As I was looking across the sea of bored faces in my humanities class this morning, I wondered if it's harder for people to appreciate classical music if they haven't been brought up with it. I was thinking about one of my favorite movies, Xanadu (one of two movies I own--the other one is Breakfast at Tiffany's--both on VHS) and how people either love or hate that movie, depending on if they saw it as a child. I remember watching it on t.v. when I was in first or second grade and thinking I heard my name in that song Olivia Newton John sings when she's roller skating around that empty auditorium (I think it's called, "Magic," and when she sings the word, "survive," it sounds like she's saying my name). I rediscovered that movie in college, when I happened to be working in the paint shop with two other girls who also loved that movie as kids. One of the girls owned it and during our lunch breaks we'd drive to Dairy Queen for 50 cent hot dogs and go back to her apartment and watch that movie (we were a little liberal with our lunch breaks). We felt like we were triplets separated at birth, because it's difficult to find other people who love that movie (it's really pretty cheesy).
Anyway, I've been having the students do little presentations on Romantic period composers where they share some biographical information and bring some listening examples for the whole class to hear. The group today brought in some Bruckner, who wrote some gorgeous symphonies. We listened to a few minutes of one, and I while it was playing I realized that this music could really sound boring to people who haven't listened to classical music before at home as children or teenagers. They're used to classical music being elevator music, or something they study to, or something they hear on commercials or movie scores--always background music, if they notice it at all. They recognized Wagner's Ride of the Valkries (sp?) and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet because these themes have been used numerous times in commercials or cartoons. But when it comes to something that's unfamiliar to them like a Bruckner or Mendelssohn symphony, they automatically tune out and their eyes glaze over and they start chatting and rustling papers and coughing. It's almost like a Pavlovian response: an unfamiliar orchestral piece comes on over the speakers and they start drooling (or dozing or coughing or sighing with boredom).
I think I really love classical music because it has sentimental value for me. When I was a kid mom had the Amadeus soundtrack on cassette tape, and for a period of a few years, that's all we listened to at home. It was Mozart, 24/7. I remember specific instances. I was in third grade and we were living in Grand Island, NE in a small apartment building. I knew we must have been poor because the carpet was ugly and brown and I had to wear hand-me-down clothes from my cousins, and we didn't have a piano, so I was not able to take piano lessons like I wanted. Instead, the carpet served as my keyboard. I knew the Concerto for Two Pianos inside and out, and would sit on the floor and pound out all of the notes, convinced I could play it for real if a piano materialized in front of me. I also remember putting together a terrarium for a science fair project and singing along to Don Giovanni.
Now, whenever I listen to the Amadeus soundtrack, which is on my iPod, I am instantly taken back to that time when Mozart helped us get through a tough time. I know the order of the songs, and I can sing them by heart. But unless my students have experienced a similar scenario where music was played at home, I doubt they can connect with the music in the way that I can. That music is written in an old and outdated language they don't understand. It sounds completely different from Tupac or Alicia Keys or Britney Spears or Vince Gill, songs of which last a few short minutes with catchy and provocative lyrics and flashy guitar riffs or techno beats to keep them dancing or singing along. Classical music, on the other hand, requires a long attention span, deep listening skills, and a comfortable chair to hear all the nuances and subtle orchestral effects. It takes time to absorb a piece--it doesn't offer instant gratification like popular music. And for them to be exposed to classical music for the first time in a big, fluorescent-lighted, concrete-walled, no windowed, bland white dirty choir room with no comfortable desks or chairs to sit in--it's no wonder they space out and text-message their friends during class. I would probably do the same if I were in their shoes.
There has been no precedent set for them--no reason for them to consider music written by "dead white guys" hundreds of years ago. Classical music is something rich old people listen to. What could it possibly have to do with their lives? The fact that it is beautiful is not enough. They have no point of reference, or sentimental attachment. I honestly can't think of a reason they should listen to classical music or attend symphony concerts, other than transparent arguments that it makes them more "cultured," or because it's beautiful, or it feels satisfying to listen to. They've already got their music that feels satisfying to them.
I feel like I have to sell them on classical music before the end of the quarter on Dec. 1. How will I do it? Is it possible? Should this be the purpose of the class or should they be allowed to sit there bored out of their minds, making a few chicken scratches in their notebooks as I lecture about the difference between a fugue and a toccata, or what sonata form is? Should I care that they don't care?
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