Music and language, language and music

We are now in the county of Dalarna, in the city of Borlange. It has been a very fulfilled last two days learning about the city and also their schooling. If I could say anything I have learned to take back with me, it is the importance placed in Sweden on music and language. We talk about how being skilled in these areas helps with higher level thinking and I think Sweden is an example of this that we should follow (hint, hint, hint CWA).

Borlange has a thriving music scene. They host the Peace and Love festival which is Sweden's largest rock festival with 40,000 visitors each year. Not quite as big as Summerfest, but a great thing for this small town.

On Monday we started the day at the Borlange music school. In Sweden they believe everybody should and can have an equal chance and music is one thing that everyone can play if they choose. The school was only about $100 a term and in this small town there were 1,500 students enrolled. There were some students who went to the actual school building we visited and some teachers who did outreach in local schools during the day. We met with a very skilled man named Marcus Mossny who allowed us to learn a little piano ourselves. We got to sit as if we were six years old (that is when you can start an instrument) and play the piano. It was a lot of fun and inspired me to want to learn. Then we also got to hear Marcus play and if you listen to the clip you can hear what was so inspirational.

Borlange Musikskola starts students at age six by playing the recorder. Then as the years advance, students may take up piano, violin, guitar, keyboard, woodwinds, and even choir. This school is unique in that they have a full symphony made up of 60 youth. It was very impressive and definately continues to show me the importance Sweden has for music and their belief in its ability to help students learn. As one rotary memeber said on our visit, "No one who plays the piano becomes a gangster."

After our visit and a lunch and presentation, we headed to another music school called Boom Town. Boom Town is a new idea in Sweden and is a school (unversity level school) that teaches its students how to get into the music recording business with classes on lighting, managing, and sound. We got to tour this facility and see some of the recording in action. Here is one such studio and the two guys were helping to record one students debut albumn. The school had 8 recording studios, with one commercial studio. The school has many sponsors from music equipment companies and so they have some of the best equipment in the world for their students to use. Each year 100 students try out for the school, but only like 15 are chosen. The students in bands get their own practice studios to use in the time they are there.
After this tour the group headed to the Peace and Love cafe to learn about Sweden's largest rock festival. I, on the otherhand, had a different direction to go...the dentist. In sampling some gummy candy from the factory the week before, I had broken a filling and had to go to the dentist to get a cavity filled again. Lucky for me there were two rotarians in this group who were dentists and they had me fixed up in no time...and for free I might add!Things were very much the same as in the United States in that chair. They fixed me up quick and off I went.

When I arrived home, Jessica and I went for a short walk around our host family's home. We are out in the middle of nowhere, but near a horse training facility because the day before when we were having tea, some people on horses went trotting by.

We ended the night with a pleasant dinner at a place called the Officer's Saloon. It was the old dining place at a military base that has been closed for about 100 years. They are using the buildings now for other things, and a fantastic dinner was one of them!