Replying to LO30586 --
[Ray and I had a bit of a dialog off-list, and Ray suggested I post this
back to the list to add to the conversation here. This may refer to a
few notions we discussed off-line, but I think the item of most import
from that discussion was my wife's suggestion -- she's a musician --
that one important way to generate interest in the sort of music Ray is
describing is to get children interested in it at a young age.]
Ray,
I was thinking this morning about a few points that might clarify what I
sent yesterday. For what they're worth, here goes.
Systems aren't real.
The real world consists of people, of cats, of trees, of water, of
buildings, of sounds ... but we don't see something labeled a
"system" in nature. Systems are intellectual constructions that may
help us understand and even intervene successfully in the world, but
we have to remember that they're just our own creations.
When people think of intervening in systems, they may incorporate too
much detail.
To produce a particular opera, you must have had, at some time in
the past, a teacher who worried about how to teach a budding hornist
how to do lip trills. To understand why complex secular music isn't
more prevalent in our culture, we need to start at a far more
aggregated level, adding details only to the extent necessary to
accomplish our purpose.
When people think of intervening in systems, they may incorporate too
little span of time and space.
Your diagrams show events back to 1776, with major focal points in
1883 and 1929. While some may be tempted to try fixes that are very
focused on today's situation, it's important to understand the
forces that got us to the current situation over the last 227 years.
There are likely forces still around that would resist changes you
propose over time unless you can figure out how to neutralize them.
The same argument may apply to the extent of the model in space --
that is, what factors must be considered. Occam's Razor applies; we
need enough complexity but no more.
Think leverage. Think judo.
We can fight the system to try to accomplish our goals, but we often
just dissipate energy that way. If we can figure out leverage
points, we may be able to add a little of our energy to mobilize the
energy inherent in the system to accomplish our goals.
The model fragment I sent yesterday didn't make a few important feedback
loops explicit. I've attached [a version 02 .pdf] to fix that.
[Rick: if you have a place to post that, feel free to strip off the
attachment and give the link. If you'd rather, I can put it on my site,
but I'll not guarantee that I'll archive it as long as you might.]
[Host's Note: The pdf file is at
http://www.learning-org.com/docs/LO30713_ComplexMusicUSA02.pdf
..and it's a system dynamics model! That's great! .. Rick]
It's much the same as yesterday, except that it now separates people
into children and adults. Education creates two categories of adults,
shown by the stacked rectangles for the stock of adults. One category
consists of those understanding and appreciating complex music; the
other is the remainder.
Demand for musicians is largely a function of the number of people who
appreciate complex music.
In the system, information about the demand for musicians arguably has
a larger effect than simply encouraging musicians to leave the
profession early or to remain after retirement.
It eventually determines the number of graduating musicians each
year. If people perceive music as lucrative, I assume more children
will seek that as a career; if people perceive it as a dead end,
fewer will seek to become musicians.
If the system is working as we'd like, changes in the demand for
musicians would also affect the Level of Complex Music Education.
To some degree, it may. NOISE and the UT String Project, about
which I wrote yesterday, seem to have been created for just that
purpose.
[For the curious, NOISE can be found at http://noiseforkids.org/, and
the UT String Project can be found at
http://stringproject.music.utexas.edu/.]
I conjecture that we might find the loop between demand and creating
musically literate adults to be broken or to be overwhelmed by another
force.
As far as instrumental music goes, increasing capital demands upon
families play the role of that other force. When my parents bought me
a horn, they had a small (1200 sq. ft.) house, 1 car, 1 TV, no
computer, and no stereo. Today, I suspect most families have larger
homes, more cars, more than 1 TV, a home audio center, and multiple
computers, and they may be worried about the cost of university
educations for their children, especially if they're considering
private schools. Buying a piano or violin has a lot of competition
today.
Voice, especially a cappella vocal music, is very inexpensive by
comparison. It also requires more training to perform and to
appreciate, I think.
Does this help any? Does it make any sense?
Bill
-- Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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