Real music has almost vanished from school music programs. In place of Bach, Sousa, Mozart, jazz, American folk songs, and any other authentic music, school bands now play fourth-rate junk churned out specially for the education market by hack composers and relentlessly promoted by an unscrupulous for-profit “educational music” publishing industry. Several articles on how this ridiculous state of affairs came to be, and what can be done about it: • My original Washington Post article of January 2005 which caused more trouble than I ever imagined possible • An article in the Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, vol. 12, 2005. Tim Foley — 26th director of the United States Marine Band — and I collaborated to document the extent of the problem and how it is harming the musical education of a whole generation of children • Another article, forthcoming in the WASBE Journal, vol. 16, 2009. An adaptation and expansion of my invited talk to the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles conference, held in Cincinnati, July 2009. Well, almost: I was invited by the editor of the WASBE Journal to submit my talk for publication following my presentation in Cincinnati. I did, and the editor was preparing to include it in the upcoming issue of the Journal, an issue devoted to the special topic of music education. But at the last minute -- obviously bowing to the very same financial and political pressures of the music “industry” which I discuss in the article -- the new president of WASBE, one Leon J. Bly, overruled the editor and ordered my article pulled. His creative justification for overruling the editorial decision of a supposedly scholarly, independent publication? “WASBE is a world organization with membership in 50 countries,” Bly explained. “Thus the problems in a school system in one country are not WASBE’s major concern.” • You can also read Bly’s email urging “damage control” with the “music industry” following my Cincinnati talk. In this e-mail, sent to the WASBE Board, Bly reveals that in retaliation for Tim Foley’s and my 2005 article in the WASBE Journal, music publisher Alfred Music canceled its WASBE membership. Bly goes on to say with concern, “Budiansky’s lecture certainly did not encourage Alfred to rejoin WASBE,” and asks his fellow board members to reassure their contacts in the “music industry” that “WASBE does not consider poor band music a publisher problem.” [I am also making available a PDF of the “follow-on” article I posted on my website in 2005, which I am continuing to include here only because it has been cited in a number of published articles; the 2005 WASBE article actually supersedes this]

The wonderful people who killed school music

Real music has almost vanished from school music programs. In place of Bach, Sousa, Mozart, jazz, American folk songs, and any other authentic music, school bands now play fourth-rate junk churned out specially for the education market by hack composers and relentlessly promoted by an unscrupulous for-profit “educational music” publishing industry.
Several articles on how this ridiculous state of affairs came to be, and what can be done about it:
• My original Washington Post article of January 2005 which caused more trouble than I ever imagined possible
• An article in the Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, vol. 12, 2005. Tim Foley — 26th director of the United States Marine Band — and I collaborated to document the extent of the problem and how it is harming the musical education of a whole generation of children
• Another article, forthcoming in the WASBE Journal, vol. 16, 2009. An adaptation and expansion of my invited talk to the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles conference, held in Cincinnati, July 2009. Well, almost: I was invited by the editor of the WASBE Journal to submit my talk for publication following my presentation in Cincinnati. I did, and the editor was preparing to include it in the upcoming issue of the Journal, an issue devoted to the special topic of music education. But at the last minute -- obviously bowing to the very same financial and political pressures of the music “industry” which I discuss in the article -- the new president of WASBE, one Leon J. Bly, overruled the editor and ordered my article pulled. His creative justification for overruling the editorial decision of a supposedly scholarly, independent publication? “WASBE is a world organization with membership in 50 countries,” Bly explained. “Thus the problems in a school system in one country are not WASBE’s major concern.”
• You can also read Bly’s email urging “damage control” with the “music industry” following my Cincinnati talk. In this e-mail, sent to the WASBE Board, Bly reveals that in retaliation for Tim Foley’s and my 2005 article in the WASBE Journal, music publisher Alfred Music canceled its WASBE membership. Bly goes on to say with concern, “Budiansky’s lecture certainly did not encourage Alfred to rejoin WASBE,” and asks his fellow board members to reassure their contacts in the “music industry” that “WASBE does not consider poor band music a publisher problem.”
[I am also making available a PDF of the “follow-on” article I posted on my website in 2005, which I am continuing to include here only because it has been cited in a number of published articles; the 2005 WASBE article actually supersedes this]