And before I get to that answer, I’d like to jump up on my soap box… even if just for a minute or so.

I enjoy music; all kinds of music. Rock, Jazz, Blues, “long-hair”… I won’t discuss what it is that I don’t like (rap) or music that I despise (rap) or music that should not be allowed to be performed unless you’re willing to do the time in jail (gangsta rap).

This morning I was listening to a CD that I had just bought. This CD was a repress of an old album that I was introduced to back in the sixties. That’s 1960… I’m not that old.

The CD was remastered. It is a recording of a live performance of The Boston Pops Orchestra directed by Arthur Fiedler and the guest star was Allan Sherman. The name of the CD is “Peter & The Commissar“ which includes selections on variations of the tune “How Dry I Am” and “The End of a Symphony”. As I sat in traffic and listened to the CD, I laughed, applauded and got a little misty eyed.

The End of the Symphony – Allan Sherman and the Boston Pops

It was also a sad moment. All of this talent, this amazing ability to change music, rewrite what had been written before, create new and unheard music and blend tones and instruments into something moving, inspiring and thrilling… will not come from today’s generation of children. Music / Art, either as an appreciation or learned function, is no longer being taught in our schools.

Most music is publicly broadcast and is the musical equivalent of a limerick. Popular music is relatively short with repetitive rhythms, melodies, and harmonies that are easy to listen to. Its main purpose is to entertain and sell. Conversely, it takes effort and some musical knowledge to comprehend a piece of artistic music. Artistic music requires concentration and memory to decode and reconstruct various bits of musical information. Look, everyone can enjoy a Beethoven symphony; however, it is appreciated on a different level by someone with an understanding of the form, the delicate timing and sequences, and the history of the symphony. A painting may be a masterpiece to an art critic and yet it would be a childish gibberish or nonsense to someone with no background in serious art.

Today’s schools are no longer teaching the arts. We are losing a gift. And it’s a gift that today is being supplanted by video games, budget constraints, parental indifference and governmental ignorance.

As a people we are losing our artistic heritage.

Oh sure, there are kids who have picked up a guitar and played three chord garage band tunes with a couple of friends from down the street, but it’s not really good listening music. Is it something that one can appreciate? Maybe, if you’re a parent who really gives a damn about what your child does with his artistic mind. But it is far from being an art. The percentage of young adults who are taking up music, painting or poetry as a purely artistic function is roughly one-half of one percent of all of those who came out of school with artistic aspirations just forty years ago.

Does the town you live in have a symphony orchestra? Mine does… but it may not be doing concerts for much longer. The lack of upcoming talent (as well as budgetary restrictions) may spell the death knell for arts in my town. Even “Community Theater” is taking a hit because the talent pool of people who can sing and dance is so small that casting calls produce little to no trained talent (despite what you see on some stupid talent T.V. show… or maybe because of it).

Actually, it’s a shame. A large portion of our physical make-up is an appreciation of the arts, be it music, painting, wood working, sculpting, architecture or poetry. Schools can no longer teach it. Parents no longer can influence a child’s artistic mind when the mind is set on sitting in front of a T.V. or computer. The future of the Arts is bleak and as of right now, it looks like the loss will not be felt immediately by today’s people. But future generations will most likely suffer.

Is there a fix? Can I suggest some way to correct this death spiral of artistic indifference? Not really. Much like our dwindling resources, that history has already been written. Today we can appreciate the art and flair of those folks, some of them long since dead, who created the symphonies, paintings and sculptures. But I am beginning to doubt there is a modern-age Beethoven or Picasso in today’s school system.

And that is really a shame… Not for those of us living today, but for those who will live in what I foresee as a very bleak future.

So, what is the “mammoth channel”?

It’s an ancient gold-bearing river channel that is situated under the ridge that the town of Paradise, CA sits on.

Until next time…