El Sistema: Changing Lives Through Music

Bob Simon On Venezuela's Groundbreaking Musical Education Program

(CBS)  Hard work is an understatement. Every day after school throughout Venezuela, you can see kids practicing. Fifteen thousand trained musicians work with them, but the system also uses gifted kids to teach other kids. After eight hours of school work, it makes for a long day.

"So, a kid is here from 7:00 in the morning from 6:00 in the evening?" Simon asked.

"Twelve hours, almost," Elster said. "Every day from Monday to Saturday."

"They only have Sunday," he added.

"Only Sunday to get into trouble," Simon remarked.

"To practice at home," Elster replied, laughing.

Home, for most of the kids in Elster's branch, is called "Sarria," one of the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Caracas. "These people, they don't have almost anything. So they decide to build a house here and it’s like five people per room," he said.

The worst section of Sarria is a labyrinth of illegal shacks and alleyways, built into the side of a ravine. "And 80, 90 percent of our kids come from here," Elster said. "You can see the kind of construction. This is really bad. It’s really poor."

Asked how dangerous it is there, Elster told Simon, "Oh, pretty dangerous. So you cannot be walking around here by yourself."

"Not even you?" Simon asked.

"Not even me. No one. No one," he said. "Even the people from the neighborhood can get robbed here. But it's part of the poverty."

In the midst of that poverty, the system uses classical music to instill in the kids self-esteem and confidence. Popular music, Rafael says, wouldn’t work.

"What they have on home at the radio is popular music all the time. Their father, who drinks every day, he get drunk with that music," he told Simon. "So you have to give them something different. When they sit in one of these chairs in the orchestra, they think they're in another country, in another planet. And they start changing."

Their sound might be a little rough, but what they lack in experience the kids make up for with enthusiasm. Trumpeter Paola Chistoni says the system teaches kids a lot more than how to play an instrument.

"Kids who are poor wouldn't be able to join an orchestra on their own. It's really good because not only do they learn a daily routine - but they also learn another culture," she said.

Paolo first chose the violin when she joined the program, but decided the liked the trumpet better.

[dadeed]

today, 0ct 12,2009, I tried to watch your 2 videos: El Sistema and Gustavo the Great but could not get them to play. Have they both been worn out? Can they be refreshed? I want to share them with other friends. Thank you. DD

[scrollworks]

Everyone told me about this story on El Sistema when it aired last summer, but I didn't see it until yesterday. I'm inspired all over again to bring a program like this to Birmingham, AL. In Jan 2007, I began donating my retirement and then all my savings to start Scrollworks--$53,000 so far. We teach free music lessons to anyone who walks in the door at two locations. Our goal, though, is to train young musicians so that they can participate in our youth orchestras. We have made great progress. We're teaching over 300 students a week this summer. In the fall we will be revamping our program at an inner city elementary school to more closely follow El Sistema's model--a 'music intensive' after school at least two days a week. Bringing El Sistema to the US is hard work but it is so worth it!
Jeane Goforth
CEO, Metropolitan Youth Orchestras of Central Alabama
700 8th Ave W, Birmingham, AL 35204
205-908-8843
http://www.myorch.org/
http://metroyo.blogspot.com/
http://jeane-metroyo.blogspot.com/

[daina520]

For those of you passionate to bring El Sistema to the world, please join the Causes page (http://apps.facebook.com/causes/290357), give & help spread awareness for this incredible initiative.

[leatherider]

My generation was one of the lucky ones -- public schools provided us with music appreciation classes, drama, chorus, band, orchestra . . . and we are the better for it. The Arts have provided uncountable hours of both pleasure and meditation over the years. Music is truly the universal language.

Unfortuantely, as mentioned in an earlier posting, arts programs are the first to suffer from budget cuts as less and less federal funds are alloted to our public schools. And yet our polititians still wonder why school dropouts and violence are ever on the increase while our position among the world''s educated nations continues to plummet.

[nrwisdom]

I would also like to know where to send a donation! Please give us an address! I have a clarinet and a flute I would love to send them!

[daina520]

For those of you passionate to bring El Sistema to the world, please join the Causes page (www.causes.com/music4kids), give & help spread awareness for this incredible initiative. You can donate also here: http://elsistemausa.org/support-a-fellow.

[smehary]

I would like to know how/where to donate money and /or instruments.

[flreason]

Anyone involved in music and the arts knows their power. Unfortunately, most Americans miss that experience. Arts programs are the first things to be cut when school budgets get tight. If you want to convince your school administrators why music is worth funding, check out this web site...Reasons to Study Music:
http://www.winstonmusic.net/instructionreasons.htm

[r_c_greene]

Neurological research is now showing that the potential for processing sound as music (and music as a sophisticated language of human experience) is held in every brain, but it must be developed early for best results. Also there is longstanding evidence that very early music training improves the entire vestibular system making general learning easier and more productive. There is also long-standing evidence that a child%u2019s basic notions about the world and how to live in it are set by the age of six. So Dr. Abreu%u2019s notion of social change through classical music is not simply sentiment and wishful thinking; it is reality. Elster said that popular music for these children is associated with bad things %u2013 drunkenness, violence %u2013 but that classical music and creative learning create a new and better world for them. If this is true, then the immense %u201Cheadlock%u201D that pop music and pop culture have on both the young and the old in the US presents the most daunting challenge for us here. Would children be able to give up all the junk of pop culture for a relatively regimented twelve hour a day immersion in what many think of as the culture of the elite oppressor? Would parents be willing to give up control of their children%u2019s notions of the world? We can only hope.

[r_c_greene]

What a great story! And, yes, my wife and I are ready, with everyone else who posted comments, to give money, instruments and even time to support this program. I have a feeling that many who commented have spent many, many, many hours, days, and years trying to change and improve the lives of young people in the USA through classical music. I dare say there are many more children learning to play instruments in this country that there are in Venezuela, and there are quite a few programs for inner-city children here (the most famous being Roberta Guaspari''s program in Harlem). So what is the difference in Venezuela? Perhaps the extreme poverty and lack of hope in which the Venezuelan poor are living create a backdrop that intensifies the good that serious music-making can do for the human spirit. Perhaps it is the dramatic triumph over great odds through the initial vision and the persistence of one person. I was struck by the comment by Dr. Abreu who founded the program, that music was indeed a vehicle for social change. Raphael Elster, one of the branch directors, said that the children spend almost 12 hours a day, six days a week, in %u201Cthe system.%u201D This means that the children spend most of their early lives listening to, and learning how to participate in, sophisticated musical experiences. Would Americans accept such a system?

[tonkacoco]

I have a perfectly good trombone, in a case, which I would willingly donate to one of these organizations along with a briefcase of music??

[scrollworks]

Partly inspired by El Sistema, we started teaching free music lessons to inner city children in February. At two of our locations, we teach free music lessons on many instruments to anyone who walks in the door. It''s magic. You can watch the barriers between race, zip code, economic status fall before your eyes as people communicate their hearts through music. This is real. It''s happening in Birmingham now. It''s going to change the world. Our website: scrollworks.org Our blog: http://metroyo.blogspot.com/

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[daina520]

For those of you passionate to bring El Sistema to the world, please join the Causes page (www.causes.com/music4kids), give & help spread awareness for this incredible initiative. You can donate also here: http://elsistemausa.org/support-a-fellow.

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[smehary]

How/where can I donate either money or instruments?

[smehary]

How/where can I donate money or instruments?

[amyflevinson]

This was a beautiful story! I am extremely touched by the amazing music program offered to children in Venezuela! The number of people who have been affected by this fantastic program is phenomenal! Bravo to the founder and to all of the teachers & students who work so hard to create and sustain such a fantastic program. As a violin teacher I fully appreciate the dedication of these people, and of the students in the program. Thank you CBS for sharing this with the world!