In
his marvelous 1977 book, On Teaching, Herb Kohl suggests that
teachers should read the books their students love, and listen seriously to the
music that engages the young people they teach.

Teachers, Kohl says, cannot
expect students to eagerly embrace the literature and arts their teachers deem classic,
beautiful or essential for an educated person, unless teachers return the favor
and seriously honor their students' tastes and preferences.

You
might argue that Kohl wrote those words before Lady Gaga was even born--and was
younger himself in the post-Woodstock era when On Teaching was
written. But he has a point. Our aesthetic values and ideals begin forming when
we are children, shaped by the arts that surround us. The goal is broad
experience, learning to draw knowledge and pleasure from a wide range of
artistic sources. If nothing else, listening to the music our students love can
be seen as a useful exercise in anthropology.

My
late mother-in-law--may she rest in peace--was convinced that my husband was at
Woodstock in 1969, and concealed this fact from his parents for decades. It's
not true--he was actually in Ann Arbor, safely grinding away at another boring
summer job. But in her mind, he was just the kind of rebellious hippy youth who
would hitchhike across the country to listen to all that racket. 

Craig
Wilson, in USA Today, makes the case that the music at Woodstock was glorified racket, pretty much--the
half-a-million-strong experience, the mud and the enthusiasm being the classic
and essential parts. Only a handful of the musical performances at Woodstock were
truly memorable and lots of musicians turned in marginal work, possibly because
electrocution was a distinct possibility at any moment.

Wilson
goes on to say that few would call Woodstock the best concert ever--and that what
makes a live performance unforgettable is probably a combination of arbitrary circumstances,
judgment and brilliance, an alignment of the listener's personal stars. In the
past 40 years, I have been to literally thousands of concerts. One of my life
regrets is not keeping a list of all the concerts I've seen (although a list of
all the concerts I've played would certainly be longer and--perhaps
surprisingly--less interesting). Perhaps a meticulously kept list would spoil
the spontaneous response to this question:

Best concert
ever?

For
me, as a formally trained musician, the answer would necessarily be divided
into two distinct captions--art music and popular music. I've seen most of the
major symphony orchestras in the U.S., and a number of Famous Classical
Musicians live. For dazzling talent, I would choose Cecilia Bartoli, at Hill
Auditorium. For pure listening pleasure, nothing came close to seeing the
Empire Brass at the Wharton Center. For artistic excellence and
heart-in-the-throat richness of sound, my favorite "classical"
ensemble is the Cleveland Symphony (although hearing them in Severance Hall may
have something to do with it).

On
the popular music side, I offer a top five: Richard Thompson at the Michigan
Theatre in Ann Arbor, an evening chock-full of irony and artistry. For pure
fun, the Subdudes at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Randy Newman, solo at the piano, at
the Royal Oak Theatre (we were in the front row, I was nine months pregnant,
and I remember hoping fervently that all the research about what babies could
hear in the womb was true). First runner-up: a tribute concert for Lowell
George, at the L.A. Forum, back in 1979. Nearly all my favorite musicians were
on the program, which went on for hours. When I got in line for popcorn, Laraine
Newman was ahead of me. I have kept the T-shirt for 30 years, even though it's
size x-small.

My
all-time favorite concert has to be seeing Stevie Wonder at Cobo Hall in
Detroit, back in the 70s. Stevie Wonder is always exciting and fresh, but he
was home that night, musically and emotionally. Our seats weren't that great,
but I was caught up in the feeling of being part of Stevie's family and his
generous passion. Signed, sealed, delivered: best concert ever.

Image: NYC_Comet, Flickr Creative Commons

Two
weeks ago, I spent a Saturday traveling to the century-old District Library in
Jackson, Michigan, one of more than 2500 beautiful public libraries--on three
continents--funded by industrial magnate and innovative philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie. The draw was a workshop on using research in writing, plus a luncheon
keynote featuring one of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon. Gabaldon took
questions after the workshop and the keynote--and both times, someone in the
audience asked her who Jamie (a character running through most of her novels)
looks like. As in--which living person, preferably a star, served as model for
your hero?

Both
times, Gabaldon gently demurred, saying that while she had an image of Jamie, readers should create their own vision.
This was not an answer that pleased the audience; there was the sense that they
wanted a name--or better yet, a color photo. And at my table, a Gabaldon reader
confessed that she starts all books by turning to the last pages--to see (her
words) "who died and who got together." Only with that concrete information could she start reading.

There's
plenty of evidence that students in this media-saturated world are losing their
capacity for rich imagination.  One of my
favorite instructional strategies in teaching middle school music is structured
role play. Assigning students a character to inhabit-- rock star, entertainment
lawyer, singing monk-- is a powerful way to force them to "think
different." There's always a subgroup of students who resist, claiming
they don't know what to do or say-- "Can't you just write it down, so I
can read it?" Explaining divergent thinking--or the endless possibilities
for changing one's narrative-- isn't always helpful. They're looking for the right
answer.

Turning
kids on to different kinds of music--every music teacher's #1 goal--is an
exercise in developing the imagination, particularly for band and orchestra
teachers who can't use lyrics as a means of illumination.  I remember one stunning moment back in the
80s, rehearsing a sensitive passage with my 8th grade band.  A young man raised his hand and said it might
be easier to play the piece if we knew what it was about. I replied that people
didn't ask Beethoven what his fifth symphony was about, but he persisted,
saying "You know, like on MTV, where you can see what songs are
about?"

That
comment sent me on an enduring quest to embed the ideas of imagination and
inspiration (literally, "drawing breath") into my classroom pedagogy.
Musicians use a range of non-visual and non-literary tools to represent
emotion, story, purpose and occasion. Part of musical imagination is
craftsmanship--having the knowledge and skills to create. But another part is
the willingness to be playful, to recombine familiar elements into something
new, to take a risk or wait on inspiration. My students had some rudimentary
knowledge and skills. What they didn't have was permission to honor or evaluate
their own interpretations and images.

As
much as I would like to pin my worries about diminished imagination in children
on MTV and a thousand other always-on media sources, I can't. Media, whether
brilliant or boring, is only the product.  Imagination is a process. A process fed and
honed by comprehension and competence--but also the ability to delay
gratification, to fool around with ideas. The women at the library who wanted
to see the definitive picture of their fictional hero, or know how the story
turns out before reading, were lacking the capacity to suspend fulfillment and
tinker with possibility. They wanted the answer.

Einstein
is famous for  declaring that imagination is more important
than knowledge. Here's the rest of that quote: "For knowledge is
limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the
entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Imagination
is a real thing. It belongs in every vision or proposal for what our children
should learn, preparing for their 21st century lives.

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