How Music Education Confuses Understanding With Love

[Homo Aestheticus]

Some excellent commentary by Bernard Holland on a topic that has always concerned me. Many interesting points to discuss.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07EFDE1239F936A15752C0A9629C8B63

Here are some:

1. That leap from ''understand'' to ''appreciate'' is long and blind. The word ''understand'' remains elusive. I don't understand an elm tree, but give me the right one, and I like to sit under it. Knowing its biology may help, but the heart is not a biologist. No amount of experience and analysis can by itself induce the stab of communication between art and its beholder.

2. What a cottage industry ''music appreciation'' has become.

3. General audiences are paradoxical personalities. They lapse into enthusiasms over Three Tenors schlock and Lang Lang histrionics at the keyboard. But in the long run, general audiences are reliable critics. They can be momentarily scammed, but they eventually go toward what is good and away from what isn't.

4. Sitting passively in the dark, audiences make nice scapegoats. They have been intimidated and lectured to, and they respond with remarkable sweetness and humility. In the face of new pieces they do not like, audience members with bold opinions on Middle East politics and viable stock purchases twitch uncomfortably. ''That was interesting, wasn't it.'' ''I haven't heard it before, so it's hard to say.'' ''I'd like to hear that some more.''

5. One passes these gaggles of equivocaters longing for an expression of joy or an outburst of loathing. Let them be wrong, and sometimes -- perhaps often -- they are, but grant them an opinion. How can music prosper without a listenership that has some kind of feeling, good or bad, about what it is hearing ?

6. The downside of music education is not only that it confuses understanding with love; it threatens an arrogance that classical music can ill afford. If we put it in the wrong hands with the wrong motives, we end up with a superior class charged with remedying the illiteracy of the unwashed. The consumer, it would seem, bears the fault. The product is rarely held accountable.

*******

He is pretty much correct on all of this, I think.

And yes, critics and listeners today (and for the last 10 years or so) just seem very timid in their assessments of music. That is certainly the impression I get. It would be nice to read/hear more robust expressions and sincere opinions for a change.

[Guido]

The quotation in your signature is from Kyle Gann.

[Keemun]

I generally agree with the article.  I don't understand the technical aspects of classical music and composition nearly as well as I would like.  But despite this, I like classical music.  To use one of the author's examples: "When a Bach fugue gets really busy, I know we are at the stretto and getting close to the end."  I didn't know that (until I read it), but my knowing it has no bearing on whether I like a Bach fugue.  Conversely, someone who learns this in a music appreciation class may not like a Bach fugue.  I see the general value in learning about classical music as two-fold: (1) exposure to classical music, and (2) better appreciating it.  Both may lead to liking classical music, but neither guarantees it. 

[karlhenning]

4. Sitting passively in the dark, audiences make nice scapegoats.

Your harshest words against Dieubussy worship yet!

I don't understand the technical aspects of classical music and composition nearly as well as I would like.  But despite this, I like classical music.

Nay, the way you've phrased that seems to buy into Eric's false dichotomy;  perhaps only seems, but permit me to address that.  A preference (or affection) for a piece of music, and knowledge of its workings, are separable components, but they are not opposed;  and Chicken Little's squawking aside, hardly anyone is in any danger of confusing the two.  In the teeth of Bwuk-Bwuk's tiresome propaganda, thread after whingeing thread, I have never known any musician personally, who 'replaced' affection for music, with (oooh, let's borrow one of James's words, shall we?) 'clinical' comprehension of how the music works.  For the many of us who study music, on whatever level and to whatever ultimate purpose, that knowledge is some part of our affection for the music, it is one level of our enjoyment of the music.

Might as well say that someone who recognizes the color red, but not any color else, is the only person who truly loves a painting.  And this is exactly one of Eric's traditional, misguided points:  that somehow, an abhorrence for actually knowing what's going on in the music is supposedly a Sign of the True Music-Lover!

To address another of Eric's pet squawks here:  there is an ample audience who like new music on immediate hearing.

And, there were people who loathed (say) Beethoven's Seventh when they first heard it (those nice scapegoats, sitting passively in the dark back in the early 19th century).  History and consensus have shown the worth of that immediate loathing.  So, in aesthetics, the people who "don't get" the art work when it is new have been shown time and again not to have the last word.

[some guy]

Well, this topic went for a long time unanswered--and thus in no danger of being locked!

And I did want to address one point, but damned if I was going to be the first one to break the silence!

Anyway, here's my two cents' worth: I don't think the consumer/product model is at all a good one for artistic endeavors. It deranges the delicate balance between composer, music, and listener by elevating the latter to almost god-like levels, relegating the composer to servant, who'd better write some pretty stuff for me or CRACK! goes the whip. It substitutes, furthermore, a commercial model for what should be a dynamic relationship between the three components.

Besides, what fantasy world does Mr. Holland inhabit to be able to say "The consumer, it would seem, bears the fault. The product is rarely held accountable." If online forums are any gauge, it is always ONLY the "product" that's held accountable. The product and the producer. In the commercial model, the customer is always right. That might be a nice way to keep uppity store clerks mindful of their need to be courteous, but it spells only disaster for art.

[karlhenning]

The quotation in your signature is from Kyle Gann.

He can't hear you; he's deaf.

[Keemun]

A preference (or affection) for a piece of music, and knowledge of its workings, are separable components, but they are not opposed;  and Chicken Little's squawking aside, hardly anyone is in any danger of confusing the two. 

Absolutely.  Understanding and affection for a piece of music are quite compatible.  In fact, I would venture to say that their pairing is ideal.  But I also don't think that understanding necessarily leads to affection, nor is it required for affection. 

[karlhenning]

Absolutely.  Understanding and affection for a piece of music are quite compatible.  In fact, I would venture to say that their pairing is ideal.  But I also don't think that understanding necessarily leads to affection, nor is it required for affection. 

Perfectly fair.

Although, I have found in many cases that to know the piece [better] is to love it.  It's not an inevitable cause-&-effect, by any means; agreed on that point.

[Cato]

Might as well say that someone who recognizes the color red, but not any color else, is the only person who truly loves a painting.  And this is exactly one of Eric's traditional, misguided points:  that somehow, an abhorrence for actually knowing what's going on in the music is supposedly a Sign of the True Music-Lover!

Otherwise known by the Orwellian phrase: "Ignorance is strength!"

Musical adaptation: Harmony is cacophony, Carmony is 6%, and Timbre is a lumberjack's best friend, especially after she has a few drinks.   

[Brian]

And, there were people who loathed (say) Beethoven's Seventh when they first heard it (those nice scapegoats, sitting passively in the dark back in the early 19th century). 

Perhaps more the Third or Ninth, say, than the Seventh; I seem to remember from Richard Osborne that in Paris some 'pops' orchestras began inserting the slow movement of the Seventh into Beethoven's other symphonies as a way of reviving their popularity - even using it to replace the glorious slow movement of the Second!

[Josquin des Prez]

A preference (or affection) for a piece of music, and knowledge of its workings, are separable components, but they are not opposed;

I disagree, i think they are one of the same, it just depends on how you define knowledge. Learning all the technical aspects of fugue and counterpoint might not necessarily give you the slightest clue of what is happening in a piece by Bach.

Ultimately though, there is no preference without knowledge, for how can any one discriminate when they do not know?

And, there were people who loathed (say) Beethoven's Seventh when they first heard it.

And?

[karlhenning]

I disagree, i think they are one of the same, it just depends on how you define knowledge. Learning all the technical aspects of fugue and counterpoint might not necessarily give you the slightest clue of what is happening in a piece by Bach.

You haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.

[Josquin des Prez]

You haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.

If you really think that preference can exist without understanding, then it is you who has no clue, PhD and all.

[karlhenning]

If you really think that preference can exist without understanding, then it is you who has no clue, PhD and all.

Strawman, strawman.

Again, you haven't the remotest clue what you're talking about.

[Cato]

If you really think that preference can exist without understanding, then it is you who has no clue, PhD and all.

Back off:         just lay that entelechy down, s l o w l y, and back away! 

Please rethink! 

Does one really understand  why one prefers e.g. currants over blueberries, or green over red? 

Do you really believe that a 3-year old understands her preference for apple juice over orange juice in order to reach for the cup?   

And to insist that a preference must involve understanding???    

Again, I would cogitate just a wee bit here!   

[greg]

But we can choose what we like, after all.


Oh, wait, no we can't.... 

[karlhenning]

Consider, to start with, the confusion in the title of the thread:

How Music Education Confuses Understanding with Love

It is the task of education to promote understanding.

Music education doesn't 'confuse' the two (gotta love the pathetic fallacy, of course), because the music which the student loves, is the student's affair.

My Music History and Music Theory instructors evaluated my understanding of music.  The music I love, or how well I love it, or why I love this music better than that music, is not a matter subject to educational evaluation.

(Gotta love Eric's threads, too, for the opportunity they always afford for stating the obvious.)

[drogulus]

Besides, what fantasy world does Mr. Holland inhabit to be able to say "The consumer, it would seem, bears the fault. The product is rarely held accountable." If online forums are any gauge, it is always ONLY the "product" that's held accountable. The product and the producer. In the commercial model, the customer is always right. That might be a nice way to keep uppity store clerks mindful of their need to be courteous, but it spells only disaster for art.

     some guy, even I don't really like the idea that a market-like mechanism passes an up or down verdict on a work of art. I feel there must be some measure of value beyond this collective process. There is something not market-like about how initial failures later succeed. The usual way of dealing with this is to remove the "customer" from the equation and endow music with substantive value which then suddenly reveal itself when it, or someone, is ready. I don't think this is better than the market, since it moves the whole process out of the human domain. We aren't choosing, we're merely acknowledging. I say no, we're choosing, and will sometimes choose differently later. The market analogy doesn't capture everything about the process, though. It's only virtue is it puts the choice where it belongs, with people who care to listen.

     I don't find love and understanding in conflict, to go back to the OP. Where there's love there's a form of understanding and frequently the other way, too. They're not opposed.

[DavidW]

I hated that article.  It makes it seem like listening to music is a tough academic exercise that we shouldn't have to stomach.

Look, all you have to do is sit down, unfurl your ears, and listen!  That's it.  Without even knowing the vocabulary, if you simply give the piece of music enough of your undivided attention you will either grow to like it or dislike.

Unfurl your ears Eric!!!

If there was anything to point out why people don't take to some wickedly good music, it's for fearing a storm and furling up the ears, and buttoning down the soul.

[drogulus]

     Everyone can approach the music from their own level and get something from it. Many people have this attitude that there's some great barrier of understanding that keeps them out. David's right, just listen.

     It doesn't stop there, though. You can go to another level and make your understanding a big part of it and deepen the whole experience by adding the extra dimension. So I'm with the elitists at least this far.

     Hey Ma! I'm a Elitist!! Top of the World!!