A study out of the University of Westminster on contemporary metal music concluded that this group is made up of (mostly) males who aren’t exactly the most confident people out there:

Those with a strong preference for metal “were also more likely to have lower self-esteem,” the researchers write. They speculate this style of music “allows for a purge of negative feelings,” producing a catharsis that may “help boost self-worth.”

The study focuses on thrash metal today, but heavy metal has always been a distinct subculture, dating back to its birth in working-class Britain. Fans have for decades used the music as a release of frustration and a way to build bonds with others who similarly feel outside the norms of society. At least it was like that when I was a boy.  

According to a new formula devised by the federal government, the number of poor in the United States stands at 16% of the population, not 15% as calculated by the existing, official formula. And without federal programs such as Medicaid and SNAP (oh, no), that percentage would grow significantly.

Reading this, I was reminded of a blog post by Tressie McMillan Cottom on the logic that drives poor people to buy conspicuously expensive things, especially clothes. She recounts this story of how her well dressed mother helped a neighbor work her way through bureaucratic morass of the local social services agency:

The woman had been denied in the genteel bureaucratic way—lots of waiting, forms, and deadlines she could not quite navigate. I watched my mother put on her best Diana Ross “Mahogany” outfit: a camel colored cape with matching slacks and knee high boots. I was miffed, as only an only child could be, about sharing my mother’s time with the neighbor girl. I must have said something about why we had to do this. Vivian fixed me with a stare as she was slipping on her pearl earrings and told me that people who can do, must do. It took half a day but something about my mother’s performance of respectable black person—her Queen’s English, her Mahogany outfit, her straight bob and pearl earrings—got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year. I learned, watching my mother, that there was a price we had to pay to signal to gatekeepers that we were worthy of engaging. It meant dressing well and speaking well. It might not work. It likely wouldn‘t work but on the off chance that it would, you had to try. It was unfair but, as Vivian also always said, “life isn’t fair little girl.”

Ms. McMillan Cottom is African American, and her blog post addresses how racism exacerbates class insecurity, but as someone growing up in a white, rural, and poor area of Canada (and there are plenty of these, don’t let the “we have health care; we’re better than you” cracks fool you), I’ve seen for myself how being the same race is of little consequence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the kids teachers dismissed as troublemakers or losers in school showed visible signs of poverty (poor hygeine, old, dirty, off-brand clothes), while kids of doctors and teachers who acted up in similar ways were thought of as simply needing “guidance.”  

A couple of weeks after reading about how music can bolster the academic performance of students in low-income schools comes some depressing news that underscores the importance of using everything at our disposal to close the education gap between rich and poor.

Research by Anne Fernald, as reported in The New York Times, has found that by the age of two, children in low-income communities (where the median income is $23,900) know 30% fewer words than more affluent kids (in areas with a median income of $69,000); this gap in vocabulary can result in serious discrepancy in reading comprehension later on.

On a related note, Dylan Matthews on the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog tells us that those of us brought up in low-income households have brains less able to handle stressful situations and control emotions, according to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Now football referees are doing it too:

When musicians stop concerts because a cellphone ring–example include Christian Zacharias and Alan Gilbert–or unfortunately timed cough they are being disrespectful for both the music and the audience as a whole.

I’ve been at concerts where I’ve had to put up with an errant beep or hack, and although they were annoying, the disruptions have always been quick and minor. What I’ve never wanted is to have a show come to a complete stop, to completely halt the continuity of a piece I’m following. Behavior like Zacharias’s and Gilbert’s puts their own egos above that broader experience of a piece.

We found out this week that George Washington University discriminates against poor people when it picks its freshmen; here’s how it works, as reported by Jordan Weissmann on Atlantic.com:

First the admissions office picks a class based on merit. Then they move some financially needy applicants to the waitlist, which all but amounts to a rejection, and admit richer applicants in their place to make the books balance.

Apparently they are common knowledge to most in the higher-education business, but I also learned all sorts of tricks that schools use to keep out the hoi polloi, such as “gapping,” as described by Inside Higher Ed: 

… only a small subset of colleges pledges to meet the full need of all students they admit. That means that for most institutions, “gapping” has become the norm. That’s when a college admits a student, tells her that she probably needs $X to afford to enroll, and then provides a package that is less than $X–sometimes considerably so.

As Weissmann put it in his Atlantic piece, the point is to send a very direct message to applicants; “kids who fail to take the hint just sink deeper into debt.”

And they sink deeper into debt in part because banks are assholes. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received 3,800 complaints last year from student loan borrowers–primarily Sallie Mae, Wells Fargo, Citi and JPMorgan Chase–about loan services, according to piece on Salon.com. In some cases, the banks lied about refinancing options, ignored requests of students to apply payments to particular loans with higher interest rates, and just plain lied about late payments.  

Over on Eastman’s new blog, grad student Cahill Smith fills us in on Nicolas Medtner (1880-1951):

While he would have certainly objected to this description–his style is completely unique–the quickest way to describe Medtner’s music is as a cross between Beethoven and Rachmaninoff. Medtner was a self-proclaimed follower of Beethoven and wrote music with a similar thematic unity, often using the smallest basic materials to create massive structures and dramatic contrasts: if themes were money, Medtner could feed a family of four with a few nickels and dimes.

Medtner’s familial ties to Europe might explain his affinity for Beethoven and the mainstream classical tradition, but according to Smith, the composer’s music also shows the influence of mother Russia:

At the same time, Medtner imbued his works with exotic Russian harmonies that echo Rachmaninoff or Scriabin. Intense drama, lyricism, fantasy, and childlike innocence are all to be found in Medtner’s music.

Smith will be performing an all-Medtner program in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on Sunday. Here’s a video preview: 

Because I don’t really think the world needs more hedge-fund managers or bullying billionaires, Joan Lipman’s New York Times opinion piece linking musical training to career success left me cold. 

Much more heartening was this recent article in the Atlantic by Lori Miller Kase. Kase looks at  ongoing studies from researchers at Northwestern, USC, and University of California, San Diego on music programs for at-risk children in low-income areas of Southern California. In all three cases, researches are finding that music dramatically improves cognitive, social, and emotional development, placing children in a better position to succeed in school:

Though these studies are far from over, researchers, as well as the parents and teachers of the study subjects, are already noticing a change in the kids who are studying music. Preliminary results suggest that not only does school and community-based music instruction indeed have an impact on brain functioning, but that it could possibly make a significant difference in the academic trajectory of lower-income kids.

Unfortunately, too few school districts in low-income areas have the money for music music programs:

Ironically, these findings come at a time when 1.3 million of the nation’s public elementary school students receive no specific instruction in music—and the children who do not have access to music education are disproportionately those who attend high-poverty schools. While wealthier school districts can compensate for budget cuts that reduce or eliminate music programs with private funding, low-income school districts cannot, so the kids who might benefit most from music education are often the least likely to get it.

What’s left are programs such as the Harmony Project in Los Angeles, or any number of projects here in Rochester (Urban Strings, Strings for Success, RocMusic) that provide valuable help, but which do not operate as part of a school’s curriculum. Hopefully, the work that Kase cites will help convince district administrators and state politicians that music deserves a central place in all students’ lives, not just those with rich parents. 

James B. Stewart focused on endowment mismanagement in his Friday New York Times article on the New York City Opera‘s bankruptcy and spread the blame around: not only were board chair Susan Baker and general and artistic director Paul Kellogg responsible for “a shocking lack of financial discipline” leading up to the 2008 and 2009 withdrawls that took $24.1 million from the endowment, but New York’s attorney general Andrew Cuomo was also at fault for failing to carry out state law and provide effective oversight.

According to Stewart, nonprofit organizations must receive approval from the attorney general’s office to cut into their endowments. The NYCO got that approval in 2008 without notifying the Wallace Fund, whose restricted funds were going to be use. That notification is part of state law, and the AG also didn’t contact the fund managers. 

When NYCO went back to the attorney general’s office in 2009, its came with a turnaround plan that it said would result in a surplus in 2010-11 and a $2,000,000 endowment replenishment. Given the seven-figure deficits that NYCO had been running for years, the plan seemed far fetched; nonetheless, the company once again got state approval.

As little serious oversight that the attorney general and his staff gave, it’s up for debate as to how much they should have provided. Imagine the outcry if the attorney general had stopped the moves. Nonprofit organizations are independent for a reason, and if we don’t want the government involved in running our cultural efforts, we can’t blame it when they fail.