Politics

While reading through Chapter 7, it got me thinking about how much control the Nazi party had over the music and culture while they were in control and how much effort was given to maintain control throughout their rein to these areas. This control the Nazi party had led me to think about how much music is regulated within the school.

Often within school rules it is against school policy for a student to have some kind of play back device such as a CD player or Mp3 player. One would assume this policy is in place to prevent cheating or some other subversive behavior to curtail academic rigor in assignments or testing. However, if you think about the emotion that can be tied to music and how much music plays into how people feel and what it can call for within the song it’s self, school is very slightly controlling what is heard in the building within the school day.

When I was in elementary school, it was very rare to hear pop music within music class, much less the building. We constantly focused on folk tunes and other “academic” kinds of music for elementary aged students. Even in junior high and high school, we were not presented with anything that was popular. The music we played may have had a contemporary feel but was not accessible in the way that pop music is to the listening audience.

Another issue that Negus brought up is how music is interpreted by different people depending on the political context that one is hearing and using the song. Negus describes John Lennon’s Imagine and the various way that song has been used for various political parties and representations. I remember reading about Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In the Wall Pt. 2” and how the band was quite shocked that a students in South Africa were using that song as an anthem for their cause to end their oppression. The song it’s self is about the absolute power that a teacher can have in the classroom and can control what goes into the mind of the students.