Allan Kozinn of the New York Times offers his solutions to the lack of music curriculum in schools. His main one: go back 40 years and do it as they did – as an integral part of the complete curriculum, from K to 12.
Cue the Ghost of Music Education Past. If you look at how music was taught in public schools 40 years ago — and for decades before that — you’ll see exactly what’s needed now. Back then it was simple: Music was part of the curriculum, like math, science and social studies. Kindergartners and first graders began with singing, note-reading and rhythm-beating, and as the course continued through high school, it touched on the history of music and how it works — much as the 2004 blueprint does, except that schools offering this curriculum were the rule, not the exception.
Even more crucial, if you wanted to play an instrument, lessons were free, and the school would lend you an instrument until you felt sufficiently committed to buy your own. As interesting as the class work could be (depending on the teacher), the real business of getting to know how music works took place in instrument lessons, and, after a couple of years, the orchestra or band, which gave students a taste of performing music rather than absorbing it passively. Annual trips to the New York Philharmonic and classroom visits by musicians were part of the program as well, but they supplemented the curriculum. Today, too often, they are the curriculum.