-
One does not necessarily have to be a musician to teach music. Teaching involves imparting knowledge, not performing. Some of the greatest musicians are poor teachers, and mediocre musicians can be great teachers. Performing and teaching are not the same. Teaching music requires knowledge of music, without doubt, but not playing ability.
-
08-05-2020 07:03 PM
-
Originally Posted by sgcim
Verklarte Nacht is, I think, an attempt to unify the advanced harmony of Wagner with the formal and contrapuntal brilliance and motivic discipline of Brahms. Those were AFAIK Schoenberg's two main influences. In fact, we can actually see the 12 tone system as a sort of sideways mad scientist sort of encapsulation of those two things - the advanced non tonal harmony mixed with extreme motivic discipline and conservation of melodic material. And then he spent his later years getting ridiculed for writing wrong note Brahms by the young Turks who preferred Webern.
Anyway, the stuff Schoenberg fans generally actually like the most is the 'free tonal' era, pre 12-tone; so Pierrot Lunaire, Erwartung, Second String Quartet, Five Orchestral Pieces. And they are - utterly amazing, unprecedented bolts from the blue. No-one was writing that stuff. It still sounds out there today. Schoenberg's use of this dissonant musical language to evoke extreme emotional states was actually very influential. Just ask a horror movie composer.
Schoenberg himself didn't actually believe that only 12 tone music was valid; that was the younger generation. He was tennis doubles partner with George Gershwin after all. And wrote this late in his career...
If I had to pick something I like about Schoenberg's tonal works it is that like Brahms I find them quite hard to understand at times. There's a lot going on in Brahms's music; I often feel it is much better than it sounds... But his free tonal music has no such issues. Of course, that wasn't enough for him.
So 12 tone music? Well... I dunno. Best to listen to music with an open mind and ears. I have had some musical epiphanies listening to 'advanced music' - take this for instance. This work is just stunning to me. I have literally no idea how Boulez wrote this and I don't care.
Here I think I am mostly responding to Boulez's brilliance with orchestral colour. But I actually find it easier to appreciate than a lot of 19th century symphonic writing which is reliant on formal expectations that go completely over my head, and endless connecting tissue and 'development'. Give me some Ariana Grande any day.
Anyway these dudes are all dead now. We are post orchestra, post minimalism, post everything.
But dots on paper and attention to form is still a thing for some.
This is what New Music sounds like now:
-
Originally Posted by sgosnell
Music teaching that doesn't involve playing is bullshit. The teacher has to able to communicate on a musical level and musical learning is profoundly experiential. You can't teach music based on words and concepts.
Tacit knowledge is far more important than explicit.
-
Originally Posted by christianm77
a true teacher, realizes that they must inspire and illuminate their students moreso than just pass on their own take on things!
the latter is a road to nowhere...suggest, and let it develop...every good teacher is learning as much as giving
cheers
-
Originally Posted by sgosnell
-
You can liken it to sports also (and many other professions)
Some of the greatest minds/coaches either didn't play or were less than mediocre. But they knew the game.
-
Originally Posted by wintermoon
-
you can ultimately learn as much about art from a cooking class or art history class as you can from a dedicated music program...or from a good bassoon teacher...not that that's all you should do...but helpful!!
playing guitar starts in the mind...the fingers just follow..most of our celebrated artists have been artful in their jazz...rather than learned...or the perfect ratio of the two!
cheersLast edited by neatomic; 08-05-2020 at 09:41 PM.
-
Originally Posted by Phil59
You can teach football if you know the X's and O's, doesn't matter if you can play it well or not.
Same w music.
-
im a boxeo man
love my boxing since sonny liston
the greatest boxing cornermen of all time never were pro boxers...angelo dundee!!!..ali and sugar ray leonards man!...gil clancy...tysons cuss 'd'amato..even the great present day teddy atlas!
one is in no way dependent on the other
smarts beats skill...always has
cheers
-
"love my boxing since sonny liston"
NA, did you like the phantom punch?
Just kidding, Liston was a great champ
-
Originally Posted by wintermoon
cheers
-
Originally Posted by wintermoon
-
Not all university music classes actually involve performance. One need not be a musician to appreciate music, nor to learn how it is composed. This even extends to jazz, where there are historians and other writers who never played a note. I'm not talking about teaching someone to play an instrument, but about music in general.
-
Originally Posted by wintermoon
-
Originally Posted by Phil59
If someone recognizes the relationships of notes on a keyboard, do they actually need to be able to physically play them to understand them or teach them?
To sgosnells point for ex, if you're trying to teach someone to play piano, of course it helps the student to be able to teach more than just pointing out notes/chords etc on the keyboard, but that's a different point.
I think you're confusing "teach music" w "play music"Last edited by wintermoon; 08-05-2020 at 11:04 PM.
-
Originally Posted by wintermoon
-
Originally Posted by Phil59
But "knowing" music isn't the same as "playing" it. If you know it and can play it/teach it any student will benefit moreso obviously than from a teacher that can only point out notes, chords and relate theory.
-
Originally Posted by wintermoon
-
Gotcha man.
Personally I'm kinda glad my old teachers knew how to actually play guitar instead of putting decals on the fretboard. I just wonder what my students think of them?
-
Originally Posted by neatomic
these statements can both be true:
- all good music teachers are musicians
- not all musicians are good music teachers
EDIT - I'll add that some musicians are much better teachers than they think they are, because they think good teaching means for instance, structured classroom teaching.Last edited by christianm77; 08-06-2020 at 06:14 AM.
-
Originally Posted by sgosnell
And this takes us back to the aesthetics vs praxis debate; teaching someone 'about music', suggests aesthetic and historical narratives, (which themselves are open to question and debate.) Learning 'about music' OTOH is obviously worth doing, but without wanting to be rude, many musicians simply parrot what they were told at college regarding theory, history etc, appeal to authority etc. There's no actual thinking going on, no critical engagement with these narratives, which makes me doubt the value of such classes. You even see it in jazz.
But they can PLAY, so it doesn't matter, which underlines my basic point. I don't need a great fusion player to know what Louis played on this or that record or who invented the altered scale. I don't need a violinist to critically engage with the social praxis of classical music. I just want them to play music!
Anyway, I do find this an interesting area to explore; to what extent is music an academic taught subject? I must say I am heavily influenced by the more praxis oriented thinkers on music education, which as I understand it is actually more an American trend?
Beyond purely academic music courses, there is the issue of 'non-playing' classes in music schools; harmony etc. These often seem taught in a very dry, classroom way that I find very odd because I really like playing around with harmony like most jazzers.
For an example; a good friend of mine who teachers at the junior Royal College (and a PhD student haha) pointed out that Figured Bass for instance, is rarely taught as what it actually is; a way of creating music. So, she would argue that rather than shunt it into the world of 'music theory', we should put it in the realm of tools for composition and improvisation. You don't lose anything by this, and gain a lot. A lot of the time it's just teaching the same info in a more imaginative and effective way than lectures.
(Although there may be issues with resources - lectures are cheap 'n' easy. But there are still changes that can be made.)
While I know many musician teachers of my age and younger who understand this (there is a movement to bring improvisation back into classical performance, for instance), this has to start early on with lessons and by necessity is a slow change, but will actually align the teaching of Western Music with its deeper traditions (those of the baroque and classical eras.)
This seems all seems like 'well, duh....' to me, but of course classical music education has shifted towards veneration of the Greats more than encouraging students to see harmony etc as a tool box to use for their own musical creations.
Increasingly, if my tutors and friends are anything to go by, the trend is to move towards more practically oriented and creativity focussed teaching. The interesting thing is the work of Keith Swanwick, Lucy Green, David Elliot and so on is revolutionary for them, but to me as a jazzer just seems like a codification of how we all instinctively teach music already. For example, CST is still primarily used as a resource for improvisation and composition by jazz musicians, never solely a tool of analysis.
So, I come back to the same basic theme - JP Rameau fucked it all up haha.Last edited by christianm77; 08-06-2020 at 06:12 AM.
-
This is not HIP but is hip (ha my classical music joke no doubt went way over the heads of you jazz cats)
re Schoenberg, everyone should check out the Piano Concerto, a late, non dogmatic 12-tone piece that is just absolutely fantastic. Beyond the ‘Brahms with wrong notes’ jibe he often gets tagged with
as for pure serialism (beyond 12-tone, applying serial principles to rhythm, dynamics etc), this is a great piece
-
Originally Posted by princeplanet
Considering Goodman specifically, hip/square is not the lens that occurs to me. Rather, it's the whole controversy of the "King of Swing" label being conferred on him (instead of, say, Ellington, Basie, or Webb) as emblematic of the racism of the times.
John
-
Things change quickly. My parents were born in the twenties, and loved big band music. The era didn't last long.
People then and now promote themselves, and are promoted by companies with an interest in them, with lots of titles. In reality there was no "king of swing", there was too much competition for the title. But Goodman was willing to do what few other white bandleader were, and regularly participated in "battles of the bands" at the Savoy Ballroom and other places, competing against the likes of Chick Webb and many others, with the audience being the judges. From what I've read, his band held its own. The concept doesn't make a lot of sense logically, but it packed the ballrooms, generating big gates. Stompin' At The Savoy came out of those contests. I think that shows that Goodman was considered hip at the time. Certainly Lombardo couldn't have pulled it off, and neither could Miller.
Music is a very broad subject, and easily encompasses those who play it, listen to it, theorize about it, and just dance to it, or even just hear it in elevators. It's so broad and universal that I don't believe any one viewpoint can ever be "the" correct one. Every culture has music, and while the music and attitudes about it vary widely, all are equally valid. For some, music is praxis. For some it's more theoretical. For some, it's just something to dance to in a club while looking for the ideal partner for the night. I don't care, as long as there is music to hear and play.
HeadRush?
Today, 11:54 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos