I was reading an article by Harlan Green (here) which raised the question of why the poorer states, particularly those who receive more in federal aid than they pay in taxes, support candidates who promise a smaller government and fewer entitlement programs. He refers to an article by Paul Krugman which lists three answers to that question:
- The answer that Thomas Frank gives in his book What’s the Matter With Kansas, that is, Republicans and conservatives have used social issues like abortion, gay marriage etc. to convince people to vote for them even when it was against their economic interests to do so.
- The opposite tendency of affluent voters in the Northeast to vote against their economic interests (voting Republican) because of their stand on social issues explained by Andrew Gelman.
- The fact that 40 to 44% of the people receiving government benefits like Social Security or Medicare do not recognize that they are receiving government benefits that the people they vote for want to cut.
To me none of these explanations is broad enough or goes deep enough to explain the behavior even though in some instances they may be true. Long ago when my wife was working as a teller in a bank a little old woman came in and was complaining that she feared the President was going to cut her Social Security. When my wife asked her who she had voted for she said “President Reagan.”
Green veers off on what seems like a tangent when he is answering a different question – what makes these states poor in the first place. He says there is a correlation between these states and the states with the lowest amount of passport holders. He notes that passport ownership usually marks wealth, experience in other cultures, education, and what he calls “openness”, all of which create social liberalism. By implication the lowest passport owning states would have lower wealth, lower education, fewer experiences with other cultures and a “closedness.” He then offers an argument that the support for conservatism comes from holding a social Darwinism and free market belief even among the poor who haven’t risen to the top. He doesn’t explain where that belief comes from, only that it is an outdated 19th century belief in the 21st century. The presidents he believes instituted the most deregulation to remove controls on the free market were Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush. Our economy went into its most severe depression or recession as a consequence.
Now I haven’t checked on Green’s economic history nor do I want to go into the lack of logic in his arguments. What I want to ask is whether the same things that keep the residents of these states poor are the same things that make them vote for conservatives? Right away I want to emphasize that this is a social science hypothesis; it is a probabilistic statement not an absolute. I am not saying that all people in these states vote conservative, nor that all in these states are poor, less educated and “closed”, nor that only such people vote conservative. I am sure that there are many wealthy, well-educated conservatives out there. I am asking whether there is a statistical correlation between states with large blocs of these characteristics and current voting patterns. If there is, does this correlation mean there is a causal relationship between the two? I am not asserting that there is; I am only thinking out loud. Are people willing to vote arguably against their economic interests because of ideology, philosophy or other such abstract beliefs. Have their real economic interests been hidden or mystified? Do people in fact vote their economic interests or do they vote as they do for other reasons?
There is something about the loss of someone, anyone, that makes us think back upon the times we enjoyed with that person. I remember when my mother died how her house became this place for people who had known her to come by. At first it was just to express their condolences but if they stayed a while it inevitably turned into stories about their experiences with her. It became a mixture of tears and laughs as I learned many things about her that I had not known and I shared some of the things I knew. As the night got later it became a catharsis for my grief. Though it did not lessen the loss, it got me through the grief and continues to get me through it each time the grief comes back.
I never met Etta James; I never even got the opportunity to hear her perform live. My only relationship with her with through her music, but a powerful relationship it was. Most remembrances of her talk about her mega hits “At Last” and “Sunday Kind of Love’,” which are actually only about one side of her. Her music was always about strength and perseverance, sometimes a sweet strength as in “At Last” but that strength could be in turn challenging, weary, angry, honest, forthright and patient. Whether it was the early R&B hits on labels like Chess or the later covers of 70’s and 80’s rock, the gospel songs or the blues songs, the strength was always there. For me her music was always a reminder to keep on pushing through the bad times, be honest with yourself and persevere because that’s all we can do to have meaning in our lives.
All of that is captured in her performance of “I’d Rather Go Blind” and my favorite is the cut from her album “Deep in the Night.” This is one of the most powerful performances I’ve ever heard on record. You think she almost completely gets away from the melody (though she does not), and then obliterates the bar measure distinctions that are there in the written music. All that is left is the story of her pain and by implication how she is going to get through it. She expresses her pain until language and words fail her. We’ve all been there. Listen and enjoy.
News that Arizona has censured its first public school ethnic studies program has prompted me to write about it. I first did so in this blog about a year ago.
- It is counterproductive, i.e. it stirs up more anger and resentment than it prevents
H.L Mencken has written, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” This reminds me of what we called in my un-politically correct youth a “Chinese handcuff.” That was a woven tube into which you placed the forefinger of each hand and then tried to free them. If you did the obvious thing and simply tried to pull your fingers out of it, the tube merely tightened and held you more firmly. The trick was to do the counter-intuitive thing and to push your fingers into the tube more. It loosened and was thus easy to escape. In my thirty years of teaching “ethnic studies” courses at the college level students were much more likely to become angry at the idea that this information had been hidden from them in public education than angry at “whites” for things they had done in the past. In fact those who had taken such courses gained a greater appreciation for America where things like racism and religious bigotry could be confronted and overcome. We should allow increased opportunities for minorities to develop a group consciousness and for individuals to succeed in society despite America’s shortcomings. Indeed the exceptions in the law for native Americans and the Holocaust provide examples where federal or mainstream politics recognizes the value of this. I was at a conference once where the keynote speaker lamented that “we had asked for revolution and a share of the power and all they gave us was ethnic dinners.” In other words the real power sharing demands had been mollified by the acknowledgment and steering of ethnic demands into non-threatening areas. America and capitalism’s ability to absorb and steer challenges to it into things like the marketing of “ethnicity” plays a great role in preserving it.An anti-ethnic studies law conceals things you should know about.
2. I am struck by the “ostrich” aspect of this law.
It is based on the ludicrous assumption that if we don’t talk about something, it ceases to exist. Incidentally the corallary to this is also false” something” only comes into being when we talk about it (take the concern about too early sex education.) What the law calls “ethnic studies,” is most often “American studies” just told from a different perspective. “Ethnic studies” did not make up anti-Native American policies, slavery, Jim Crow laws, the Chinese exclusion Act, race riots, the Japanese internment camps or modern “ethnic” movements like the civil right movement, farm-worker movements, the women’s movement etc. These are parts of American history that all should know about. Whether you spin these into a narrative about an ever improving America or mine it for models to emulate and adapt to conservative causes, it is a history even conservatives should know about. Whether one agrees with “ethnic studies” one has to understand the reality of today’s America to adequately plan tactics and strategies. If there is resentment against or by an ethnic group you need to understand how to use it to support your cause, enlist allies, broaden your message and defend against challenges.
3. “Ethnic studies” teaches and demonstrates values you want inculcated in young people.
The whole anti-ethnic studies movement is based upon incorrect assumptions about what actually happens in such classes. The fear represented in this law is that by teaching people that they have been oppressed they will react as a group and resent their oppressors as a group rather than acting as individuals or seeing other ethnic groups as individuals. This is hogwash. First of all the word has already slipped out that minority groups have been, are and will continue to be oppressed. Some members of minority groups don’t believe it and some do, but their belief will be shaped by the conditions of their lives not what is said in ethnic studies classes. It is these conditions like how and where one lives, one’s chances for success, how others you know have fared and the opportunities available to you, which will determine how you feel about other groups. It is individual circumstances and personal relationships that shape whether you see yourself oppressed as an individual or as a group and whether you see other ethnicities as individuals or as a faceless group. How you are treated now is much more important to you than how your group was treated historically.
Moreover many of the values which those who support this law say they hold are taught by the “ethnic studies” courses. An ethnic group’s spirituality, the importance of family, the meaning of liberty, the value of making up your own mind, one’s own uniqueness and the viewing of pronouncements critically are far more meaningful things that one learns in an ethnic studies course. To deny students these teachings for fear they may resent your group historically seems to me throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I am a fan of the NBA though not of the Los Angeles Lakers. However after the lockout I was so starved for professional basketball that I even watched the two Laker games that were offered nationally during the last few days. They were both Laker losses incidentally and the announcers and commentators were mostly talking about their decline and Kobe Bryant. They only talked a little bit about Ron Artest’s name change to Metta World Peace. Now name changes in the NBA go all the way back to Lloyd B. Free’s change to World B. Free in 1981. More recently in football Chad Johnson changed his last name to Ochocinco to match his uniform number. It certainly made sense for Ron Artest to change his name. Not only has he become an erstwhile rapper but the name itself has become remembered for a basketball brawl when he went up into the stand after a fan during a Indiana Pacers- Detroit Pistons game. Artest grew up in Queensbridge, New York, went to college at St. John’s University in Queens. He got a reputation as a tough defensive player and was in fact the NBA defensive player of the year in 2004. There is of course the inevitable racial angle that he was looked at as the stereotypical “angry black man”. This was never made more clear than in the brawl when he stirred up racial fears by going after a white man who had thrown beer at him. I don’t want to condone his actions in any way, but only to point out the racial elephant in the room. The NBA didn’t want to stir up fear among its white fan base and punished him severely.
So changing his name made perfect sense. Changing it to Metta World Peace has made the Laker games much more fun than I had anticipated it would. One announcer on the ABC televised game on Sunday referred to how much fun it was to hear the deep voiced arena play by play announcer say “World Peace” from time to time. The on air announcers also had fun with it: “score one for World Peace.” “World Peace enters the game.” “Kobe gives it up to World Peace.” “World Peace is fouled.” The possible puns are endless and I urge you to come up with your own. He is of course the same hard nosed defender he has always been although some skills have inevitably diminished with time. He is to be commended however for making his name now be the opposite of what the old one had become and for making it so enjoyable for the rest of us. Let us enjoy World Peace while we can.
In the current political season a popular media game is catching someone saying something today that is the opposite of what they said on videotape some years ago. The person is thereafter vilified either for hypocrisy, lying, being indecisive or for cynically saying something he really doesn’t believe in order to gain votes. Jon Stewart’s the Daily Show is by the far the best at this. While any of these is possible I think these “gotcha” moments ignore a third possibility: the person simply may have changed his position. I am not saying I agree with either the previous or the present position (take Mitt Romney for example) but I disagree with seeing change only as a sign of weakness instead of potentially one of strength.
A few weeks ago “60 Minutes” did a profile of the person who had developed a pledge that many Republicans had signed vowing to reduce the size of government. He said that this idea of smaller government was something he had been pursuing since the age of thirteen. He said this as a badge of pride but I immediately began to wonder. I certainly don’t still believe in many of the things I did at thirteen and if I did I would be more embarrassed than proud. I would like to believe that I’ve learned something since then, grown and matured. It was kind of frightening to hear that Republican congressional representatives had agreed with and promised to enact the political and economic ideas of a thirteen year old boy. “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” 1 Corinthians 13:11.
I went to a talk a few years ago by that 80-year-old political veteran and former presidential campaigner Eugene McCarthy who said something interesting. Looking back on his political career he thought that the best president the country could elect was one who could change from strongly held positions once elected. He cited Richard Nixon whose hawkish view on communist China did not prevent him from being the one to bring about formal political ties and a rapprochement between the two countries. This of course led to one of my favorite moments in the Star Trek movies when Mr. Spock quotes that old Vulcan saying “only Nixon could go to China.” The increased information flow of the presidency, political reality and simply learning on the job should produce growth and maturity that allow presidents to change. It is the ideologically charged atmosphere, the no compromise mentality, and the increased media glare that has caused us to undervalue a quality that we should look for in our presidential candidates.
In his essay Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” In the essay Emerson is trying to convince people, especially politicians, to break away from the conventional wisdom and to take principled stands based on morality and ethics. In modern politics the idea of principled stands has been perverted into holding “foolish consistencies” rather than the change he was advocating. Even worse those foolish consistencies are themselves made up strangely inconsistent things like being pro-life and also pro-death penalty. Life for a president, to cite the obvious, will be complex. We need someone who can improvise around a theme rather than blindly follow a melody laid down beforehand. We need someone who can grow. We need someone who can learn from both mistakes and new information. We need someone who can change as circumstances change. In short we need a flip flopper.
I have refrained from saying anything about the Republican primary field because I am, in Obama’s words, waiting for them to throw people off the island. After all it is only the winner of the Republican nomination with whom we should primarily (pun intended) concern ourselves. I have therefore not commented on the insane economic plans, moral hypocrisy, corruption, ignorance of foreign affairs, distortions of history, and plain recklessness and irresponsibility (not to mention outright lies) the field has heretofore produced.
Candidate Newt Gingrich has however made comments about “the poor” which need to be addressed. He has advocated paid internships doing maintenance work at schools to teach poor youngsters responsibility, punctuality and to give them experience doing something and getting paid for it. This is not only ignorant about the lives the poor live but it is insulting as well. The millions of working poor where men and especially women work one, two or three jobs to support a family, the people who have lost their jobs due to the recession, and their children should say “Hey Newt (insert Cee Lo Green song refrain here.)” Newt’s conception of the poor is part of a conservative fantasy where people who live on public aid have a problem with even conceiving of holding a job or having a work ethic. If we decode “the poor” to mean people of color then we have the same justification for low wage slavery that we had in the 1800’s for actual slavery. Read the defenses of slavery, oh I forgot, Newt is an historian so he may have done so already. We have the same “culture of poverty” arguments that we have had since the 1960’s. Newt acts as if the changes in the welfare system under Clinton and the Congress of which Newt was House speaker, don’t exist. The actual amount people receive on welfare, the time restrictions, the need to supplement it that Newt himself helped create, don’t exist in this Neverland that is in Newt’s head. He took his plan which is only in the hazy beginning formulations and consulted that expert on the poor, Donald Trump. This is farce becoming tragedy.
But what if we accept Newt’s argument that kids are not learning the proper work ethic even if the parents themselves are working hard? Surely this is not confined to the poor. How many middle class or even upper class kids have not properly consumed the work ethic Kool-aid. I don’t hear Newt calling for them to work as low wage interns for their schools. Wouldn’t that create an uproar among those very parents whose votes Newt is courting. What about the charge that no one is teaching them how to hold down a job? Wouldn’t that be insulting?
The crux of his statement is not that he cares one bit about the welfare of poor youth. If so wouldn’t we have been able to see it in the long time that Newt has been on the public stage? His real goal is getting votes by using his mock “concern for the poor” to perpetuate a racist, classist, outdated and imaginary vision of the poor among potential voters who share that vision. This is politics at its most cynical and hypocritical. So I too say “Hey Newt, (insert Cee Lo Green song refrain here.)”
Before I settled in to the humanities I was into the “dark side” that is science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). In fact as a child I was enough of a math prodigy to take an enrichment math course at Columbia University while sill in sixth grade. This course introduced us to new math systems like calculus and Boolean algebra. The most important thing it taught to me was that math systems are all based on a set of freely accepted and unchallenged assumptions called postulates. For example the math system we commonly use is based on several postulates like the agreed principle that a x 1 = a, that is, anything multiplied by 1 is itself (2 x 1 = 2; 145 x 1 = 145 etc.) The course showed me that if we change the postulates, for example if we agree that a x 1 = 1 (anything times 1 equals 1), we will get an entirely different mathematical system with different consequences and properties. Some of these postulate changes and new systems are useful because they fit some real world phenomena and others are little more than intellectual curiosities.
Over the years I have seen that this also applies to non-mathematical systems of thought which for convenience I will call ideologies. They are based upon some basic assumptions that are either jointly agreed upon, accepted as truth, or believed in as “faith” and as a consequence are unchallengeable. These systems of thought form what anthropologist Clifford Geertz called a “model of reality.” Take for example a road map, it is a symbolic representation of where the roads, buildings, scenic attractions etc. in actuality are. It is what Geertz means by a model of reality. With this road map you can make a plan for your behavior. Google Maps for example draws a line on its map of reality to show you which streets you should take to reach your desired destination. Geertz calls this route on the model of reality a “model for reality.” In other words depending on what your model of reality tells you, you plan what you are going to do, how you are going to live your life accordingly in a model for reality. Your system of thought is based on assumptions that that ultimately determine your behavior.
What that math class taught me was that systems of thought are not only based on accepted assumptions but that those assumptions can be changed. Just as you don’t have to assume that a x 1 = 1, you don’t have to believe that the sun rotates around the earth, that things happen for no reason, there is an afterlife or people do things only out of selfish motives. One chooses (or perhaps your culture and society chooses for you) what assumptions to accept as simply the way things in actuality are and you simply live in the world with the model for reality which that model of reality allows or creates. Accepting this has, I think, allowed for good things in how I approach the world. First of all it has created flexibility when thinking about the world. As experience has demonstrated otherwise, I have been willing to change assumptions I held dear to refine my model of reality and therefore change my model for reality. It is a long way from the “ghettos” I grew up in and the rarefied atmosphere of academia in which I have spent most of my life. I have also found it provides a way of thinking “outside my box” by trying out alternative assumptions and seeing where that leads me. I have tried to teach that to students. What happens if just for argument’s sake you assume that the accepted wisdom is wrong, that the place where you should start is just the opposite of what you first thought? Does that open new ways of thinking for you? This flexibility has produced a healthy skepticism and yet it has not left me adrift. It has not led me to believe that all systems of thought are arbitrary but rather confirmed that my system of thought is one I chose, one I believe represents a reality.
It has also led to a healthy respect for other systems of thought even if they lead to behaviors I find abhorrent. For example if one assumes that “black” people are inherently inferior, of limited intelligence and sub-human then it seems perfectly reasonable to prevent them from voting, limit their education and avoid living near them. This is based on a faulty model of reality and not irrational behavior, impossible to understand reasoning or so forth. When I encounter behavior that makes no sense to me I try to see the system of thought upon which it is based. Rather than see their actions as insane, evil, stupid or just emotional and not rational, I see them as misguided or mistaken yet based upon some “ideology” that I just don’t yet understand.
Finally it has led to a model for reality in my own life. If there are behaviors I think should change in other people, I understand that I need to do one of two things. I either need to work to change the models of reality on which those behaviors are based or I need to try to argue for a change within the parameters of that ideology. Nelson Mandela’s genius was in realizing that he should convince the people in power that the model of reality on which they based their fears and actions was wrong, untenable, expensive and would lead to their destruction. Once they were convinced that Mandela and his comrades were reasonable men like themselves and not the subhuman brutes in their model of reality, they could begin to contemplate the end of apartheid.
Changing postulates is not easy. They are buried under layers of what we believe to be truisms and it is hard to dig through our thoughts to the bedrock assumptions most of us take for granted. It is even harder to question those because we fear it may leave us adrift.  If we do make the effort however we may find whole new worlds opening to us.
Recently I was trying to help someone make a decision on something and it caused me to think about my own decision making process. Now I don’t claim to make decisions any better than anyone else and probably worse than some. I have lived long enough to have made thousands if not more of decisions both important and inconsequential. I have made good decisions, bad decisions and no decisions enough to regret ones I made or didn’t make. Some have worked out for the better (usually through luck) and some still leave me shaking my head and asking “why did you do that?” Some have been rationally and coolly thought out; some have been spur of the moment hunches; some have been emotional and some have probably been from unconscious psychological processes I would only learn about if I went to therapy. Some have been made alone; some with consultation and advice from others; some have been made because of past experiences, some have been scary leaps into the unknown.
As I’ve gotten older I like to think that my decision making process has gotten better and that I’ve learned from my past decisions. What have I learned?
1. All decisions are choices of which consequences you are willing to accept from your decision. Decisions have consequences that go beyond the decision itself.  Some of these are anticipated and can be planned for, but there are usually unforeseen consequences as well. Understand that the consequences are the results of your decision and take responsibility for them.
2. Use most of the time you have to make a decision. No this isn’t an argument for procrastination. I have found that the best decisions I have made are not those made at the last minute when time pressure influences your choice, but decisions made at the next to last minute. If the decision has to be made in 10 days or ten minutes make it at nine days or nine minutes. This maximizes the use of the time you have to make a decision while not putting you under the time pressure that forces you to make bad choices.
3. Once you have narrowed things down to two choices, choose them both if you can. Sometimes you can’t, I understand that, but more times than you think you can have your cake and eat it too. The time you spend making that last agonizing choice between two choices is usually more than it would take just to do both of them.
4. Try to create another option. If you can, change the constraints that have created these choices. Sometimes this means changing the question you are asking. I remember my senior year in college when I was asking “What should I do with my life?” A fellow senior advised me “You are asking the wrong question it should be ‘What am I going to do next.” It caused me to think of whatever decision I made as something that could be changed if it proved to be the wrong one. Sometimes creating another choice means thinking outside the box, but as Shakespeare wrote ” there are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Understand that there are always other things, other choices you should consider in making your decision.
5. Never make a decision that you are ashamed of at the time. You will have plenty of time to be ashamed of your decision later. Regrets over decisions will be inevitable. It is better to have a regret for something you did because you believed in it than to have regret for not doing what you believe. Much better.
6. Real life isn’t like the SAT’s. There is not only one right answer. The test never ends. There is more than one chance to answer the question. No other person is scoring the test. The final evaluation doesn’t come immediately but at the end of your life.
My wife and I are volunteering in a program called ABQ Reads which takes us into a local elementary school to help kindergarteners work on their reading skills. It is based on reading recovery programs developed elsewhere. Albuquerque schools face an enormous challenge in that by third grade only about 60% of students are reading at grade level and none of them meet No Child Left Behind standards. Rather than addressing this problem the politicians are squabbling about “social promotion” in which kids are passed on to the next grade for social development reasons rather than because they have achieved grade levels in reading and writing. Giving a student more of what is not working anyway (by holding them back) doesn’t seem to me to solve the problem. The ABQ Reads program is based on the idea that by working on the lack of reading preparation at the beginning more students will be at grade level after the first year and will continue on later. Although I don’t buy that they will continue on without further assistance I recognize that the problem is so great we have to start somewhere to work on it.
Why am I who has spent thirty years teaching 18-22 year-olds devoting some time to teaching 5 year-olds? Well to start with the kids are cute and it is quite refreshing to teach students who are so thirsty for knowledge, attention or simply someone to listen to them and to do it on a one-to-one basis. They are not representatives or symbols of anything, they’re just kids. It is more than that however. Starting at the beginning rather than the end (the college level) seems to me a good way to try to make the dream of public education a reality. John Dewey and his bunch always thought that public education should be the mechanism to reduce social inequality although today it is only occasionally fulfilling that function. That social inequality starts for a child long before they enter school and certainly continues in their lives outside school while they progress through the grade levels. Kindergarten is that first point where public educational institutions start to intervene in the social process of inequality. Why not make that intervention one the kids enjoy so much they want to continue?
We are just beginning our service but what have I noticed so far? Well a lot of “experts” have obviously given a lot of thought to the best way to teach reading to five year-olds. They have studied child development in physical, intellectual and social skills quite extensively in coming up with the best ways to teach the most children. I must defer to them and follow their curriculum as much as possible. The curriculum seems to me to be overly regimented and does not allow for much “wiggle room” for individualizing for particular students nor in allowing for the great creativity of children at this age. Far be it for me to throw a monkey wrench into what they are doing (don’t laugh) but perhaps even in the half hour a week I spend with each of two students I can add a little bit to what they are teaching. The school system also seems limited in its ambition perhaps because of all the problems they are facing shrinking resources, and increased scrutiny, interference and criticism from outsiders. Their biggest concern is getting the greatest number of kids up to grade level reading. They seem only secondarily concerned with creating curious people, lifelong learners, good citizens or what educational concerns they should have for the 21st century, if they are concerned about these things at all. Part of this is of course the tunnel vision one must develop in an ongoing battle to have any success. To have to rely on volunteers to achieve even these limited goals is our country’s shame but it also means there is nothing to spare for these other things. It will take years for these other things to trickle down to public school teachers. Maybe they won’t at all. In the meantime if they just need volunteer bodies I’m willing to go out to the front lines. It may be like trying to douse a forest fire with a glass of water but I feel good doing it.
I just finished my first round of piano instruction. It was for ten weeks and I am now at the point where I need to decide “what next.” The first set of lessons was an unusual watered down set of lessons teaching you chord basics and melodies to get you up and playing songs as soon as possible. What have I learned? Well I set my sights on learning to play a simplified version of a Duke Ellington song (Don’t Get Around Much Anymore) and I think I have succeeded at that. The intellectual part of introductory chord theory came easier than the finger dexterity needed to play. I need to improve on my finger dexterity through exercise but I can certainly learn to play additional simplified versions of jazz songs without further lessons as long as I have the self-discipline to sit down and work on them. The brute force learning of rote memorization and practice, practice, practice is a slog but it pays off in the end. However if I want to learn more about chord and music theory I will certainly need to take continued lessons over an extended period of time. The little arranging exercises that we did like finding harmony notes to play along with the melody notes, was fun and appealing to me. Finding new chord progressions, additions and substitutions for songs also attracts me. The many tricks of fills, grace notes and improvisation also fascinates me. The question I have is how much basic stuff do I have to learn to be able to do all of this? One of the things I realized immediately is that the ocean of stuff one can learn about playing music is deep and infinite. I could be committing to a project that will take the rest of my life and I still would not learn all there is to learn. The learning therefore needs to be selective to take me where I want to be. Can I find a teacher who will concentrate on the stuff I need to do this and is willing to fore-go all the other stuff?
For the meantime I am going to take a break from lessons and strike out on my own. When I reach the point where I feel I need more lessons to go any further I will try to find a teacher who teaches what I want to know. I am by no means giving up but rather striking out to find my way in the wilderness alone. Any advice from any of my musician friends would be greatly appreciated.