At 9:44 AM -0800 3/30/06, Chuck Israels wrote:
On Mar 30, 2006, at 9:27 AM, Phil Daley wrote:
"the general level of music literacy has declined"
In my experience, in my lifetime, this is an understatement.
OK, folks. Before this descends any further into incoherence, it
really is necessary to provide some working definitions.
"General level": a vague and unhelpful term. Do you mean by it the
number of people (so make that a percentage of the entire general
population) who meet your definition of "music literacy" (which I'll
get to in a minute)? Or do you mean by it the degree of musical
literacy (still to be defined) possessed by that fraction of the
entire general population who are interested in such things? Or do
you mean by it the depth of musical literacy (still, still to be
defined) possessed by those who have formally studied music and think
of themselves as musicians? Or something else entirely? Like the
number of elementary school students who take formal classes in
General Music, or who participate in school ensembles (which have
always and everywhere discriminated against any form of "popular"
music)?
"Music Literacy": I'm sure that each of you in this discussion has a
solid picture of what this means to you, but I'm not at all sure than
any of you share the same picture. The simplest definition would be
the ability to read music, just as literacy in general is considered
the ability to read language. But that's pretty unsatisfactory
because the ability to read music off the page, valuable as it is,
has never defined the one and only thing that makes a musician a
musician, and in many traditions it is not a requirement at all. I
rather suspect that what each of you means is more like the depth of
knowledge ABOUT music possessed by an individual in the general
population, which is something quite different.
And right there is where we run into a perception problem. It's hard
to get away from the fact that each of us unconsciously measures
someone's knowledge about the specific type of music that is
important to US, and not necessarily the type of music that's
important to THEM. To one person, the only knowledge worthwhile is
knowledge about opera. To another, knowledge about country or
traditional music. To yet another, knowledge about jazz. Etc.,
etc., and so forth.
There is, of course, the indisputable fact that our entire culture
has become one of music consumers rather than music makers. But has
that ever NOT been the case? Sure, I grew up in a house with a
couple of pianos in it on top of which could be found an eclectic
collection of Stephen Foster, Barbershop, Beethoven, Chopin, and even
Bach. But to hear the best in the best possible way, we went out to
concerts to enjoy live music. My family were all musicians, but we
were both consumers and makers. Yes, recordings were a new and
wonderful way to experience more music than we would ever have the
opportunity to experience first hand, but they didn't replace live
performance in our lives. And I'm sorry, but I see exactly the same
thing happening with the overwhelming majority of young people today
who live for the music in their iPods. They STILL put great value on
attending live performances, and spend lots of money doing so. What
they mostly don't do is to make music in any especially meaningful
way, but that's always been true of the majority, and as far as their
depth of knowledge of music it may not include music theory but it
can be encyclopedic when it comes to the music and the performers
they enjoy and value.
Oops. Didn't mean to haul out a soapbox, but I am interested in what
various people mean by the words they're throwing around.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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