Bill Moyers: How Music Inspires Social Movements

[marmar]

http://vimeo.com/65359908


Francine Wheeler and Peter Yarrow on Music’s Power in Social Movements
May 2, 2013

Francine Wheeler, whose youngest son was killed in the December 14th attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, joins folk singer Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame to discuss the power of music to create change, and their mission to protect children and adults from gun violence in communities across America. We also see excerpts from a February 2013 concert of harmony, resilience and solidarity that Yarrow helped conceive, during which Yarrow and Wheeler sang. The concert will soon be broadcast on many public television stations.

“An act of positive movement forward is singing together. This is not a benign thing,” Yarrow tells Bill. “Woody Guthrie had his guitar and said, ‘this machine kills fascists’…This is so powerful a tool that when you galvanize people’s hearts together, and they create that movement by singing together, you’re not saying, ‘Oh, look how prettily I can sing.’”

Wheeler says they’re focusing on core values that most people have in common, not issues that drive them apart. “There are a lot of responsible gun owners out there, some of whom are NRA members. And they want safety for their children and for their grandchildren,” she tells Bill. ” So, what we’re talking about is, hey, why don’t we find a way to not debate and fight about what you believe guns are and what I believe guns are. Let’s come together and figure out a way to make them safer.”


http://billmoyers.com/segment/francine-wheeler-and-peter-yarrow-on-musics-power-in-social-movements/

[frazzled]

1. Certain music has the power to galvanize social movements

The folk music of Woody Guthrie's time, revitalized in the late 1950s and 1960s with a generation of folk-derived music, had the power to galvanize because in the simplicity and directness of its melodies and lyrics, it spoke across many class and ethnic and age boundaries. The simple power of the anthem of "We Shall Overcome" was known by everyone.

I don't believe that the rap or synthed up pop music of much of today has the ability to appeal across age and class and other boundaries in this way: it can appeal to segments, and I don't dismiss it as music, but to galvanize social movements, music must become very universal. I'd like to be proved wrong on this, of course.

[marmar]

3. But honestly, I don't think folk had much appeal beyond a certain demographic either....

...... My parents certainly weren't listening to Woody Guthrie.

[frazzled]

6. But they undoubtedly knew "This Land is Your Land"

And could even sing at least the first verse and chorus, if pressed.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. That's the past.

Music as a popular art form sold itself for a pimp costume and a handful of duckets. So fuck it.

[redqueen]

5. Music with a message was never the majority, it's true. But...

etc etc

[spanone]

4. k&r..

[xchrom]

7. Du rec. Nt

[dogknob]

8. Our MSM is in the hands of three corporations who are well aware of this fact n/t

[90-percent]

9. Music can change the world, Frank Zappa style

http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/frank-zappas-connections-to-prague

http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Czechoslovakia

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/09/20/129999891/frank-zappa-bronze-god

-90% Jimmy