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To advance music education by encouraging the study and making of music by all.
-MENC's mission statement
A strange thing frequently happens to many music students somewhere between childhood and adulthood. They stop playing and singing music.
Why is that? MENC continues to help music teachers expand their influence so that making music can indeed become a lifelong pursuit. Yet I am struck by the number of adults I run into who tell me that they used to play or sing. Asking them why they no longer perform yields a half-embarrassed, stammered answer. Regardless of the stated reasons the individuals provide, their body language-a slight backing-off, a hanging head, and an unwillingness to meet my gaze-tells me that somewhere along the line this musician lost whatever confidence and pleasure he or she got out of making music.
Yet many of these individuals, as noted by Judith Jellison in "How Can All People Continue...