enron cared about its shareholders.  It’s like saying Vick was humane to dogs.  As the Keystone State Lawmakers continue to exchanger verbal volleys this week, friends of mine go unpaid and all functions of the state come to a screeching halt.  I have the solution to free up a lot of money in the budget – kill standardized testing where it stands.  But knowing Rendell’s agenda, we will stay the course and ultimately force districts around the state to make their cuts to save the essentials.  So now the arts in public education find themselves in another tooth and nail battle because we are non-essential….yeah, right.

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Where would I be without Joe Pisano? Still kicking around wondering if my stuff was good enough to be out there – that’s where.  Joe has been in my corner from day 1 on this journey.  He is my friend, my colleague, and my brother, and I really appreciate all he has done – which included calling me the other day to say “Hey, I updated your site.  That’s a great picture!” Thanks again Joe, for all you have done for me!

Another guy that has really given me a shot in the arm of late is Drew Fennell.  Many thanks again to Drew who this afternoon debuted “Shine!” with the Carnegie Mellon Pre-College Summer Wind Ensemble!!! My respect and appreciation for Drew as a musician, conductor, and composer continues to grow.  The performance was great, and I really appreciate those students bringing this music to life!!!  Bump on over to myspace and check out the live recording from the July 18th concert – it even still has that new recording smell to it…I think!

More to come in the months ahead, so stay tuned! And if not, Korg makes a very affordable model (that’s free advertising you can’t buy anywhere!)….

So if CNN would have been around when Mozart or Liszt died, would there be the kind of scrutiny today about their personal lives? I am not going to talk about his life, or his legacy because that should probably be left to someone who knows what happened and actually followed Michael Jackson.  But the tragedy of this situation has left me with questions about the professional responsibility each of us carries forward in their work place, and our responsibility to our students and the music.

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