{"id":10797,"date":"2013-09-13T08:47:54","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T15:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=10797"},"modified":"2013-09-13T08:52:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T15:52:17","slug":"cma-in-the-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2013\/09\/cma-in-the-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"CMA IN THE SCHOOLS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Florida-Georgia-Line-photo-by-Kristin-Barlowe\"CMA IN THE SCHOOLS<\/b><\/h1>\n

Keep The Music Playing<\/h2>\n

At most I was half awake between 5 and 6 a.m., the TV still on from falling asleep watching the night before, when the news reader said something to the effect that not even 10 percent of school kids today know what the Declaration of Independence<\/i> is about\u2014even though it\u2019s kind of right there in the title.<\/p>\n

She said they don\u2019t know who their U.S. senators are, either, but I\u2019d heard that one before, years ago, so it was no surprise.<\/p>\n

But everyone knows who Miley Cyrus is, she said, certainly even the president.<\/p>\n

I probably wouldn\u2019t have thought of any of this fully conscious at the press event at the Best Buy Theater yesterday for the 2013 CMA nominations announcement, had they not included a performance of Dierks Bentley\u2019s \u201cHome\u201d by an Education Through Music Choir of fourth and fifth graders\u2014all in their cute little Education Through Music t-shirts\u2014before Florida Georgia Line and Sheryl Crow read off the nominees.<\/p>\n

\"Sheryl-Crow2\"As CMA Board of Directors President Ed Hardy noted, the choir was returning the favor, as Bentley had a year ago visited P.S. 103 in the Bronx on behalf of CMA\u2019s \u201cKeep The Music Playing\u201d music education program, which provides instruments to kids who need them most. Education Through Music, meanwhile, is a nonprofit organization promoting the use of music in inner-city and disadvantaged area schools as a means of enhancing students\u2019 academic performance and general development.<\/p>\n

All this is well and good, I guess, though it reminds me of VH1\u2019s old Save the Music Foundation, another nonprof org dedicated to restoring music programs in America\u2019s public schools and raising awareness about the importance of music as part of each child\u2019s complete education\u2014though it might have first focused on saving the music on VH1, not to mention MTV. Or the Grammy Foundation\u2019s \u201cGrammy in the Schools\u201d program, which hooks high schoolers up with music professionals to promote music business careers.<\/p>\n

Then again, watch the Grammy Awards and decide for yourself if you want the Grammy anywhere near the schools. Me? I\u2019d post signs saying \u201cGrammy Free Zone\u201d right next to the \u201cDrug-Free\u201d ones.<\/p>\n

And as for \u201cKeep The Music Playing,\u201d well, in light of the CMA noms, I\u2019d have targeted country radio programmers way before inner-city kids. But that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n

Jim Bessman<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CMA IN THE SCHOOLS Keep The Music Playing At most I was half awake between 5 and 6 a.m., the TV still on from falling asleep watching the night before, when the news reader said something to the effect that not even 10 percent of school kids today know what the Declaration of Independence is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[7090,7088,7087,7089,2273,7091,4940,6858,7063,1197],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10797"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10804,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10797\/revisions\/10804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}