[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[June 16, 2000]
[Pages 1159-1161]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on the ``VH1 Save The Music Today'' Campaign in New York City
June 16, 2000

    The President. Thank you very much. Good morning.
    Audience members. Good morning.
    The President. I'd like to begin by thanking Barry 
Rosenblum and Time Warner; Sumner 
Redstone. Thank you, my long-time friend 
Billy Joel; and Brian McKnight, whom I admire so much. Thank you, Chancellor 
Levy.
    I'd like to thank the student band over here from Dr. Susan McKinney 
Junior High School. Thank you for being here. I see Comptroller Green, 
President Fields, Senator; thank you all 
for being here.
    I'd like to thank Randi Weingarten and 
the people from the United Federation of Teachers who are here. I don't 
know if any Members of the Congress are here. I think they're still 
voting--[laughter]--which is not a bad thing.
    So what I would like to do now is to begin with the important 
things. First, my long-time

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friend John Sykes--I say ``long-time friend''; 
we've only really known each other about 4 years, but I've spent more 
time with him in the last 4 years than anybody but Hillary, I think--
[laughter]--because of our love for music and because of this project, 
which--there have been only a few days when I wondered if I made a 
mistake volunteering to help, because he took it seriously.
    But I do love this, and I'll say a little more about it in a moment. 
I love it because of the potential it has to transform the lives of 
these young people. And I would like to say, first of all, 
Kelvin, I thought you did a great job 
speaking up here. One of the reasons I like music is it gives young 
people self-confidence and a sense of the reward you get for disciplined 
effort, so more of them would be able to speak like you in public. That 
was good.
    And I would like to say especially and most of all how much I 
appreciate the remarkable work that Victor Lopez, the principal, and the teachers and the parents have 
done on this school in the last few years. I can't thank you enough.
    This school, a couple of years ago, was identified by everybody as a 
low-performing school. Eighty percent of the kids weren't reading at 
grade level. Enter Mr. Lopez and his team and 
the supportive parents: smaller classes; after-school programs; parental 
involvement; school uniforms; and now a commitment to music education.
    In the last year alone, the number of P.S. 96 third graders reading 
at or above grade level has gone up more than 300 percent; in 2 years, 
student performance from 20 percent at or above grade level to 74 
percent--in 2 years. This is astonishing for the school. And now they 
want music education. Why? Because it's also good for academics, as 
you've already heard.
    But I want to just--everybody stop and take a deep breath. Look at 
these kids. All children can learn, and all children deserve a chance to 
learn. And the teachers and the principal and the parents here have done 
this, so give them another hand. This is unbelievable. Bravo! [Applause]
    You know, I often say that I might not have been President if it 
hadn't been for school music. And it's really true. I started playing an 
instrument when I was 9. I started singing in the school chorus when I 
was younger than that. And then when aging took my voice from three 
octaves to about three notes--[laughter]--which, thankfully, didn't 
happen to my buddies over here--I just had to concentrate more on my 
saxophone.
    And I want to say to all of you who are fixing to start this 
program, the first music I made was not very nice to hear. But my mother 
tolerated it, and I just kept on working at it. And what I learned was 
that if you're willing to have patience and discipline and you practice, 
pretty soon you can make something really beautiful, and it can help you 
be a better member of the team; it can help you be a happier person; it 
can make you a better person; and it can also be an awful lot of fun.
    I still play my saxophone. A couple of years ago, Hillary made a music room for me in a little room on 
the top floor of the White House that we weren't using, that was way at 
the end of a hall, and it had two doors, so no one could hear me when I 
was playing. [Laughter] And I still go in there.
    I have musical instruments now I've collected from all over the 
world. I have saxophones from all over the world now, made in China and 
Russia and Japan and Poland and the Czech Republic and Germany and 
France and, of course, the United States. And I have lots of other 
instruments from every continent. And I just go in there, and I play. 
And no matter what else is going on, I can go in and play for 15 or 20 
minutes, and I'm full of energy and ready to start again. That's what 
you can have if you get into this music program.
    But the other thing I want to emphasize is, one of the things that 
we know--and John Sykes mentioned this--is that learning improves in 
school environments where there are comprehensive music programs. It 
increases the ability of young people to do math. There is a lot of math 
in music. It increases the ability of young people to read, and as I 
said, most important of all, it's a lot of fun.
    The great scientist Albert Einstein once said--it might surprise 
you--``I get the most joy out of my violin. I often think in music. I 
see my life in terms of music.'' Albert Einstein was the greatest 
scientist of the 20th century. Some people nominated him for Man of the 
Century and thought he should have been determined to be the Man of the 
Century. No one believes he was a great violin player. He didn't care if 
he wasn't a great violin player. I don't care if I'm not a great 
saxophone player. It's

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enough to be able to do it and to get the benefits of it.
    So that's what VH1 has done, getting contributions, getting these 
musical instruments. Now, I want to say--John Sykes made a joke about the warm environment on Capitol Hill--
it's not as warm as it is up on this stage, under these lights. 
[Laughter] This is a good preparation to go back to Congress. [Laughter] 
But what he didn't tell you is that he and others developed a 
congressional resolution to stress the importance of music education, 
and just this week the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. I 
think he should start giving me lobbying advice. They passed it 
unanimously.
    Now, what does that mean? Well, a couple of years ago, 
Hillary chaired this Commission on 
Arts and the Humanities, and they found that the most important factor 
in keeping music in the schools or getting music back into the schools 
was not a Federal program but whether the local people whose kids were 
in the schools wanted music in the schools. So we need to keep trying to 
provide money to the schools to hire teachers, to build or remodel 
buildings, to give more money to schools with a lot of low income 
students at the national level. And we need to keep supporting the 
``Save The Music'' program.
    But one of the things that John wants is for 
the ``Save The Music'' program to lead people at the community level to 
insist that music ought to be in all the schools, whether he gives them 
the instruments or not. And that's what I--that's the last point I want 
to make today. You have got to help us help all of our schools keep 
these music programs. Over the last 20 years, we've gotten rid of music, 
art, and physical education. The consequence is that in the places that 
don't have it, student achievement is lower than it ought to be, and the 
kids are not as healthy as they should be. We need to bring these things 
back to our schools, and I want you to help them. That's one of the 
reasons I came here.
    I'll leave you with this thought: You are living in a world where 
all kinds of different people live in America and where Americans, 
through the Internet and travel, are going to have to relate to all 
kinds of different people around the world.
    I just got back from Russia, where I had a dinner with the Russian 
President. And afterward he said, ``We're 
going to go in to entertainment,'' so I thought they would have someone 
dancing Russian ballet. I thought they would have someone playing 
Rachmaninoff. But instead, because he knew what I liked, the President 
of Russia gave me a private concert from the biggest jazz band in 
Russia, the best student musicians in Russia, the age of some of the 
people here, who were unbelievable, and the man who may be the greatest 
living jazz saxophone player, who happens to be a Russian, who played 
for me.
    It is a universal language. It is the music of the heart and the 
language of the heart. Thanks to John Sykes and 
all of his partners and all of you, maybe next year and the year after 
and the year after, there will be more and more children with the chance 
that you're going to have next year, until all of our kids have it 
again.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:42 a.m. in the Auditorium at the Joseph 
C. Lanzetta School (Public School 96) in East Harlem. In his remarks, he 
referred to Barry Rosenblum, president, Time Warner Cable of New York; 
Sumner M. Redstone, chairman and chief executive officer, Viacom; 
musicians Billy Joel and Brian McKnight; Harold O. Levy, chancellor, New 
York City Public Schools; C. Virginia Fields, president, Borough of 
Manhattan; Randi Weingarten, president, United Federation of Teachers; 
John Sykes, president, VH1; Victor Lopez, principal, and Kelvin Eusebio, 
student, Joseph C. Lanzetta School; and President Vladimir Putin of 
Russia.