Schubert, thanks, but the 10X rule came from the teacher of a teacher in music school--which perhaps goes to prove the point that education does expand listening tastes.
Has education expanded your listening tastes?
This point recently came up in another thread: a member was of the opinion (if I am paraphrasing them correctly) that critical thinking plays little role in what our tastes in music might be. We like what we like and that's it. So that begs the question for me, how many of us feel that our reaction to music is primarily rooted in the emotional centers of the brain and that rational analysis of musical structure and language doesn't potentially expand our range of musical enjoyment? I ask because I am not a professional musician, but I did take a few college level music history classes, learn to play guitar in my forties (now sixty,) learn to read music on a rudimentary level of competence, study a little music theory, and enjoy reading historical biographies about composers and musicians. I can honestly say that the in the last fifteen years or so, I have greatly expanded what types of music I enjoy and that I can appreciate music I might not "love" in the emotional sense that used to dictate what I listen to. Take Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern for example. Their music doesn't sweep you away with the emotional majesty of earlier composers, but I find their intellectual rigor and organization to be fascinating and very enjoyable. Same with studying the history of American roots music, I learned a lot about our cultural history and enjoy listening to old blues and country music now. How do other's feel about this emotion vs. learning to appreciate thing?
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Thanks to all for the positive comments; glad to be part of a very interesting discussion with so many really great and thoughtful contributions. Schubert, I am not surprised by the feelings of the principal clarinetist that you refer to. Playing the orchestral repertoire in a first rate orchestra is an extremely demanding and stressful job. Few outside of the profession understand just how intense the amount of preparation that is required is and how intense the pressure felt is in order to perform at such a high level in concert situations where a player doesn't have the luxury of going back to "white-out" a mistake and do it over; one shot is all one gets. So, it is not surprising that some players just don't want to listen to the repertoire for pleasure and prefer to listen to music in a different genre. A good friend and colleague who unfortunately passed away recently was one of the finest concert flautists that I have ever known and was obsessed with the music of James Brown. An interesting extension of the subject of education and analysis is the issue of objectivism vs subjectivism in judging music and it's worth. I find this article to be a thought-provoking look at the subject: http://www.rogerbissell.com/id11a3.html |
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