Music in my life and the lives of others.

As many of my family and friends know, I am a music education major. Music is my saving grace. From a young age I have played and Loved music. With many teachers along the way there are only 3 who stand out in my success. My piano teacher who kept me going and helped me overcome my fears of failure, my voice teacher who is an amazing woman. And then comes the lady who influenced me so much that I wanted to become like her. Mrs. Gruesnmeyer. She is a strong, stubborn woman who everyone loved and respected. I feel that that is the best thing to have, Respect. She pushed me, made me sing solos in front of the entire choir when I was scared, made me sing in front of hundreds of people. She made me who I am today.

On Friday the 12th, this strong woman suffered a brain aneurysm. Like I said, she is stubborn and is a fighter! She made it through surgery, and is breathing on her own. I can say that this woman is not only a blessing from God but a Saint. She fought for music in our schools and won. She helped fight for other student groups. She has been one of the best parts of my life. And I must say that she made high school so much more enjoyable for me than it would have been without Music. She has been a big supporter in my college career. She will check up on me and ask me how I am doing in my tough classes. (*cough* music theory* cough*)

This brings me to part two.

There is a project if you want to call it in Venezuela called "el sistema". This is a program that takes poor children and teaches them to play different instruments. They go to the poorest communities and rescue, in a sense, these children from the streets. They supply the instruments like violins, basses, trumpets, etc. It gives them a place to escape from the world and to enjoy music and their lives. It is such a great program and it has helped many like Gustavo Dudamel. He is a child prodigy and we are so lucky to know who he is. This program helped him escape. How then in a country who supposedly is "not as rich as the US" can there be such rich music? We have taken music for granted here in the US. Venezuela can fund a program that hand out expensive instruments to the poorest kids in town, but we cannot even keep a music program alive in schools? What is that all about? Music helps so many people. How can we say that it cost so much money to fund these programs when they are handing out Basses? Do you know how much a Good Bass cost? In the thousands, google it!

My question to the Government is "Who do you think you are to say that music isn't good enough to stay in public schools?" Have You done studies, and research about this? No, you just think since it is not Math, Language Arts, Science, and history that you can just cut it. Well too bad for you it is ALL of those subjects. Students are not just learning about classical music or notes. There is math involved in the actual music score. Students are learning different languages in the songs they sing, the history of the pieces and the physical, scientific aspects of performing the music.