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Jason Crews Essay #1 Art/Expression Breadth Area The arts are a continual influence in my life, despite the “highly technological and profitdriven society”, and as a result I believe that art and art education, specifically music, is very important to a well rounded, sophisticated, and developed individual. While I believe other, non musical, forms of art, such as plays, poetry, paintings, sculpture, theater, and film, are important few significant developmental or scientific benefits have been discovered and proven when compared to music. In fact, most of the other art forms are reduced to entertainment of one form or another in my mind. Even when I thought I would be studying science and engineering the study of music had a significant and tangible impact on my life. My initial studies of music taught me how to focus over long periods of time. Music helped me develop a desire to peruse perfection. It gave me a desire to perform, and it gave me a designer to compete. In high school I joined the marching band and was taught the value of teamwork and uniformity. I learned that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, and music taught me how to take a lead and not be afraid. I wouldn’t say that I am particularly talented in the arts, even though I am studying currently studying music and music education. I wouldn’t say that I am particularly untalented either. I play the trumpet pretty well and continue to get better as my studies continue. I believe my talents lie more on the educational and management side of the art. Because being an accomplished musician is so important to education and educating my students, I hope to develop my musical abilities as much as I can while I am in school, and for the rest of my life.

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Jason Crews Essay #1 Art/Expression Breadth Area I currently play trumpet in Mesa Community College’s day concert band, and play trumpet in a trumpet quartet. As a result most, if not all, of my performance experience and has been centered on classical music. I regularly attend concert in both the classical and jazz realm. As an educator I will direct concert bands, jazz, bands, and marching bands for high school students, and in the future I hope to start a competitive Drum and Bugle Corps. Throughout the history of the United States, during times of economic uncertainty, budget cuts in all areas of the arts are proposed, and often enacted. I firmly believe that the arts, as a whole, and the education of the arts is very important to society as a whole. In the movie Mr. Holin’s Opus when Richard Drifus’ character, Mr. Holin, was notified that his music program was being cut so that they could afford to teach reading and writing, he said “But without the arts they (the students) won’t have anything to read or write about.” Although administrators faced with immanent budget cuts are faced with this difficult dilemma. They must determine the value of the arts as whole and then compare that to the value of the “fundamental” subjects. As a pragmatist I can appreciate the dilemma they are placed in. The arts are so often a consumer of funds with very little tangible return. Why invest in educating someone in an area they will never use or “can’t make money in”. If you develop a successful football program, for example, at least the participants have a chance of playing professionally and making a lot of money. In light of recent studies and scientific evidence apologists for the art’s cause are able to approach administrators with an increasing effective arsenal of evidence. As a result, I believe it’s becoming more difficult to cut art programs, and, in fact, I believe it’s becoming more common for large corporations to support the arts. 2

Jason Crews Essay #1 Art/Expression Breadth Area If you were to search on google.com for “most influential artist”, you would get about 3,170,000 listings. The top two listings you would find are “Most Influential Rock 'n' Roll Artists” and “The Top Ten Most Influential Rock Artists of All-Time”. The third link you would find “The People Who Shape Our World - The TIME 100 – TIME” is published by Time magazine, and their top influential artist is Tina Fey. While not scientific, this seems indicative to me of who society, as a whole, considers an artist. Artists are, in my opinion, are reduced to or, at least, confused with entertainers. The “artists” who shapes are world are all small blips on the radar of history. No one will know who Britney Spears is in 1000 years. No one will know who Justin Temberlake is in 1000 years, yet they are how our society defines art. Due to this confusion it becomes very difficult to pinpoint who I think is the most influential artist of the twentieth century. I would argue that an influential artist is an individual who has somehow meaningfully affected society in some way. All of the aforementioned “artists” have certainly affected society, but how, and to what ends? To answer those questions we will have to wait 1000 years.

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