Music...

I play the violin and am proud of it! I feel however that violins and other stringed instruments, and music in general, are both underestimated and undervalued in our culture starting in the schools. Fremd has a great music program and we have consistently sent people to IMEA (the musical equivalent of IHSA) for the past several years. This year the concertmaster of the regional IMEA orchestra for our district was from Fremd yet ask any non-music student in the building and they won't even know what IMEA is! If a team or person of a sport is sent to state and places high you can be sure that the school will know even if it's only through the pep assemblies thrown in their honor yet for a music department triumph and not a peep. Mainstream students don't know or hear about the long hours of devotion spent to mastering and instrument and don't appreciate the dedication it takes.This thinking of musicians as wimpy, unless they're playing the guitar, bass or drums of course, just keeps continuing in adult life. People don't seem to realize that you can hook an electric violin up to an amp and it will be amazing. Violins can play things other than pure classical music and can the same with all the other string instruments. People don't seem to be able to see the possibilities of different instruments because in school and in other places they feel that their peers don't value it highly. Today I saw a group called String Fusion. it was amazing and the played everything from country to Hendrix. Guess what, their lead musician played on the electric violin! Yet somehow this awesome group that came in to our school to play for free didn't manage to gather a audience the same size as the one during writer's week during the student poetry hour. And even some of the people that did show up decided that their cellphones were more important that the people preforming for them. musicians are underrated in our culture and as a musician I feel our culture and artistic history is slowly slipping away except in the small groups that try to keep it alive.