After a lengthy medical delay (a severe case of writer's cramp), I'm BACK!
I never really left or even stopped communicating, but my new book and COVID related communications and webinars delayed the return of my weekly Wednesday missive. (Fun stat: I have sent 245,729 emails in the past 30 days. Now, do you understand the writer's cramp?) With kids going back to school, it's time for me to get back to writing.
I'm not the only thing that's back... Music is back, and it's back in classic form.
Wanna be a Juke Box Hero? Got stars in your eyes? (someone explain this classic Foreigner lyric to the under 40 crowd) You're not alone. In the past six months, guitar, keyboard, and drum set sales have hit record high numbers. A music store company executive recently compared sales on a summer day to that of Black Friday. This six-string comeback started with the pandemic and stems from people's need to stop bumming and start strumming.
The growth isn't limited to making music. It expands to listening as well. Vinyl records just eclipsed CD sales for the first time since Van Halen was, well...Van Halen! In fact, despite the pandemic's impact, the music industry as a whole turned a small profit during the first half of the epidemic. So no bailout for Beyonce and Cardi B can forget about the PPP (someone explain that to the over 40 crowd).
In these times, music has struck a chord and is resonating with Americans in ways we once thought were long gone (see what I did there with the musical puns?).
As Alex Williams of the New York Times puts it in his article Guitars are Back, Baby!, "It's not just graying baby boomer men looking to live out one last Peter Frampton fantasy. Young adults and teenagers, many of them female, are helping to power this guitar revival, manufacturers and retailers said, putting their generational stamp on the instrument that rocked their parents' generation while also discovering the powers of six-string therapy."
In other words, music is proving not just to have healing powers, but is helping to address issues related to gender discrimination and female empowerment.
Yes, for nearly all musicians young and old, concerts are canceled, rehearsals are postponed, and audience seats are empty. But that has not stopped the music from being made. Yes, it make look and sound a little different, but it is still music.
Through all of this, numbers are showing that music not only survived but in some instances, even thrived. And so will music education.
The recent sales data shows that there is not just a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but we have grown in unexpected and meaningful ways through the experience. A chance to return to a simpler time when we made our own music and listened without earbuds. A time without pitch correct and sampled instrumentation. Real people, making real music, in real-time. Difficult does not necessarily mean better (Adagio for Strings) and more notes and drill does not always equate to more learning. We do not teach music. We teach CHILDREN.
Our jobs have changed, mine included. They have become more distant and difficult. But, kids are still kids, and music is still music. It will not be the same, but that does not make it worse. We did not sign up for easy. We survived music theory, ear training, and classes that meet six days a week for one credit. We achieved a college degree with a 70% drop/failure rate and teach in a profession with an equally high departure rate. We fight with parents, administrators, and even mother nature. We are strong, battle-tested, and resilient.
Our students need us, so we will meet them where they are, when they are there, and show them what is possible! Recent events and trends show that neither music or students are going away. So neither am I!
My mask is on, and my plane boards in five minutes!
See you soon!