| Bringing
Music and Creativity to Schools |
I am available to come into school classrooms and assemblies
to perform peace concerts and/or my original eclectic mix of blues/rock/folk/country
compositions.
Performances can be for entertainment purposes or the music can
be used in conjunction with a brief program on the use of creativity
as a means of telling the truth, using art as a tool to reconnect
to our own humanity and advocate for leading lives of non-violence.
In an age when we are inundated with information, it is important
for students to develop the means of discernment and critical
thinking. This can be done by offering an introduction to the
uses of music, language, and visual arts and how these elements
give us clarity and hope in life.
INTRODUCTION:
Celebrating Art and Opposing Violence
A Program of Song & Word
by Tom
Mullian
In any society, hopelessness can be defined as the loss of creativity.
In his Defense of Poetry, Shelley proclaimed, “Poets are
the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” The voices of the
young must be encouraged and nurtured. Silence, most of all, perpetuates
injustice in the world. Creativity is our artistic and spiritual
path towards unity and reconciliation. From an age of information,
we must make an age of wisdom.
Hopelessness is to bury oneself voluntarily in the rubble of
9/11 or the daily reports of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, genocide
in Darfur. Or worse yet, hopelessness is to turn away from the
chaos to retreat into a life of consumerism and gratification.
Creativity is the creation of a hope that transforms lives by
allowing us to engage in our collective evolution.
As people giving expression to our experience, we are bound to
the truth of our poems, our songs, our palettes and paint. In
times of war, people seek the comfort of absolutes. The nuances
of basic compassion and understanding can be lost. We are susceptible
to lies and propaganda, vulnerable to the authoritarian voices
of leaders who would misguide us. In telling the truth through
art, we recover our humanity, our language, and our consciousness.
Creativity Is Our Antidote
Those who plan and execute wars contrive lies as to dislodge
our own common sense of rightness. Their job is to make violence
not only palatable but respectable.
A lie must downloaded for mass consumption and a cooperative
consciousness must be created and maintained among our citizenry.
Lies, glittering generalities, appeals to fear for personal safety,
distrust of “the other,” euphemisms, ethnic and religious stereotypes,
all are employed to delude in the belief that the only response
to violence is only more of the same in a blind repetition of
lessons unlearned from history.
In Creativity We Recover Our Humanity
The artist’s work is to transform, expose, recover, rebuild
in an act of creative resistance to violence. We can withdraw
cooperation from both physical and verbal violence. We can offer
our gifts of verse, melody, message, all grounded with an effective
education to do work in the world that is creative in spirit and
in practicality.
Celebrating Art and Opposing Violence
A Program of Song & Word - Program Highlights
- Understanding the link between sound/music, language, and
mind
- How language conforms mind and behavior
- Authoritarian vs. Authority, the Lie
- The Importance of Art to Social Movements
- Recovering Ourselves and our Humanity in Song and Art
- Telling the Truth in our Expressions
- The Journey of one singer/songwriter in the Peace
Movement
- Engaging our lives with history, we are history
- Performance of assorted songs and explanations of each
- Encouraging others to believe and trust their creativity
- Having the students create a poem, drawing, short song to
share with others
- No work of art is complete until someone else sees it
- Closing song
Tom
Mullian's Bio
Songs performed in the program
are drawn from the following partial list (We can pick and choose
topics):
- Rivertown - chronicle of the struggles of a young man
who quits his job in a refinery town, joins the army, and is
seriously injured in Iraq
- Boots - the rising number of deaths expressed in the
number of empty boots
- Outlaws of Peace - dedicated to Brandywine and the
Freedom Riders
- Avalon - whimsical wish for a better world based on
Arthurian mythology
- Bombs Away! - humorous piece on the universal belligerence
of American foreign policy
- Civil Disobedience - humorous piece on the application
of civil disobedience
- The Day We Ended the War - written for Phil Berrigan
& Brandywine’s 25th anniversary
- Hymn from the Underground - prayer of a slave on the
underground railroad
- The Good American - indictment of American exceptionalism
and lack of regard for others
- We was just Boys - Civil War Song referencing Walt
Whitman’s ”O Captain, My Captain”
- My Way Home - Soldier in Iraq turns against the way
- Ain’t Gonna Fight No More - for the Vets for Peace
- Pledge of Resistance - rally song for the Pledge day
of nonviolent action and for a way of life
- Streets of Justice - the faith of an innocent man on
death row
- Six Strings Against the War - a love song from a Conscientious
Objector to his disapproving father
- The Marching Song - sing along rally song
- A Cross for Pablo Sanchez - tribute to the ”disappeared”
in Central America
- One White Dove - song for Rachel Corrie, nonviolent
activist killed in Palestine
- Benditos son los Creadores de la Paz - blessed
are the peacemakers
- It’s Your World Now - song for all the young peacemakers
Fees for school concerts and programs
are on a sliding scale.
Contact me for further details
at tommullian@aol.com
All material copyrighted by Tom Mullian
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