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Music is vitally important to the healthy development of young people. This artistic expression deserves encouragement and financial support from the community. Unfortunately, music programs in the Berkeley Unified School District suffer low priority in the budget. To stay alive, they require tremendous volunteer work and fundraising on the part of educators, students, and parents. Music is more than a pastime, pure entertainment; it increases a child’s IQ, it broadens his or her knowledge of the outside world, and it encourages positive personal development. These are all reasons why the Berkeley Unified School District music programs should not be thought of as a dessert, but as an essential part of the meal. 

Many people consider music to be an embellishment in our lives, but not a necessity. In school it is often an elective, and at home, music practice usually happens after the homework is finished. However, the Mozart Effect and many other studies show us that participating in music is very important to our intellectual development; it actually increases a person’s IQ. It helps, for example, to enhance a person’s spatial reasoning the ability to manipulate objects in three dimensional space. In both music and math, the same part of the brain is activated; a person’s math skills increase from studying and listening to music. Similarly, a person’s music skills increase from participating in math. According to records of national average SAT scores, students who participate in music rank much higher in verbal and math than students who do not. 

Participating in music also contributes to an individual’s knowledge of the world around him or her. It provokes thoughts of other cultures by transporting the musician and audience to the composer’s world as we imagine it, or to any other illusionary place. For example, if the King Middle School band stretches itself beyond familiar American Jazz and plays a piece of Jamaican reggae, every musician in that band gains greater understanding of the form of reggae and the country and culture of Jamaica. Further, it helps to increase understanding and comprehension of other times, places, people, and ideas. A Classical student learning a Baroque piece considers the fact that the composer wrote the piece for a harpsichord, not a piano, and the student is inspired to think about how developing technologies have modified instruments through the ages. In a nutshell, no matter what type of music one plays, he or she will always learn something new. Awareness of the heart of the music, its culture and period, as well as the personal mood that inspired its composer, connects the musician to the outside world as well as to his or her inside world. 

The school band is a wonderful place to help a young musician flourish. It provides a remarkably positive environment and activity for its members. While it keeps some kids off the street and out of trouble, it leads other kids towards a career or future in music. Most importantly, in band or orchestra, the music joins everyone together in the moment. We are all playing and participating in the same beat, the same rhythm, the same melody, and it is to me a superb phenomenon. When I play the piano and other music, I am completely present and happy. It helps calm me and it nourishes me. Altogether, participating in music is a great social, intellectual, and emotional experience. 

Because music is fundamental to the positive development of one’s physical, mental and emotional being, music programs and classes should be strongly encouraged, supported, and promoted by students, parents, staff, governmental figures, and tax-payers alike. One simple thing that could help promote music programs to be a part of daily curriculum and to make sure music is in the lives of young people would be to say yes to Measure B, (“Protecting Quality Education in Berkeley’s Public Schools”). Over the last few years, overwhelming budget cuts have been made, one of them being the governor’s cut of $2 billion in funds for Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade education (2004-2005 budget). With Measure B, the Berkeley Unified School District music programs will receive seven percent of the new funds. This money will serve the following purposes: Fourth graders will have the opportunity to begin an instrument, music classes will have fewer students (particularly, elementary classes), and there will be full week programs for middle and high-schoolers instead of only scattered days throughout the week. It is obvious that Measure B will give school music programs some of the funding we need, so the only answer is for it to pass. It is critically important that the Berkeley Unified School District fully encourage, support, promote and fund its school music programs and students.  

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