I have been watching some Scott Adams video clips lately. He puts up something every morning and they are sometimes interesting because he tends to have a different take on things. Mind you, I rarely get past the first ten or fifteen minutes because I find them content lite. Sort of interesting, but he just takes too long to make his point. This morning he started by talking about music and he read out a tweet from a Alexander J. A. Cortez who said:
Music is mental programming. Do not ever discount its power. It changes your psyche on a deep level.Scott re-tweeted it with the added comment:
This is why I don't listen to music. Literally.Then he goes on to talk about the phenomenon of people listening to music on headphones while they do their jobs or homework. He says he doesn't recommend it. Neither do I! But Scott has some weird ideas about music. He thinks it can be useful used "medicinally" meaning as an energizing soundtrack while you work out or something. But he also thinks it is an addiction that you "inject" into yourself, like heroin. He is deeply suspicious of music that you listen to because you "like it." Because you let in the "thoughts and emotions and lyrics of the author." Then he goes on to talk about how kids are very attached to listening on their headphones and how difficult it is to get them to do their homework without music. I haven't actually encountered that, but perhaps it is true, so let's just assume it.
Scott Adams is, I think, based on this and some earlier clips, a basically non-musical person. He doesn't seem aware of music beyond its pop manifestations, nor does he seem aware of music as an art form. I notice the same thing with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple when he was talking about music. These folks did not, I suspect, have music lessons when they were young, so their only real exposure to music is through the mass media, hence pop music. They don't seem to be curious about music and regard it as being much on the same level as a mild tranquilizer or amphetamine. OK, in small doses, but you want to watch your intake.
I would really like to sit them down and give them a short course in music that would expand and challenge their previous experience. What would they think after listening to a classical piece that was easily accessible on first hearing, but entirely outside the model they have conceived? I'm thinking of something like the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or the last movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 41. Obviously music, but in a different mode than what they are used to. Would they change their view? Or would they just be insensitive to it and make the same claims as they would about the pop music they are used to?
Let me be clear, I don't think that you can or should listen to music while you are trying to work. I also don't like background music as a rule. I think any piece worth hearing is worth actually listening to. But I don't think you should combine that activity with something else. For me music, good music, has a transcendent element that is the real reason we listen to it. Let's let Bach make the argument for us:
Different people really can be very different. I don't think anyone can change their tastes by introducing them to what we might think is the best music. For example, I meet some unmusical people at work. In my very small sample, they tend to be engineers or students of engineering, showing zero interest in any music or discussion of music. Others seem to actually like the most vulgar and illiterate rap music, in my small sample these have been the ex-military guys. In my broader world of family and friends, mostly they like the most bland popular music, or a few around my age are stuck in our childhood, still hooked on Led Zeppelin and other "classic rock." Hell, I even put on some really loud Neil Young with Crazy Horse just the other day. But I really have only one friend who truly and deeply loves classical music. We have been going to operas and symphonies and recitals together for years. A few other family or friends have gone to one or two with me over the years, but no abiding interest. And then there is my 18 year old son Justin, who has gone to hundreds of classical concerts and recitals and operas with me, and who refuses to listen to anything except classical music.
ReplyDeleteYou are obviously correct that only a small minority of people consistently listen to and enjoy classical music. But I want to push back a bit about the idea that people's tastes cannot be changed. As someone who was a music educator for much of his life I am rather invested in the idea that people can develop their musical tastes.
ReplyDeleteWe generally think it is a good idea to give children the opportunity at least to take music lessons when they are young. The idea is to discover if they have musical gifts or not. Then, if they desire it, they can pursue these gifts so that they can become professional musicians or, perhaps more often, musical amateurs who will enjoy playing and listening to music their whole lives while earning a living doing something else. Like yourself!
But what if someone with latent musical abilities never has the opportunity to exercise them? I think that taste is something you cultivate based on exposure and inherent sensibilities. Everyone with "taste," that is, a sensitivity to and understanding of art or music or literature, had to develop that taste through exposure and education.