In terms of its sociopolitical balance sheet, Sistema’s greatest asset has also been its greatest liability: its proximity to, if not inextricable association with, the Chavismo governments
The Problem Part 6: where in our search for solutions we pick on a theoretical middle school band instructor
The history of music education as a whole is essentially one of excellent outcomes for a chosen few being achieved through manifestly anti-social if not unethical means.
The Problem part 5: Molehill or Mountain?
To describe Sistema’s fall as inevitable is an abdication of responsibility: the failure of the movement must be viewed as an opportunity (perhaps the best in history) we were simply incapable of leveraging through our own pedagogical paralysis.
The Problem Part 4: the indoxination of musicians
Being nice, being friendly, being polite is so alien to group music making that apparently it looks like praxial innovation.
The Problem Part 3 – where we conflate “control” with “learning”
We shouldn't try to eliminate or control chaos, but instead focus or direct it in ways that are the most pedagogically productive.
It’s official, Sistema doesn’t work
There’s a study circulating which purports to show that El Sistema-style/inspired music interventions at three separate US-based programs had no discernable impact.
Sistema is Dead – and “THE RESPONSE”
There’s a certain charming simplicity and predictability to the remnants of the Sistema movement, vestigial though they may be. Publish a deliberately hyperbolic polemic on the demise of the word, and you can set your watch to THE RESPONSE.
Sistema is dead – a post mortem
As author of what has been labeled "the original blog" on Sistema, I reluctantly accept the responsibility of writing its obituary. Where to begin... Sistema was born in the 1970s as a conventional elitist youth orchestra, founded by a career civil servant with conducting ambitions... Or: Sistema was born in the late 1990s in Venezuela … Continue reading Sistema is dead – a post mortem
While Rome (Caracas) Burns
The next stage is probably not popular insurrection and restoration of democracy, but a coup.
When beauty pageants, human rights, and music collide
It’s likely that, were it not for some controversy, the most recent Miss USA spectacle would have passed largely unnoticed, as befits an outdated and sexist institution that ironically claims to be progressive and feminist (because seeing a woman in a swimsuit is apparently an essential way to gauge her intellectual capacities). But the competition … Continue reading When beauty pageants, human rights, and music collide
Jonathan Andrew Govias 