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Habits

11/30/2018

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Post 20.
 
Schopenhauer wrote in the morning, which was followed by a walk, and then he'd practice flute. After this, he'd have leisure time, attend an opera and drink some wine. Kant also followed a strict routine: He drank tea, smoked, wrote and prepared lectures, taught, wrote some more until lunch. He then went for a walk and spent time with his friend, until the evening when he read. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson each kept up fairly strict daily routines. Synonyms to "routine" include the words everyday, ordinary, regular, usual, accustomed, methodical. Similarly, the word "habit" includes synonyms such as custom, practice, pattern, groove, praxis and, of course, routine. Since 2015 I have published a Ph.D. dissertation, a monograph, nine articles in peer-reviewed journals, three chapters in edited books, two book reviews, and other less-academic writings (two Wikipedia pages, and this blog). My habits have helped me to be productive.

I read and write every single day. Reading and writing are important, no fundamental, in being a scholar. They're like breathing in and out. But reading and writing every day is not enough. Its not enough to publish stuff. Rather, the stuff we publish has to matter. Otherwise we're wasting energy, paper, and time. For me, three additional habits help cultivate my daily understanding of what's important: walking, gardening, and bird-feeding. 

Music educators Roger Mantie and Brent Talbot use the pragmatist philosopher William James to talk about habits as flywheels. "A flywheel is a rotating disc used to store and release energy. ... The point of a flywheel is to smooth out changes in rotational speed resulting from momentum generation and mechanical load." I, like many scholarly writers, have developed habits that not only keep the metaphorical wheel moving, even when I'm not at my creative best, and to slow my thought down to a comprehensible speed when the muse is racing. Walking, gardening, and bird-feeding each help in a similar way as a flywheel helps your lawn mower blade. But because they happen in nature, which is intrinsically unpredictable, these habits can be much more.

1. Walking: The Romantic impulse

Like Schopenhauer, Kant, Franklin, and Jefferson, my daily routine includes reading, writing, and walking. Gandhi was famous for his long walks. Thoreau's most famous quotation, "In wildness is the preservation of the world," comes from his essay "Walking." When I walk I ruminate. I think over ideas. Chew them really. But often I am distracted from my contemplation by the wildness around me. Chickadees and squirrels always command my attention. Their noises and songs suggest ideas I hadn't previously considered. In a state park, and Pennsylvania has some excellent parks, I can imagine that I'm walking on the same soil where my ancestors walked. They too walked for many generations in these Appalachian mountains; below this canopy. And I can imagine I walk where Iroquois, Shawnee, and Lenape walked before my peasant ancestors emigrated from Poland and Lithuania. But walking, if a habit is a flywheel, provides daily inspiration and creativity. It keeps my wheel from stopping. It doesn't slow it down. It is a Romantic impulse. My imagination wanders far. Sometimes too far for good sense.

2. Gardening: Keeping it real

In "The Way of Ignorance," Wendell Berry writes, "The most insistent and formidable concern of agriculture, wherever it is taken seriously, is the distinct individuality of every farm, every field on every farm, every farm family, and every creature on every farm." While I've never farmed (my dad picked potatoes in the summers when he was young, which was a common summer job in his generation), when I garden I have to give up on the generalizations I cultivate while walking. Rather, the individual soil, here, below my feet, with specific weeds, and specific seeds I care for are here. Now. Within this climate; this bioregion. Gardening places nature in a way that walking doesn't. When I garden I want to gain something from my backyard. I want food. Nourishment. But, if I'm not careful to allow some wildness enter into my garden, it can become a capitalist enterprise with overly straight rows of cash crops, rather than a miraculous new birth of polycultures. And so I use permaculture, no-dig, Masanobu Fukuoka-style lazy gardening. And miracles happen in my yard. The Buddha inspired Fukuoka writes, "The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."

3. Bird-feeding: Recognizing non-human musicking

Deep ecology's founder, Arne Naess wrote, "Present ideology tends to value things because they are scarce and because they have a commodity value. There is prestige in vast consumption and waste." When I feed birds, I don't do it for food. So, the garden and bird-feeder serve different practical and theoretical functions. My garden thrives because I touch it. The birds who visit my bird-feeder thrive because I do not touch them. When I walk, I stop to hug a tree and imagine myself one with creation. But I cannot hug the chickadees, blue jays, juncos, sparrows, and cardinals that visit my bird-feeder every day. And unlike walking, which is movement, bird-feeding is still. I often spend an hour sitting, watching quietly as the birds do their thing. The birds sing beautifully, and for their own reasons. Like us, they music to mate, to show strength, and for pleasure. But they also music for reasons we cannot know. Our brains are different. At my bird-feeder, I recognize the central tenet of deep ecology. That non-human beings have intrinsic value. Places do too.

These three habits, walking, gardening, and bird-feeding, have made all the difference in my scholarship and life. They have helped me find my voice as a music education researcher. These habits are evident in my articles and my book. What habits do you cultivate? Let me know in the comments.

DJS

Link: http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/MantieTalbot14_1.pdf
Link: https://www.counterpointpress.com/dd-product/the-way-of-ignorance/
Link: https://www.uv.mx/personal/jmercon/files/2011/08/Naess_DeepEcology.pdf
Link: http://topics.maydaygroup.org/articles/2015/Shevock2015.pdf
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Black-capped_Chickadee_eating_seed.jpg


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A Parable

11/26/2018

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Post 19.

A Parable
            The Master of the village and forest wanted to reward his people. He put a fig tree in the middle of the village as a gift to His people, and then left to travel. This tree was celebrated. Now people had figs in addition to mushrooms, berries, and dandelions, which they had always foraged from the forest’s edge. The figs were freely available to all (Acts 4:35). The people of the soil and birds of the sky were well fed for many generations (Matthew 6:26).

One day, a Lazy Man decided he did not want to walk to the middle of the village to pick figs. The Adversary spoke in the lazy man’s ear: “I can teach you the secrets of trees, and you’ll never hunger again” (Genesis 2:17). The Lazy Man was eager to learn, and The Adversary taught him how to make cuttings, and how to grow new trees from the original source (Genesis 4:4). The Lazy Man rejoiced, and cut the lower branches from the fig tree. He planted the new trees in his yard, which he now called his orchard. Where there had previously been only one fig tree in the village, now there were five. The community celebrated the Lazy Man’s ingenuity, and declared him a community leader.

Many years passed. Children could no longer reach figs because the lower branches were gone, and had to ask their parents for help. With many cuttings removed each year by the Lazy Man, The Master’s fig tree failed to feed all the people of the soil or the birds of the sky. During on particularly long drought, the villagers came to the Lazy Man: “Oh wise community leader, how can we feed our families? The fig tree is dying!” The community leader said, “I have a plan. We need to fence off the forest, so that I can hire some of you as workers. The workers will chop wood from the forest, and start a fire in my orchard. They will use that fire to dry my figs, which I will distribute to those who work for me.” The village celebrated the Lazy Man's plan as industrious. The Lazy Man hired many workers to cut the forest, to dry the figs, and to distribute the food to the workers.

The Lazy Man hired much of the village for a long time. But after many years, the original fig tree died, and The Master’s forest became a barren wasteland. Some creative workers developed vehicles that would help other workers travel the long distances to distant woods; and others developed tools to make fig drying and tree cutting more efficient. Now one worker could accomplish the work of 10. But always, the bulk of the fruit of the labor was returned to the Lazy Man, for he was an industrious community leader who earned his wealth. Or so said the villagers.

In time, inefficient workers were fired, as the workers industriousness and creativity were turned against them. Not all workers were needed. At first, the Lazy Man’s solution was to limit labor to half the population. Only males would be permitted to work. It would be a sin for women to work other than mothering. But he still needed to fire more workers to maximize profit. So the Lazy Man declared darker skinned workers less deserving, and fired them. But still, firings could not keep up with worker innovations. Each year, more efficient tools were created.

One year, the 400 remaining workers were rated, and the least efficient half was dismissed. The following year, the 200 remaining workers were rated, and the least efficient half was dismissed. The following year, the 100 remaining workers were rated, and the least efficient half was dismissed. The following year, the 50 remaining workers were rated, and the least efficient half was dismissed. Finally, the workers were productive, and the Lazy Man became rich. But most of The Master's people became poor and needy.

The Lazy Man’s workers caught poor, hungry children, one day, climbing the fence to the orchard. The Lazy Man believed it was a sin to steal his figs. To punish these sinners, the Lazy Man went to the community, who knew him as an industrious community leader. He asked for a King (1 Samuel 8), and later a republic to legally punish sinners who trespassed upon the Lazy Man’s private property. The king worked for the Lazy Man, and knew whom he was hired to serve. The king hired police. The children’s hands were chopped off! Some villagers thought this was just, and others thought it was too cruel. But all were powerless to stop it. It was legal. Even with the hand chopping, with hunger and want so high, many villagers continued to climb the fence to find food in the orchard. The Lazy Man hired many workers to injure and later to kill sinners; and also hired young workers to attack nearby villages and steal their property. The Lazy Many became even richer.

Many villagers starved. The Lazy Man had some workers build universities to cultivate worker innovations. Job scarcity was declared the progress of man, and technological innovators were celebrated, even as the earth’s ecosystems and the community collapsed. Some villagers protested the Lazy Man’s destruction of the community and the earth, but were arrested by the Lazy Man’s police force. The Lazy Man told them: “Shame be on those lazy sinners who protest and who refuse to work! If they protest, or steal food from my property, they should be imprisoned!” The Lazy Man hired some workers from the university to design prisons, others to build them, and others to work as guards. The prisons housed the starving masses, and the Lazy Man also suggested workers build schools to educate children in the values of his private property. The prisons and schools ended the Lazy Man’s years of capital punishment, and villagers declared the Lazy Man a philanthropist. There was much suffering and grief in the village and the world, and though the Lazy Man had expropriated enough wealth to feed the poor of the world seven times over, he did not. He claimed very publicly (Matthew 6:5) that he loved and served The Master (1 John 3:17), and didn't want the workers to become lazy.

Upon returning to the village, what will The Master do to the Lazy Man? What will The Master do for his people?
 
DJS
 
References:
Billionaires Made So Much Money Last Year They Could End Extreme Poverty Seven Times
Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy
The Bible

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Fourth National Climate Assessment on Black Friday

11/24/2018

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Picture
Post 18.

On Black Friday, the U.S. released its "Fourth National Climate Assessment," a report that warns that climate change is having impacts on communities, the economy, interconnected issues (e.g., population, land-use), water, health, indigenous peoples, ecosystems & ecosystem services, agriculture, infrastructure, oceans & coasts, and tourism & recreation. Anybody who's been alive in the U.S. during hurricanes Mitch (19,325 deaths), Jeanne (3,035 deaths), Katrina (1,833 deaths), Sandy (285 deaths), and Maria (3,057 deaths) already know climate change has had horrifying impacts in the last 20 years.

The report also suggests actions: "Transformations in the energy sector—including the displacement of coal by natural gas and increased deployment of renewable energy—along with policy actions at the national, regional, state, and local levels are reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. While these adaptation and mitigation measures can help reduce damages in a number of sectors, this assessment shows that more immediate and substantial global greenhouse gas emissions reductions, as well as regional adaptation efforts, would be needed to avoid the most severe consequences in the long term." Most of these changes are going to require a more ecologically literate citizenry. Ecological yahoos (to use David Orr's phrase) cannot solve the problem. Eco-literacy can begin with music education, especially since our hands aren't tied behind our backs by Pearson as much other school teachers, and because the musics we use often have wonderful openings for conversations about ecological issues. We are freer, so we can do this work.

A blog for the Union of Concerned Scientists suggest 5 "takeaways" from the report.
"1. The farm and food system as we know it is transforming before our eyes, and the productivity we’ve benefited from is in jeopardy.
2. Extreme events are devastating farms and ranches, and rapidly getting worse.
3. Climate change is contributing to deteriorating soil and water quality, entrenching challenges that have ripple effects felt far beyond farms.
4. In farming communities across the country, lives and livelihoods are on the line, with some populations suffering disproportionate risk.
5.
The number of people who go hungry each day will climb–in the US, and abroad."

For some these are difficult facts to digest, especially if you've had your head in the sand. For others, these are so obvious we forget to repeat them. Ecological issues are at the core of any social justice action, because we cannot accomplish any social justice without also solving these ecological challenges. And there's no doubt that Black Friday was chosen for release of this new report to hide it from the general public. Our greatest challenges are often hidden from us (before the end of WWII, Stalin's atrocities were hidden from the American public because he was our "friend" against fascism). But there is a sort of appropriateness in announcing this report now, since Black Friday is a horrible catastrophe we perpetrate against Mother Earth, as National Geographic points out. But we can help in making greener choices: such as in how we buy (shipping vs. buying local products), buying fewer electronics and plastics since e-waste continues to be one of our greatest ecological challenges. National Geographic also recommends buying carbon-offsets for your Black Friday and cyber-Monday splurges.

Though music education purchases aren't often made on Black Friday or cyber-Monday, what we purchase can also exacerbate the climate crisis or not. When we choose to support more local manufacturing of instruments, and choose to analyze carbon-miles of our purchases (how many miles does it take for a product to be shipped to us; how many miles did it take to get from its factories to its distribution center). This is part of what I call a "fundamental re-localization--reorientation to place, people, and local histories" in music education. Our professional material choices may be a small step in re-localizating, but they can be a start in our battle against the climate crisis.

DJS

References
Image: By The original uploader was Thousandways at German Wikipedia. (Original text: Matthias Feilhauer (Benutzer: thousandways)) - Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3490136
Link: https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
Link:https://blog.ucsusa.org/marcia-delonge/five-takeaways-from-the-fourth-national-climate-assessment-and-what-they-mean-for-food-and-farms
Link: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-black-friday-cyber-monday-impacts-environment/
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578


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The Unknown Yet-To-Be-Known Or Unknowable

11/19/2018

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Picture
Post 17.

When it comes to cultivating the land and ourselves, there is quite a bit we don't know. A humble realism is called for. One where we look and listen to actual places, and are open to new information. Any scientist will tell you there is a lot yet-to-be-known about their field. With each discovery, the working scientist realizes there's so much we don't know. And methodologists point out that there are some things that are just unknowable, using our current research methods. In the soil and in our guts, countless organisms work for the health of the system--our gardens and our bodies. We don't know all of the ways a single organism functions. But we do know diversity appears to be the law of sustainable ecosystems.

This month "Anthropene: Innovation in the Human Age" shared a research study finding pasture grasses and other plants thrive (in arid regions) under solar panels. Basically, it seems the solar panels create microclimates, which can conserve moisture (in arid regions and deserts moisture is often lost due to evaporation). The term agrovoltaics refers to the use of the same land for both solar arrays and agriculture. This makes good sense as we continue to need both food and energy as the population grows. We can't continue to cut down new forests for food. We have to learn to live on soil, to use the land for many things at once. In the US, Brazil, Congo Basin, and elsewhere around the globe, agriculture causes deforestation. All the work we do--to drive more/fly less, drive fuel efficient cars, walk and take bicycles instead of driving locally--goes to waste if carbon sinks, forests and swamps, are destroyed so that we can eat. Any time land can be used for two ends, that's a good thing. If it can be used for a dozen purposes at once, even better.

Because there is a lot that is unknown, yet-to-be-known, and unknowable using our current methods, being rooted in place, looking and listening to your place, is essential for finding new ways of living and being in balance with nature. In Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy I write: "Music education on soil begins on actual soil. Like growing a garden in a local place. Unlike global, generalizable knowledge, local places are not places of theoretical perfection. ... In music education on soil, we ask deep questions, such as what type of education will sustain life. And we look to lived practices (cases of people living sustainably in urban, suburban, and rural places) for inspiration. Like gardeners, because we stand on soil, we must be willing to relegate unsustainable practices to the compost pile, where, through the magic of Mother Nature, even the worst weeds become food for next year's life." If you have suggestions for how music educators can live better on soil, leave them in the comments.

DJS

Link: http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2018/11/solar-arrays-can-create-prolific-microclimates-on-dry-farmland/?fbclid=IwAR2G1lLxSTu2k7xykBA3kUXBpg3yNV78epe4Ll07mp7qnrz0lpntX1nD-k0
Link: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/11/eaat2993.full
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578


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March of the Penguins

11/15/2018

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Post 16.

African penguins are hurting. "African penguins are at their lowest population numbers in recorded history and have seen an alarming rate of decline in recent years. Since 2005, South Africa has lost around 70% of its breeding pairs with less than 15500 pairs left in the wild. According to the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), this is the lowest number ever recorded. ... Marine pollution has affected the species, especially during major oil spills such as the Apollo Sea bulk carrier spill in 1996 and the Treasure spill in 2000, but also due to chronic plastic and fishing line entanglements. Disturbance and disease are other threats." This material waste is a concern for educators. African penguins may be extinct in as little as 10 years; our action is required. How are schools wasteful? In big ways.

In 2013 the LA public schools gave every child an iPad. $1.3 billion was spent for 650,000 iPads, and the program was initially lauded as a social justice accomplishment. Of course, giving tax dollars to huge companies like Apple and Pearson is not social justice. In this "ill-conceived and half-baked" plan quite a bit went wrong. However, an aspect that mostly goes silent is the ecological impact of big press-oriented school administrator plans. Most of those iPads went unused. It doesn't help that iPads are designed for obsolescence. Of course, in the Pittsburgh Public Schools we had our own press-oriented administrator, Mark Roosevelt, who lobbied to get $40 million for his ill-conceived plan for city school reform--turning an overachiever among large city districts into a wasteland; and turning his press achievements into a university presidency. Of course, the Gates money meant Gates wanted to guide policy, and ultimately that $40 million was less than half of the cost of the program; which was a hefty cost for taxpayers to pick up. Administrators who are not connected to communities and have no long-term plan for making those places better have no place in superintendent positions. Our children aren't your tool for political gain.

Sadly, all similar big projects look good to press initially; they look good to the public. Pre-tenure university faculty would love to have one of these on their tenure review portfolio. The negatives take years to emerge. Its the "looks-good" criteria that keeps organizations like the Gates Foundations active in the destruction of our public schools, our prison system, and ecological destruction, especially of places where the social majorities (the global poor) live. But the "looks-good"  criteria is an illusion and a specter. As an illusion, these big projects are a mirage of promised water in the desert. As a specter, long after administrators move onto higher positions and faux philanthropists go back to their 3rd mansion, communities are strapped with the costs of big projects. Looks-good isn't what's needed as we face massive inequality and global ecological challenges. These can be solved by a fundamental rerooting of people in place. (Note: My book is still as low as $12.50 on Routledge's website... reading it will cost you much less than the billions listening to the Gates Foundation costs your community). We need to stop going after matching-funds for projects we don't need. We rather need to associate locally; to work with other people who will spend their whole lives here making this place better.

With politically oriented administrators and faux philanthropists so active and powerful, where is our hope? Within our small and low field, music teachers can help students reroot; to resist the activities of the globalized destructive powers at play in and predating upon schools. It is the only hope for African penguins, who are being killed by big business, by professional aspirations, by our waste, which is exacerbated by political administrators and faux philanthropists. If we are genuinely going to slow and reverse waste, we need to slow the murderous wheels of capital. James Scott suggests anarchist calisthenics: "What you need is anarchist calisthenics. Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you’ll keep trim—and when the big day comes, you’ll be ready." What "anarchist calisthenics" can we as music teachers do? We do have an insider-outsider status in schools. We are teachers, but are often not already strapped tight to Pearson and Gates conceived syllabi; schemes to dis-empower teachers and students. Here is a little, imperfect list I made; I'd love to hear other suggestions in the comments:

1. Resist large-scale purchases. Every teacher doesn't use an iPad. Every student doesn't need one to learn. Those resources are better spent on more teachers and aids, who also recycle that money in local economies.

2. Use local musics rather than buying generalizables (published musics). When you do buy a generalizable, make sure it teaches students something of resistance (against ecological destruction, racism, classism, ableism, gendernormativity, and urbanormativity). If you can buy a piece off of a local composer, do so!

3. Have students make their own instruments whenever possible, like musicians have for 43,000 years. Buying factory-made instruments is a capitalist activity. When you're hired to teach an ensemble that uses factory-made instruments, use them and repair them as long as possible. Do it yourself--resist becoming obsolescent. If you can find a local instrument-maker, use them.

4. Teach students to love the place where they live, rather than to long for the suburban ideal--moving for job advances and leaving family and places that need rooted citizens to resist (e.g., resisting mountaintop removal mining). People require roots. Its part of growing up in all the old stories (the adolescent wanders; the adult roots). Teach students what it is to be an adult living in a community.

5. Join community associations that make your community better. Be active in the community as a music teacher, but also in ways beyond your profession.

DJS

Link: https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-argus/african-penguin-population-numbers-on-the-decrease-17765917
Link: http://www.govtech.com/education/What-Went-Wrong-with-LA-Unifieds-iPad-Program.html
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/07/17/how-the-gates-foundation-could-have-saved-itself-and-taxpayers-more-than-half-a-billion-dollars/?utm_term=.2ef400ab98af
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticism
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Literate-Music-Pedagogy/Shevock/p/book/9780415792578
Link: https://harpers.org/archive/2012/12/anarchist-calisthenics/
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18196349

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Dams and Reservoirs

11/14/2018

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Post 15.

In FDR's New Deal era, which was a federal response to an ecological and economic crisis (dust bowl and depression), it may have been reasonable to believe that dams and reservoirs were the best road to take to alleviate ecological problems. FDR built dams to bring jobs, electricity and flood control to rural regions in Appalachia and in America's west. Of course, FDR's policy was controversial among environmentalists in his day. John Muir's fight against Hetch Hetchy, perhaps the first instance of grassroots lobbying, went on from 1901 to 1913. According to the Sierra Club, "Despite opposition from many citizens, including most of the nation's leading newspapers, Congress passed the Raker Act in 1913 allowing the city of San Francisco to destroy Hetch Hetchy. The City built a dam and reservoir, drowning this beautiful valley, even though other less-damaging sites existed." It may be that interest in beauty and in sustainability go hand in hand. For instance, Vincent Bates recommends music ensemble teachers and learners "might spend time serving the community, working to clean, preserve, and beautify familiar spaces."

Today, the damage caused by dams and reservoirs is better understood than it was in the Dust Bowl era. We build dams and reservoirs to, as FDR did, to increase jobs, electricity, and to provide flood control. Reservoirs are designed to provide clean water for communities. In fact, building new dams is one of the "most common" ways to respond to drought conditions. In yesterday's Science Daily, research from Uppsala University suggests building and expanding dams and reservoirs can make drought conditions worse. They identify two possible reasons. 1. The supply-demand cycle theorizes that with increased supply (of water), demand increases. For instance, a person may choose landscape plants that require more water in if water is readily available, despite living in an arid region. Examples are turf lawns in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and California, where lusher garden landscapes are more appropriate. 2. The reservoir effect: "The expansion of reservoirs often reduces incentives for preparedness and adaptive actions, thus increasing the negative impacts of water shortage.."

I teach an introductory Western Art Music course at Penn State Altoona. Musically, Philip Glass's piece, The Dam, seems to capture some of the horror and hope we place on dams and reservoirs. Big, bright synthetic chords repeat (as Glass's music does) with uneasy, seemingly broken patterns. The wordless choir reminds me of those wordless choir sections in film, and often horror films (alternatively, the same effect is gotten in The Omen using Latin), where the drama reaches its peak. At this moment, the wordless choir symbolizes some sort of devastation or destruction. After The Dam's initial loud section, it immediately becomes soft as winds and strings play a more hopeful, wild-west-film-like pattern, only to return impatiently to the grand horror of the wordless choir. Perhaps The Dam connects to Glass's other ecological critiques, such as the Francis Ford Coppola film Koyaanisqatsi, which famously decried modern living as "life out of balance."

If we are going to, through music education when possible, return ourselves to a life more "in balance," we're going to need to rethink dams and reservoirs; and fall in love with swamps again, since they're such a requirement for ecosystems. A group aiming to restore Hetch Hetchy (by removing the dam) has a list of Songs for Hetch Hetchy on this website. These might also provide interesting pedagogical material for learning about dams and reservoirs, the ecological crises, and music.

DS

Link: https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/domestic-affairs
Link: http://vault.sierraclub.org/ca/hetchhetchy/history.asp
Link: http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bates12_2.pdf
Link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181113141804.htm
Link: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/lindavaldez/2018/08/14/why-arizona-grass-green-lawns-dont-belong-desert-cities/982535002/
Link: https://youtu.be/dsExKKbmP2U
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Eco-Literate-Pedagogy-Routledge-Directions-Education/dp/0415792576/
Link: http://www.planetpatriot.net/songs_hetch_hetchy.html

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    Eco-Literate Pedagogy Blog

    Daniel J. Shevock

    I am a musician and music education philosopher. My scholarship blends creativity, ecology, and critique. I authored the monograph Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy, published by Routledge, and a blog at eco-literate.com where I wrestle with ideas such as sustainability, place, culture, race, gender, and class; and recommend teaching ideas for music education professionals and others who want to teach music for ecoliteracy. I currently serve as a substitute music teacher with the State College Area School District.

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