There are some great, innovative ideas out there when it comes to the musical education of our nation’s children, but sadly not every American kid is going to have the opportunity to participate in a kick-ass program like El Sistema USA or Baltimore’s own OrchKids. So in this time of anxiety about the waning attendance figures for live performances of symphonic music, I wonder about something: how important is quality vs. simple exposure?
Almost to a man when I interview someone in my age bracket about their early experiences with the great masterworks of the classical canon, they name check Looney Tunes but then go right to that “Hooked on Classics” record in their parents’ collection. Seriously, how many billions of copies did that thing sell? In my neighborhood, we wore the tape out, using it as a soundtrack for our awkwardly choreographed backyard dance routines. Sure it’s supremely schlocky, but it sure gets the exposure job done and buries the tunes deep in the ear.
More than any official training program, does this missing piece from the mainstream experience mark the true cause for alarm as we look ahead at the survival of the art form? I can’t see those Reader’s Digest 3-LP collections of great classical music melodies selling very many copies these days, but is there a 2010 equivalent? Fantasia 2, brought to you by Pixar?
Whew! I managed to listen to the end. I didn’t realize all classcial music has the same tempo. Now I know.
Another option is the Young Audiences organization which arranges for professional musicians play for kids in schools. According to their website:
“This year, our network of 30 affiliates and 4,600 artists reached 7 million children in nearly 7,000 schools with 16,300 performance demonstrations, 67,000 workshops and 3,240 teacher services.â€
This is especially effective when Young Audiences concerts are followed by the school’s music teachers talking to the kids about joining one of the school’s ensembles. It helps to get the kids to visit the band room and hear and hear and see what’s going on – to take a close look at the instruments and hear what they can do. School music programs are the backbone of our musical culture. When kids play music themselves, they often become patrons for life.
I very clearly remember sitting in sixth grade music class, and the teacher pulled out the LP of the score to the very first Star Wars movie. (When I was in sixth grade, this was also the only Star Wars movie.)
The cover to the LP was black — as black as Metallica’s album would later be, as black as Spinal Tap’s — as black as Dark Vader’s cape, as black as the vinyl inside.
She put it on a turntable, and we listened. We all knew this music by heart already. After she played it, she talked about it. She talked about the way the symphony orchestra was structured. She talked about how the themes meant different things when played on different instruments. She talked about the way different parts of the score symbolized different characters. If memory serves, she then played other classical music that John Williams had been inspired by, and the comparisons were clear.
My parents listened to classical music at home, but we never really talked about it, discussed it. That Star Wars listening experience opened a door for me that I didn’t even know was there.
I don’t remember my music teacher’s name, but I owe her a debt of gratitude that I hadn’t thought of in the longest time until I read your post.
El Sistema and Orchkids is a program that advocates participation: music making itself, not listening to “classical music” melodies played by an orchestra with a spoonful (or perhaps a cupful) of rhythm-track sugar to make it all palatable.
Fortunately I grew up in a household without a copy of “hooked on classics” in it (this blog post was actually my first exposure to it–and my last). I also grew up in a household where everybody played music themselves, and sometimes even together.
Here come the snobs again! The original point was that it IS schlocky, but it turned millions of kids to classical music. I came to like classical music through movie soundtracks–Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Exodus. . . The important point is that they led me to Beethoven, Dvorak, and Wagner. I get so tired of “serious” music lovers who can’t stand the thought of music appealing to a large group of people. I’m reminded of one especially pompous classical announcer on an Atlanta classical station who remarked that they played “music for the few, not for the many.” Gimme a break. Use any means you can to get kids interested! Don’t look down your nose at them. FEh!
Molly adds: Exactly! That’s what happened to me and I think I turned out to be a respectable classical music citizen in the end. I also had one of those “Most Amazing Melodies in the World!!” type multi-LP sets, but I can’t remember who made it for the life of me. The cover was all done in tones of brown and yellow and there were like 25 tunes a side on that baby. Anyone remember what that was?
I, too, am a Hooked-on-Classics kid. We had a Time-Life mono record set of all the basic classical repertoire (seriously, everything was in there), so whenever my siblings and I heard a tune on the cartoons or on Hooked-on-Classics, we’d go and look up the whole thing in the massive Time-Life collection. I don’t think of Gargamel and Azrael every time I hear Schubert’s 8th, but I can give them some props for bringing it to my ears in the first place.
Another thing I’ve recently been hipped to is Lucy Green’s work on informal learning in UK classrooms. She’s got two books on it and it spawned an entire foundation with materials and everything. Very interesting stuff:
http://www.musicalfutures.org/
What I like about Green’s approach is that it’s not about creating classical music patrons. It’s about getting people to connect with music as players, starting with the music they’re already listening to.
I’m glad that my parents got me listening to classical music. It’s not that it makes me feel cultured or intelligent, it just makes me feel good. Of course now they’re saying that the ‘Mozart Effect,’ is bunk… but I certainly have done all right by getting hooked on classical… and so did Jason Bateman, check it out: http://www.itsasickness.com/lounge/jason-bateman-obsessed-classical-music
Umm…there already was a “Fantasia 2” (Fantasia 2000 more accurately). It was Roy Disney’s baby all the way. There were some CGI sections, although Pixar had nothing to do with it.
And the fact that you didn’t know it existed kinda quashes that theory. 🙂
Molly adds: I refuse to count that one 🙂 Secretly I actually hope for a “Wallace and Gromit: The Case of the Crazy Concertmaster” episode, but I fear that is probably a bridge too far. Still, imagine all those orchestra characters in claymation! (swoon)