How to Get Kids Involved in Music
To the Editor:
Here is my answer to Larry Melton’s article in the June issue. To make it short, It ain’t the age, it’s the money. Of course elementary school kids should be introduced to all manner of cultural goodies. More important they should all be in safe and secure facilities, as opposed to the crumbling ones some of them have to endure. Better yet they should all have free breakfasts and lunches with no means test. My wife, a retired elementary school teacher, says the school lunches were the only guaranteed meals for some of the kids she taught. My daughter’s first elementary school had free breakfasts and lunches, and it showed in the better attention the kids paid to the instruction.
But to get back to the subject; young people appreciate all kinds of well played music when they are exposed to it, but they can’t afford the high prices that most trad jazz and ragtime festivals are compelled to charge. The Spirit of ’29 has played on Telegraph Avenue near the U.C. Berkeley campus for years. Student age folks always stop to listen and dance and sometimes even contribute. Check out “Dancing police officer at the Berkeley World Music Festival.” That’s the Spirit of ’29 they’re dancing to. Or look up any of the many street performances of Tuba Skinny in New Orleans. More of the same.
There are many free music festivals of
