Author: Dan Shusta
Date: 2016-10-09 04:35
Philip, I agree with you when you say "It's never too late". I'm not really sure when I first heard Glen Gould play Bach on the piano, but, I was mesmerized. And, when the movie came out about the life of Mozart, I, again, was totally thrilled by what I heard.
Would I pay "big bucks" to hear anyone play an hour of Bach on the piano? Absolutely! Without a doubt! The same for Mozart.
I'm glad you mentioned your cleaning lady. I just got back from shopping and I was thinking about this thread. I, erroneously, came up with the conclusion that true appreciation of classical music was directly connected to the amount of education that a person was fortunate enough to receive. Your cleaning lady story blew that theory right out of the water.
However, I still come back to the same conclusion as to "exposure".
It appears that "classical musical appreciation" is a college level course. Now I ask, "Why is that?" Why can't it be taught in high school or even grammar/middle school? Are the students not "mature" enough?
In the store that I just came from, they played the most raunchy, awful, so called "music" in the background that I felt like running out of the store. I would rather have heard some soft "classical music" playing in the background. Who knows, I probably would have bought more food!
So, IMHO, if classical music is not only going to survive but actually thrive and grow in popularity, various methods of influential exposure will need to be implemented.
We, as taxpayers, should have some sort of leverage as to what is taught in school. However, in the small cowboy town where I live today, that idea probably falls into the wishful thinking category. Many of the parents I have met simply "don't care" about what is being taught in school. However, many years ago when I lived in an affluent town in CT, the parents there were extremely aggressive about the educational system because they wanted their children to go to Harvard, Yale, Brown, etc. So, perhaps, financial status of the parents has a more pronounced influence as to what their children are being exposed to in school.
I don't know...perhaps what is needed are "classical music advocates" whose primary purpose is to try and persuade schools, grocery stores, eating establishments, etc., to change the "background noise to beautiful, soothing, classical music".
Just food for thought...
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