Arts Struggle in San Diego : Music: Synthesizers help bridge gap at schools where traditional music teaching has fallen by the wayside.

The Hardy Elementary School fifth-graders sat at keyboard synthesizers laid out on tables, watching a video of a rain forest on day late last spring. Under the direction of Gary Stokes, they created mood music to go with the video, building their own forest of sounds: aquatic pinging, stream-like whooshing and wind-chime tinkling.

Stokes’ synthesizers are a hit with the kids.

He began developing the synthesizer-based program of music instruction three years ago, and the San Diego Unified School District hired him two years ago to bring his new methods to Hardy.

In this era of tight budgets, when few schools have instrumental music programs, educators see outside consultants such as Stokes, a former full-time jazz saxophonist and flutist who performed at school assemblies for years, as an alternative and economic way to expose pupils to at least some music instruction.

But some educators see dangers ahead if the synthesizers entirely replace traditional instrumental music programs.

All 400 students spend one 40-minute session a week composing at 17 synthesizers, listening to short lectures on music theory and history. The district is pleased enough with the results that it added Wilson Middle School in East San Diego to Stokes’ duties in February.

Stokes, 47, grew up listening to jazz in St. Louis and played with saxophonists Tab Smith and Jimmy Forrest (who wrote and recorded the now-classic “Night Train”). Stokes gave up his jazz career because “I got tired of making $50 a night.”

Despite his roots in traditional jazz played on acoustic instruments, he believes synthesizers can be a very effective means of easing kids into music.

“In fourth or fifth grade, when you stick a trumpet or clarinet or sax in their hands, you’re asking a lot,” he said. “Their hands are too small or they can’t produce enough air. This way, they get some immediate gratification. Music comes from within. Structure is important, but education has usually taught theory and how to read sheet music. We’re more of a Suzuki method. We make music first and talk later.”

As promised, Stokes’ classroom sessions at Hardy grab and hold the youngsters’ attention. The synthesizers are capable of hundreds of sounds. Students sit in pairs, sharing each keyboard, and they also take turns on MIDI wind synthesizers resembling saxophones. And they have fun. They smile a lot, and seem to regard the classes as recreation.

Stokes loves jazz, but he also covers a range of music and cultures from throughout the world during the “Music of the Day” portion of his classes, which are held in a classroom converted to a music room.

To kick off one recent Hardy class, he selected a rap tune from the movie, “Mo’ Better Blues.” Students listened with curious expressions to the unlikely combination of rap’s familiar, relentless beat and lyrics that told the story of jazz through such unfamiliar names as Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday. Afterward, Stokes tried to shed some light on these heroes.

Parker, he told the children, was “the greatest alto jazz saxophonist who ever lived.” Monk “approached the piano completely different” (Stokes illustrated some Monk-ish chords on a piano) and Coltrane was “probably the finest of all tenor saxophonists.”

Stokes then divided the class into groups. One was asked to create a synthesizer sound track for the rain forest video. The other made music to accompany an animated outer space video.

He passed out lists of numbers indicating electronic sounds that might be appropriate for the video images. He urged the youngsters to think about which sounds might be appropriate for each video.

Unlike the liquid sounds the rain forest evoked, the space video prompted a roomful of music more like something out of the movie “2001.”

After class, students had little to say about music. In fact, they still seemed a little hazy as to what jazz is.

Dylan Denoncourt, 11, thought he had heard some before because his brother plays guitar. On further questioning, though, he indicated his sibling is more into rock. Freddy Samano, 12, said that what he likes about jazz is “how they sing it.”

There’s no question that the students are enthusiastic about the synthesizers, if not jazz itself, but some experts say there are potential dangers if such music instruction entirely replaces traditional, instrumental classes, as it very well could because of dwindling budgets.

Of 110 schools in the San Diego Unified School District, only 80 have instrumental music programs, with 16 full-time instructors each serving five schools.

The cost to the district for Stokes’ programs at Hardy and Wilson, which serve 800 students, is $20,000 (funded by the Maxwell H. Gluck Foundation, a charitable arts organization). That figure does not include the synthesizers, however, which the school district rents for $700 a month.

A full-time district music teacher with a salary approaching twice what the district pays Stokes might reach 100 students each week at each of the five schools he serves.

At schools with instrumental music programs, all fourth-graders learn to play the recorder, while for fifth- and sixth-graders, instrumental music is a “pull-out program”--students who want lessons are pulled from their regular classrooms for instruction. Only a fraction of the students at each school participate.

“Over the last 10 years, we have definitely lost programs in all of the arts, down to having only one high school orchestra in the whole district, at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts,” said Kay Wagner, the school district’s program manager for visual and performing arts.

“Was there a time when every high school had an orchestra? I think so, but it goes back more than 10 years,” she said. “I don’t think Gary’s program should replace instrumental music programs, I think it’s a supplement. Because of tight budgets, it’s a good way to go so children get exposed to music. But I also think children should have an opportunity to learn a musical instrument. We know what that does for their ability to concentrate, their self-discipline and self-esteem.”

“Grammar school is the best time for kids to learn to play instruments,” said Bill Yeager, a jazz musician and director of the highly regarded jazz ensemble at San Diego State University. “I started playing trombone when I was 8, and I loved it. It gave me the self-confidence to be successful in every aspect of my education. From ages 7 to 11, the brain is like a sponge. The language of music is most easily learned during those years.

“I deal with rock ‘n’ rollers all the time who want to learn jazz and who got most of their music education playing in garage bands. It’s frustrating for them in their mid-20s to go back and learn the same things I learned when I was 8 or 9.”

Stokes doesn’t see his program as a substitute for instrumental instruction, just a means for getting kids hooked on music. He doesn’t see great harm if grammar school students don’t get instrumental instruction.

“What we have found is that this (synthesizers) generates their interest in other instruments. Instead of putting a sax in the hands of an 11-year-old, with the potential of defeating him, here, kids can have immediate success, and they leave school with an understanding of chords, meter, composition and scales.

“It makes the job of teaching them instruments at the secondary schools much easier. People need to understand that this is not meant to replace traditional instrumental music, but it’s an unbeatable tool.”