[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 24 (Monday, June 19, 2000)]
[Pages 1376-1378]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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 given 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

[[Page 1377]]

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 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,

[[Page 1378]]

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 
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 Putin of Russia.