Late Monday night I listened to a discussion online of the problems classical music is facing in the United States. The biggest one is financial; there are lots of recordings and lots of musicians, but not enough concert tickets sell to keep the musicians and the organizations going. They are forced to constantly fundraise, asking foundations and wealthy patrons and average people to donate every year. A large reason for this is lack of education. Those who know classical music know it’s good. But many people never hear the greats except in movies or advertisements, where the music isn’t labeled. They can’t look it up by artist or composer or even by name, because they simply don’t know what it is.

When I was in public elementary school, there was a music class we went to every day or every week; I don’t remember the frequency or most of the content. I do remember hearing “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, and feeling blown away by it. There wasn’t time in class to hear it again, so a friend and I came to the music room over lunch to listen. The teacher encouraged us, as much as any teacher can who is simultaneously wrangling 20 children who don’t want to sit still.

I associate “This Land is Your Land” and “It’s a Small World” with kindergarten, along with “Puff the Magic Dragon”. There was no thought of drugs in our class of five-year-olds. I pictured a large purple dragon, like the “Flying Purple People Eater”, which we also sang about.

In music class we tapped on wood blocks; we clanged the triangle. We played individual xylophone notes mounted on their own wood blocks. There were finger cymbals and jingle bells. There were sticks to drum together. We made maracas out of toilet paper tubes and beans. It was not a difficult class, either to teach or to do well in. Any child who paid attention and sang at all would do fine. There were costs for music books, but the ones we had were old as dirt, in textbook binding. They had a fairly innocuous selection of traditional songs, nursery rhymes, and fun songs. Nothing trendy or new, I realize now, because getting the rights to include them would raise the book cost out of reach.

We sang Christmas songs, Christian religious songs mostly, with Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer thrown in; we performed a concert twice a year for all the parents. This was the 1970s; the gym where we performed had a stage at one end, wood floors, and a stage piano with standard size keys but fewer of them. No one batted an eye at “O Come All Ye Faithful”; in fact they would have objected to an all-Santa line-up.

I want to teach that class. I want the homeschoolers near me to have the experience I had, of trying out a new thing, failing and trying again. I want to blow their minds with awesome orchestra. I want to teach rhythm and have them get it wrong or right, together. I want to hear them sing.