Replying to LO30571 --
"Ray Evans Harrell" <mcore@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> Actually Aesthetics is antecedent to all learning with the arts being the
> expressive exploration of that perceptual organization. Music and Math
> are the quantification in sound and sight of the environment as well as
> the imagination. What I am doing is putting together a program for the
> re-introduction of complex music into the American culture. Since 1900
> there has been a 98% decline in live complex musical life in America.
> The decline in complex literacy has paralleled that to the point that
> today the most pressing need in America's political elections center
> around literacy and education. The companies also have the same problem
> with literate personnel. But instead of working from the pleasure model
> and the model of personal mastery they work in the drudgery work model of
> Western Utility which strangely also claims to be about pleasure but
> isn't. In music the bulk of the society's funds go to the development of
> music for children and adolescents with complex music majors at
> universities graduating with expensive degrees to a labor market that
> hires 2% of the graduates. Also 98%, a 98% labor glut.
>
> So I am involved in a program to change all of that. I was interested in
> seeing if the list would like to talk about the practicality of the
With a wife who's a professional musician and music educator, a daughter
studying to become a professional musician, three sons who've played or
still play violin or 'cello, and a distant past as an amateur hornist,
choir member and choir director (mostly a cappella art music), I'm
interested.
> project. We will be having a Symposium in May of next year at Manhattan
> School of Music where some of the nation's finest arts economists and
> professionals will attend. At the moment it looks to be structured around
> the Interactive Management model of Discovery & the pursuit of a generic
> design, with follow ups on the internet. I asked the question because I
> would like to get a dialogue going amongst professionals on these issues
> and get their feedback.
Have you spoken with the Symphony Orchestra Institute
(http://www.soi.org/)? They're only one piece of the pie, but they do
seem to have related interests.
I also interviewed several members as well as the director of the
Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra some time back for an article, and I
sensed they were trying different ways to attract new listeners to complex
music. Certainly they're not the only ones.
> I think an international perspective from people in some countries where
> there has not been a 98% decline but which have active and vibrant complex
> art cultures would also be helpful. Here's an example with the US.
> Literacy has fallen to such a level that classical music stations rarely
> program vocal music because people don't understand complex music with
> words. I make the point that nothing is complex in a problem to those who
> have the mastery of that problem. The pleasure involved in music is an
> issue of predictability with a manageable novelty. Complex music is music
> that requires a greater knowledge and sophistication in aural and poetic
> forms than the simple 32 bar song forms with four chords and the perpetual
> themes of sex and violence. Complex music is usually what we call
> classical but much traditional classical music is not complex because it
> is understandable by the reasonably proficient.i.e. its old and familiar.
> The exception to this is vocal music which is usually not in English in
> classical song and opera. That makes two more elements that must have a
> proficiency for personal enjoyment. So as a result complex vocal music is
> the least listened to music in America and English is the least of the
> least. I call it the Mockingbird Song. Singing everyone else's music and
> langauge but the music of your own identity, unless you are a child.
I was thinking about that a couple of weekends ago -- how we seem to have
created a system that produces an excess of competent professionals and
too few people who demand their services or are musical in their own
non-professional lives, as well as how we've created a system that seems
so low-dimensional. While living years ago in Europe, I was impressed by
the number of concerts I could easily attend and the number of such
concerts that included seriously complex music. I attended and enjoyed
concerts consisting totally of the sort of contemporary art music
(including vocal music) that would have elicited yawns or protests here,
IMHO, and people seemed to enjoy that music greatly.
I'm guessing that there are two bits to this issue: is it worth increasing
people's complex music literacy, and how should one go about that?
The former seems obvious to most who already have some complex music
literacy and is a non-starter with many others. The latter seems to be a
systems issue as well as an artistic one. That is, how can one create a
cultural and societal structure that ends up creating the sort of life for
people that enriches and involves them using complex music as its
foundation. To be fair, I suppose that the visual arts have a role, too,
and I suspect they may be able to be included without compromising the
integrity of the musical program.
> Most contemporary American Music and especially vocal music is not Complex
> American Vocal Music or Art music. The art of that music is in the
> performer and it is quite complex (i.e. hard to do) but the music itself
> is relatively simple, i.e. some is even written by children. That is
> completely different from the elegant sophistication of a song by Ned
> Rorem which is complex in its elements, difficult in its execution and
> highly complex as a virtuosity for the performer.
>
> Well this is a little of the discussion. I can make it less technical but
> the issues of the values of Aesthetics in learning was addressed by CS
> Pierce many years ago when he stated that Aesthetics were antecedent to
> all learning since aesthetics are the organization of perception and
> without perception there is no learning (or learning organizations).
>
> So is there a dialogue here?
I'd say yes, but I can't speak for the rest. I'm quite curious about the
design of your program to re-introduce complex music into the American
culture.
> Ray Evans Harrell
Bill
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