Klarinet Archive - Posting 000753.txt from 2004/10

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Appealing to the superficial
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 13:45:01 -0400

Adam Michlin wrote:

> And my experience is that many of these composers and performers
> privately complain about the uneducated masses who don't appreciate
> their wonderful work. These are the people I call elitist.

We must be meeting different composers and performers. I can't think of
a significant modern composer (or performer, for that matter) who
matches that description.

> Tell me exactly where I advocated kicking them through doors? Or do
> you really feel that playing Mozart for students is kicking them
> through doors? It, of course, is not. It is merely opening the doors.

Sure. But you did say that you would, in extreme cases, be prepared to
put a beat under Mozart in order to try to gain the interest of
students. I'd say if you've got that desperate, you're not just
kicking, you're kickboxing!

> And one of the biggest mistakes in teaching Shakespeare is to ignore
> the fact that it was written for the stage, not for individual
> reading. So I would be all for a field trip to see Romeo and Juliet
> performed live. Just as I would be all for a field trip to see K622
> performed live.

Yep. I'm right with you.

> For those of us who don't live next to a major metropolitan city, we
> have to sacrifice and use recordings. Admittedly a discount substitution.

Not necessarily. You can engage in music through a recording in ways
you can't in a concert, for example by singing or whistling along with
the music. You'd get kicked out if you tried doing that in Carnegie
Hall, but with a CD in the private of your own home you can make some
interesting musical explorations this way.

>> Yes, but people *choose* to apply to music colleges, and even then,
>> with any luck, their teachers look on them as responsible adults
>> whose personal choices and desires are also important.
>
>
> You forget music is almost always an elective.
>
> I never said the children's choices and desires aren't important, for
> the record. I said they weren't the most important factor.

I think they're for certain the most important factor, because it's only
by engaging with those choices and desires properly that you can guide
the students to areas they may not know about, and that they may benefit
from.

I never said it was wrong to guide students, but it's only by creating
this overlap with their desires that one can hope to do so successfully.

> I only add that if a student can get through 4 years of band and never
> hear Mozart or Bach or Beethoven there is something serious wrong with
> all the above.

Sure. On the other hand in my case when I was doing A-level music (UK
exams taken at age 18), my teachers presented only Mozart, Bach and
Beethoven (and their near contemporaries). I don't think that
particularly disadvantaged me---if anything I'm glad that I was able to
come to a lot of repertoire by myself---but I do think that in general
that was a pretty shocking neglect of musical range.

> I also think students should hear Parker and Ellington and Zeppelin
> and Ives. But we have to start somewhere.

Absolutely.

>> There were some students in my music class, in school, who were very
>> talented rock musicians. The music classes totally failed to allow
>> them opportunities to display and develop their talents, and I got
>> the feeling that very often they were bored and frustrated with the
>> material they were expected to cover. I personally think that was
>> criminal.
>> Education should be about developing the student, not filling them
>> with a check-list of "prescribed" material.
>
>
> Well, no. Education should be about developing the student which does
> require some amount of "prescribed" materials. Please don't expect me
> to debate the quantity of such materials, I know you know that it
> varies in each and every student.

In any situation there are things which the student is going to have to
do if s/he wants to reach certain goals. But the range of material
available ought to be wide enough to accomodate a wide range of
students. For example, on the music syllabus which I went through, my
rock musician friends were completely disadvantaged because the whole
system was strongly biased towards "traditional" notated music. Of
course I would have expected them to learn how to read music, but the
syllabus should have been wide enough to appreciate that some students
might focus on different means of performance, analysis and so on.

I don't mind "prescribed", really, so long as it's done in a creative
way that engages with the student's individual aims and needs and not in
the "one size fits all" way that I experienced. "Proscribed", though, I
have some serious problems with.

-- Joe

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