Oh! So THAT’S what I’m doing wrong…

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Aug 292011
 

First day of school here at Grand Valley State. In honor of that, I thought I’d share some more from this music appreciation text. I have a feeling that “Dave argues with a textbook” might become a running series here on the blog. We’ll see. Just a few grafs after the quote from my last post, I found this gem.

Briefly defined, music [emphasis in original] is the rational organization of sounds and silences passing through time. Tones must be arranged in some consistent, logical, and (usually) pleasing way before we can call these sounds “music” instead of just noise.

Seriously? We’re still using a value judgement in the definition of an art form? Rational, logical, and pleasing are a matter of cultural inheritance and personal taste. Also, “just” noise? Dr. Wright, what the heck is wrong with noise? Some people like it so much they make music out of it! Definitions like this remind me of early DSM definitions of homosexuality as a psychological disorder. Over 40 years after Stonewall, the Psychology world has since corrected their initial mistake. Almost 60 years after Cage’s 4’33″, at least some musicologists like Dr. Wright are still working things out.

[Dr. Craig M. Wright] is the author of numerous scholarly books and articles on composers ranging from Leoninus to Bach. [hyperlinks added]

Whoa! All the way to Bach? That’s a little edgy for me. Can we pull it back to Lully?

Cut the Magic

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Aug 262011
 

I’m teaching a new (to me) class this semester, Introduction to Music Literature, AKA Music Appreciation. The textbook we’re using (not my pick) is Craig Wright’s Listening to Music. Let me share a brief quote with you from the first page of Chapter 1:

Want proof of the allure of music? Next time you’re riding on a bus, a train, or the subway, look around and you’ll find that about twice as many people are listening to music as are reading. This is true pretty much everywhere around the developed world. But why does music have such universal appeal? Simply said, music has power.

First of all, if this were Wikipedia, I’d log in and put a [citation needed] after that glaring statistic. “4 out of 5 dentists” works great in a toothpaste ad, but I think it’s ok to expect more out of academic writing than a 15-second spot on local television.

More importantly, can we ditch this “music is magic” stuff? Yes, music is great. I like it. I’ve spent a lot of time studying it, and I plan to spend a lot more. However, making it into this ethereal, supernatural entity makes it almost impossible to having a meaningful discussion about. The people on the subway aren’t listening to music; they’re just letting music fill in the space around them because it’s preferable to whatever other sounds (or lack thereof) are naturally there. As I see it, my job as a music appreciation teacher is to demonstrate to my students that actual listening requires something more akin to the attention and engagement of reading a book or newspaper. That, dear reader, is music appreciation.