Japanese music education is wrong, because…

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A message to the children from former coach Zico

The other day, there was an article that became a hot topic on Hatena Blog.

Uncle Zico’s Children’s Telephone Counseling Room: J.LEAGUE.jp

This article features Arthur Antunes Coimbra, known as Zico, the former manager of Japan’s national team, answering questions via phone consultations from elementary school students and two adults. To begin with, he gives all the children an answer with a nuance similar to the following quote.

Please play soccer so much that you come to love it—love it with all your heart.

In short, the kind of thing you often hear as a general statement,Enjoy things....thus emphasizing the cliché.

An overused idea—everyone would probably think so.

However, this is not limited to the present; it is closer to an idea that runs counter to the concept of how music education is conducted in Japan.

If asked whether there are any examples that could legitimately refute this, I can’t confidently nod yes, but based on my own experience, there was an incident that could serve as such an example.

The reality that music education is not the same as teaching people to enjoy music.

I have an opportunity to participate as a subject with absolute pitch in experiments at a music psychology research institute at an American university. Interestingly, I once heard directly from a researcher that there is a relatively high number of people with absolute pitch in a certain limited area.

If you’re asking where that is,Japan and ChinaIt is.

Therefore, researchers have been trying to exhaustively examine the correlation between race and absolute pitch in an attempt to derive a biological connection, but, as expected,cultural meaningIt seems likely that the spread of piano and music education in Japan and China contributed to the sharp increase in people with absolute pitch.

If we were to illustrate that 'cultural impact' with a Japanese example, it would be the period of rapid economic growth when the Japanese public began to find pleasure in consumption, and the piano as an instrument could be seen as a symbol of that prosperity.

theirAs a result of the expansion of the piano music school market driven by consumer behaviorBut that is the private music education of Japan, past and present.

And present-day China fits perfectly with what Japan used to be.

I can safely say that an overwhelmingly large number of the Chinese people around me have received elite musical education.

And there is a story related to the musical gifted education I heard from them.

It’s about China’s high school entrance exams and applicants who have musical skills.

In some parts of China, being able to play the piano used to give applicants an advantage in high school entrance exams. However, because so many applicants can now play the piano skillfully, the ability to play the piano itself no longer serves as an advantage for getting into high school.

Sadly, it’s not the case that early musical training will later lead them to discover an interest in music.

One of the sad things in the world, in my view, is when someone’s interest is destroyed by another person’s coercion.

At the very least, that’s also the case here in the United States where I live now. If I ask the people around me, “Do you play music? Did you use to?” many say they did, but in most cases their interest was destroyed by external pressure—for example, “I was in my high school brass band, but the teacher was so strict I quit,” or “I learned violin when I was little, but my parents were too strict so I quit,” and so on.

So how about in Japan?

Let me give an example from my own experience for this as well.

The piano school I had attended since I was five was, as one might say, monotonous.It was nothing special.。

Start by learning from Beyer in the instruction book, then rigorously practice Burgmüller, sonatinas, and Hanon for 2 to 3 hours a day.

During practice, all I could hear were mechanical sounds rather than a melodic line that conveyed the piano’s inherent beauty.

At piano recitals, I’ve played Chopin and Mozart a few times, butAt the time, I was so focused on playing that I never felt the piece itself was beautiful.。

And in elementary and junior high schools, where public music education takes place, I believe the music instruction is still much the same today; I remember that a great deal of emphasis was placed on choral singing with piano accompaniment.

as expectedJapanese culture that values systematic unityIn this regard, choral music is something that fits perfectly.

We also played the same song together on the recorder, among other things.

From this, it is clear that what is decisively lacking in the music scenes of elementary and junior high schools is, after all, creativity.

There is virtually no opportunity to let students freely compose music or to have them play melodies they find beautiful or enjoyable.

This makes me lose interest in what music is supposed to be.

As a premise, there is no such thing as correctness in the way music is done.

However, music is born from human creativity.

and thenUnless we cultivate creativity, isn’t it impossible to convey to students how enjoyable music is?。

Now then, aside from a lack of creativity, what else do I think is not good about music education in Japan?

It isThe production of elitismis located in.

Explaining this elitism: as mentioned earlier, in Japan during the period of rapid economic growth, it was common for households ranging from middle-class to upper-class to provide their children with musical gifted education (though with the current economic stagnation, this may no longer be the case).

Therefore, as in my own childhood experiences, it is likely that in most cases people learned music, instruments, and theory through instruction based on classical foundations.

And elitism refers to those who believe that only classical music is noble, absolute, and theoretically perfect; I get the feeling there are quite a lot of people in Japan who hold this view.

Elitist people, of course, also enjoy listening to modern music, but for some reason they often regard the category of classical as something absolute.

Because this idea concerns people’s preferences and beliefs, you can’t simply declare it wrong.

However, the flaw of this doctrine is that it assumes only those who first attain technical proficiency on an instrument can play it—that is, that they earn the right to enjoy music.

So when I ask people, 'Why not try playing an instrument?' they immediately respond, 'I'm not good at it (compared to those who started when they were young).'

So, as a result,Even if I become interested in a particular instrument, the presence of this elitism and its relative comparisons end up shutting down that interest.。

Here, as former manager Zico says,We find that discovering fun is a crucial factor in boosting interest.。

"Music as it ought to be" is simply self-expression, so being good or bad at an instrument doesn’t matter.

It’s simply about conveying what I’m thinking through music, and if that’s enjoyable, that’s enough.