Math Education and Music Industry: Both Being Run and Ruined By Experts And Ego
JJ Koczan, John Gist, and Todd Severin.
Chances are you haven’t heard of these three people. That’s an understatement.
Of the over 4000 Followers I have here on Medium, I would not be surprised if not even one of them knew who they were.
Collectively — and even individually — they know more about rock music than you could possibly imagine. They also know more about new rock music than you could possibly imagine.
They also would bristle at me for bringing attention to this. Lifelong curiosity for music isn’t a fuckin’ badge to be earned or commoditized. That dubious honor goes to people in the industry
A few days ago, I shared 50 of the over 150 best new rock bands in the area of stoner/desert/doom — a scene which is the BEST at mining music from the PAST and organically making it NEW.
Every artist/band references the past. Nobody has a broader and deeper terrain of reference than bands that, guess what, really love rock and roll and heavy music.
So rock is far, far, far, far from dead. It’s just that people my age just absolutely suck at letting go of the past — and letting go of their “expertise” on rock music.
Somewhere in the Bertrand Russell quote are similar woes of the modern world of music(and yes, math education).
People, intentionally/unintentionally, feeling oddly satisfied that their incuriosity have a tendency — with the highest Shakespearean irony — to parlay this constipated thinking into being experts.
They have stopped learning. It’s all “teaching” now. It’s also all bullshit.
Most modern day music critics are “experts”, cocksure of their perspective on rock and roll. For not one second, does doubt enter their heads as to thinking that maybe, must maybe, the rest of the world has moved on about talking who the lead singer of Skid Row is now, or that The Rolling Stones are still commanding big audiences.
Mick Jagger energy and physical fitness must be marvelled by all. And sure, the longevity of the band — and pretty decent new album — should be applauded. But the Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street band that I love is dead. It’s been sterilized and glitzed up for everyone on the planet to sport a t-shirt with a tongue on it.
But I took the cue of Kozcan, Gist, and Severin(and there are many others) and kept searching for that same danger/bar room brawling vibe that was baked into those classic Stones’ releases.
And no, as good as they are, we didn’t find that in Greta Van Fleet or The Black Keys.
There’s a few reasons why I share this specific video. It’s 10 years old. 1000 Mods are not just one of the great Greek stoner bands on the planet, they are simply one of the great rock bands. Period.
Guess what, they now play in front of large audiences in festivals all around the world, but they still also play clubs.
Look at the distance between them and fans. This delta is approaching “zero”. That is symbolic of the community of this scene. I saw 1000 Mods when they came to Toronto. Chatted with Labros(drummer) for a bit, he promised we would have a beer/Metaxa next time:)
The energy of this show is the energy of the scene. It’s the primary reason I wrote my book. These are the shows — almost exclusively — that I have been going to for the last 20 years.
Paying no more than $25 to be close with great music and great people. Zero fuckin interest in spending $100s of dollars to sit 200 ft away to see aging millionaires being walking jukeboxes.
Rock music is not dead. The culture for being curious for new frontiers from most of my peers(boomers/older Gen Xers) is.
The culture for being curious in an age of music that hasn’t been this exciting since the Age of Bowie being dead is about as sad a commentary you could ever come up with.
But, there’s no money to be made in being a lifelong learner of things. You need to plant your stake in the ground, proclaim it as the best, and live out your remaining life telling people so.
You see, ego and ignorance are partners-in-crime of ensuring the public buys into their calcified ideology.
But, that toxic relationship of building your a world around expertise that is grossly false is not specific to just the music industry. It is also working its dubious magic in the world of math education.
The book below just came out. It will NOT be all the buzz in the current state of math education. Like the music industry, it is generally not interested in learning new content — past of present.
Math education “needs” experts. By the way, if anyone ever calls me in “expert” in this field, I will fight them in a dive bar — of course while 1000 Mods plays in the background.
Rock music has a hidden history as well. We’ve made documentaries about it.
I’ve already ranted for years about mathematics education NOT centring curiosity for new content. Everyone is all aboard the train of expertise of what headphones to listen — the delivery of the “sound of math”.
Nobody is really caring what the actual fuck they are listening to. They only want to listen to experts — again, please I AM NOT ONE — codify and complicate teaching mathematics.
Build relationships with students, given them rich mathematical ideas — I dunno, maybe stories from “The Secret Lives of Numbers” — and simply get the fuck out of their way. That’s because an interest in history will mark them for life. I repeat. That’s because an interest in history will mark them for life.
History is dead in mathematics education. As such, so is mathematics. As such, so is the idea of students being marked for life by the joy and wonder of mathematics.
Anyways, I walked away from math education last week. By next month, I will be walking into the world of rock music — dominated by the people I have lamented about in this blog — with a loud as fuck book.
Considering the word count of the “f-word” is over 250 with my forthcoming book, that should put music critics on notice that I am going to pull and burn your curtain that shields your fraudulence about the world of rock music.
“The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams. It’s Heaven and Hell”
Black Sabbath(1980)
