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The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, March 24, 2016
the b-side
Seven Mile Music
Brings Harmony
to Detroit
by Dayton Hare
Daily Arts Writer
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People have been noticing
the salubrious effects of music
for a long time. Both in regard
to individuals and the public at
large, its health benefits have
been trumpeted by musicians,
scientists and perhaps overly
enthused devotees the world
over. Studies of varying veracity
have linked listening to and
participating in music with
everything
from
improved
immune systems to heightened
computational ability, in some
cases leading to cultural waves
which
gathered
cult-like
followings (for instance, the
“Mozart
Effect”
movement,
born out of a particular widely
misunderstood
study).
In
recent years the fields of music
therapy
and
the
cognitive
neuroscience of music have
flourished, borne aloft by public
goodwill and interest driven by
both the intriguing nature of
contemporary discoveries and
pop-science proselytizers (see:
Oliver Sacks “Musicophilia”).
But in addition to music’s
effects on the individual, there’s
also great interest in its health
effects — in the less literal,
non-anatomically
inclined
sense — on society. Music has
been shown to be an excellent
tool for building communities,
strengthening bonds between
groups of people and providing
a collective sense of purpose,
particularly when children are
involved. This isn’t either a new
idea or a secret — even as early
as 1837, when Lowell Mason’s
dream of public music education
became a reality in Boston, a
report submitted in support of
his proposal cited many of these
same concepts (along with a
few other reasons that sound
a bit ridiculous today, such as
“It appears self-evident that
exercises in vocal Music, when
not carried to an un-reasonable
excess,
must
expand
the
chest, and thereby strengthen
the lungs and vital organs,”
which laughably argued that
singing
could
cure/prevent
tuberculosis).
Most
notably
in
recent
years, however, a Venezuelan
program
colloquially
known
as El Sistema has achieved
massive international renown
for
its
successes.
Founded
in 1975 by the musician and
activist José Antonio Abreu,
El Sistema started with a mere
11 students rehearsing music
in
an
underground
parking
garage and the goal of lifting
economically
disadvantaged
children out of poverty. Of El
Sistema’s mission, Abreu has
remarked, “Music has to be
recognized as an agent of social
development … it has the ability
to unite an entire community,
and to express sublime feelings.”
By others, El Sistema has been
described
as
a
remarkably
successful public health project.
In
the
intervening
decades
since its founding, El Sistema
has expanded to include over
500,000 students and inspired
similar
programs
in
other
nations (including the United
States),
where
the
concept
has
been
warmly
received.
Laudation has been in plentiful
supply; in 2009, Abreu and El
Sistema were awarded the TED
Prize (as in TED Talks), and in
2007 one of El Sistema’s star
students,
Gustavo
Dudamel
(perhaps best known outside
of the music community as the
crazy hair conductor meme),
was named to follow the highly
respected Esa-Pekka Salonen
as music director of the Los
Angeles Philharmonic, a post
which he still holds and likely
will hold for several years to
come.
But after all of that, it is
important to remember that 40
years ago, El Sistema began as a
small program made up of just a
few students and leaders with a
vision — a description that could
apply equally well to Detroit’s
Seven Mile Music.
“It’s
certainly
the
same
concept,”
Sam
Saunders,
founder and president of Seven
Mile Music, said of his program’s
similarities to the Venezuelan
program in an interview with
The Michigan Daily. “I think
(Seven Mile Music) is in line
with El Sistema … in that its
focus is to allow access to
everyone, not just those with
the means previously.”
Saunders — who is a senior
studying
music
composition
and piano performance at the
University of Michigan School
of Music, Theatre & Dance
— started Seven Mile Music
in the fall of 2013, with the
aim of providing free music
lessons to Detroit’s inner-city
youths, taught by University
students. Beginning with the
neighborhood of Brightmoor,
Saunders hoped to fill what
he saw as a distressing void in
the opportunities available to
children from the city.
“I
just
found
that
(for)
children in some of the roughest
areas,
there
were
just
no
resources coming to them. In
many ways, but particularly
in music, I saw almost none of
it,” Saunders said. “I read that
Detroit was cutting all funding
to arts and music in the schools,
and that sort of affected me
personally because I knew how
important music was to get me
out of a sort of rough situation
… I knew how important music
would be for certain children to
rise above their circumstance.
So I thought particularly in a
city like Detroit, it was just a
crime to do away with music
education.”
Saunders began Seven Mile
with very little in terms of a
support network, and the road
to its founding was challenging.
Without knowing anyone in
the area, Saunders started by
driving down Seven Mile Road,
in the heart of Detroit, stopping
at every church and community
center to propose his idea —
where he was met with reactions
ranging
from
suspicion
to
welcome. Eventually, Saunders
found the perfect environment
for the program.
“I came upon Brightmoor,
which is just known as one of the
worse-off areas of the city, and I
went to the community center,
and I met the leader of the
community center, a man named
Dennis Talbert,” Saunders said.
“And he was so supportive of the
music program, he just couldn’t
contain his excitement about it.”
There were many things about
Brightmoor that made Saunders
feel that his idea could work
well within the community,
not the least of which were the
people he met.
“I
started
meeting
more
people around here, and I saw
that Brightmoor really has a
grassroots community of leaders
from within who are really
working to make it a better
place,” Saunders said. “I saw the
combination of a neighborhood
that lacked many resources but
also had a lot of positive energy,
and it just seemed like a perfect
fit.”
In the years since, Seven
Mile has expanded in scale and
attracted some attention. In
2015, Brightmoor and Seven
Mile Music were the subject of a
documentary short called “The
Key of B,” previously reported
on in the Daily.
Much has been written and
said about the economic plight
of Detroit, the generalities of
which are universally known
enough that reprinting them
here would be unnecessary.
Let it suffice to say that when
I accompanied Saunders and
other members of Seven Mile
into
Brightmoor
that
the
dilapidated state of many of the
houses we passed confirmed a
great deal of what is said about
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
See SEVEN MILE, Page 2B