Between the Notes

Episode #9 - Is School of Rock Killing Creativity?

March 08, 2023 Jack Sharkey Season 1 Episode 9
Between the Notes
Episode #9 - Is School of Rock Killing Creativity?
Show Notes Transcript

Who benefits from organized rock ensembles that perform an end-of-year recital, the kids or everyone else? If kids aren't creating on their own during their most creative years, do the rest of us suffer? In this episode we wonder out loud if School of Rock is killing creativity.

I like Jack Black. Nacho Libre is one of my favorite movies of all time. Tenacious D never fails to put a smile on my face. School of Rock, which came out in 2003 was a fun, cute movie that was just harmless entertainment. But it spawned a demon that I think is helping kill rock and roll.

 

Blues music came from the creative need to express utter sorrow and despair in the form of a song. The surprise result was that a sharecropper in Mississippi could tell a song about his own miserable existence, and it translated perfectly – and personally – to every other human being on the planet.

 

Gospel music was the written joy and awe of God, which is a pretty heady thing.

 

Jazz music started as background music in brothels in New Orleans. It’s a very sensual music. In fact, it was originally spelled J A S S but since people have a body part that is very similar in name, the spelling was changed to J A Z Z to make it more palatable to people who didn’t frequent brothels.

 

This little stew boiled and steeped for a half century before spawning rock & roll – a music that was sensual, lewd, angry, hopeful, sweet, full of despair, loving, kind and creative all at the same time. It is wonderfully human music.

 

It was also the music of youth. Screw you mom and dad, I’m going to dig on some Led Zeppelin. My own history bears this out. Growing up my family life was not good and my world was a difficult place but every Saturday for pretty much most of my high school life they opened our house to whatever band I was in to rehearse. Rehearsals that attracted a Rogue’s Gallery of kids who were not Honor Students or Queens of the Annual Sisters of Mercy Chaste Festival. In the summer we’d move out to the garage and my father even came to our defense once when the angry alcoholic three doors down came banging on the garage door threatening to wipe us all out with his gun because of the noise. Rock and roll baby!

 

My mother begrudgingly drove me in the Country Squire station wagon to whatever gig I was playing and then come and pick me up at whatever ungodly hour – like seriously 10:30 or 11:00 o’clock – with only an occasional complaint. And even when she did complain I didn’t care, because you know, rock and roll baby!

 

But rock & roll is on life support as a cultural mover and shaker and I have a theory of one reason it may be just a shell of its former self.

 

Rock & roll was never about having mom drive her precious teen in the Escalade to School of Rock practice where a bunch of music school grads teach their view of performance and creativity instead of letting the kids just figure it out for themselves. I mean, sure there’s a big showcase at the end of the year – but it’s all fake. It’s all pre-conceived. It’s all someone else’s creativity disguised as kids playing music they aren’t connected to.

 

Now, I didn’t become a rock star and neither did anyone I was ever in a band with, but we explored our talents and creativity and rode them as far as they would take us. It was fabulous. Having kids come up and tell you how good you were was great, and in the long-term having kids come up to you to tell you how much you sucked as a musician and human being was also great. Truly formative experiences.

 

Now don’t get me wrong, studying music and taking lessons is important – whether you aspire to be a musician or not. But there’s a big difference between taking lessons and what happens at School of Rock and those type of pre-packaged recital things.

 

Mentorship is good, squashing creativity in the name of commerce is bad. Taking kids who really don’t know each other, sticking them behind an instrument that’s way too far above their ability and forcing an arrangement on them doesn’t teach anything. It also holds the truly talented kids back because they’re stuck playing with kids who maybe don’t really care about any of it. It does give the adult musician something to feel good about but other than a quick recital in front of mom and dad and Grandpa Harry and his girlfriend, what do the kids get out of it?

 

Stress. Performance anxiety, and most sadly a disconnection from their own creativity. Let kids fail. Let them get booed. Let them find out how sweet it is when people dig what they have done all on their own.

 

Yup, we’re taking kids in their most creative – and failure-prone – stages and wringing every bit of adventure, rebelliousness and creativity out of them, and why? To me, it’s like taking a kid who is learning to walk and hiring a full-time aide to hold their hand every step of the way so they don’t fall: hint are born small so when they fall they don’t have far to go. Are parents living their own failed fantasies through them? Is it compensation for all that time spent on Zoom meetings and Reddit? Or is it just that it seems like a good idea to put kids in yet another class or organized activity?

 

Teenagers! Ask your parents for the best instrument they can help subsidize for you and then go out and own your craft and your abilities. You’ll have much more fun that way, and who knows, maybe in a few years we’ll have more insanely creative people writing and performing music for us as a way of life.  

 

So yeah, there you have, let’s let kids create and let’s foster that creativity by leaving them alone once in a while.