K-5 Sings!

Music is certainly a common language. Today I attended the grade school concert and the middle school band concert in the Pulaski, WI school district. Two of my grandchildren sang in the grade school concert, and my oldest grandson played percussion in the middle school band concert. On the way to and from the concerts I played on my car CD some of the classic hits of Bob Dylan. From the Christmas carols to the band instrumentals to the ballads of Dylan, all the music spoke to me. From Silent Night to Blowin’ in the Wind, the words were meaningful and the 6th grade band sounds were unexpectedly smooth and melodic.

Thinking about different cultures I have experienced — Indian, Guatemalan, Venezuelan and American — music has played a significant role, probably equal to if not greater than, agriculture. Not everybody grows food, but almost everyone hears or sings music in all cultures.

It could be that folk songs, classical music, jazz or blues, played or sung, at funerals or weddings is deeply meaningful, even to people like me that cannot sing. At some deep level we all seem to enjoy music.

On the way home I started to think about the words to one of my favorite songs, Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind. In it he asks different questions, but always has the same answer: “The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin in the wind.” I started to think about some of the questions I have been throwing out recently to friends that no one wants to answer, and substituting them in the song for Dylan’s questions. Maybe I should, since the answer is the same musically: The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Yesterday I complained in an email to friends how the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did not print my letter to the editor about how the Mayoral takeover of the Public Schools, as proposed in Milwaukee, has in Chicago led to the militarization of the public school system. This morning they published it. No one responded to my email and no one responded today about the published “letter to editor.” Maybe I need to sing my message to get it heard. Only if I could sing!

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