When you realize that the majority of music education is designed, supported, promoted and re-established by non-musicians, you get the idea about how innocent students, new at the game of playing and music get sucked into the bogus principles that so many believe in. Who are these non-musicians who are offering nonsensical lessons? Music magazines and on-line websites like this one.
Your point is a good one but does not distinguish between musicians and those that seek to learn music. If we take the premise that everyone is not a musicain till they are qualified, how do you create interest, talk to and educate those who are looking to start, because by all accounts they have no understanding of what is going on or is involved when musical principals are used. It is the same if you go to a doctor and he speaks medical language to you...it will not work, you need it in laymens terms, plain English if you will. If not you will go back home and look up the words you remember and make your own interpretation of what might be happening.
We live in an era of un-precedented information access, information that allows teaching to get out of sync, to allow the foundations and building blocks to become distorted.
Players that seek out musical content are as strong as ever, it is just there are more "also rans" if you will, those that see the opportunity and jump on. Don't ever confuse these people with serious pupils because they are in the driving seat and will go all the way.
Musical education, well education in general is about turning out functional students, if the student cannot function, then the system is at fault. If we view all these other areas as training grounds for players then those that are after real music education will come through the "also rans".
Again view it as the doctor senario, there are many levels of healthcare from basic to surgeon, but not all can or want to be on the top level. We do not criticise a nurse because she is not a staff nurse or a doctor, we do not criticise a dentist or osteopath because they are not surgeons. On that, to be a surgeon means having depth in backgound in other aspects of medicine and to have "put the time in". Another point to remember heathcare budgets are not decided, run or accounted for by doctors and the needs of patients as a rule, but by those outside the field of medicine...now that also is a true of music education in a education budget.
Consider these other things as preperation if you will, a way to stimulate the mind, show you limitations, light a desire to be better, more creative, frustrate you, then en-lighten you, a way if you will to sort out the "also rans".
To understand any education you have to understand what is involved, it is not just a case of teaching, it is about having students prepared to learn...and that is a different situation altogether.
If students are always exposed to the negative they will not respond, even if something is wrong telling them so is not always the answer, they have to be encouraged to take the chance of being wrong, not associate that with stupid, to try something new and not worry about the consiquences. In music this is more so because it stimulates imagination beyond the confines of teaching and stimulate creativity in which being wrong is not associated with being stupid it is veiwed as different, and that is not a bad thing in music.
Anyway, I'll really be looking out for this one if/when it comes out!
