In another forum I would word that differently as simply "YouTube Music Education," but on the internet you have to have titles with punch--and actually that's one of the problems. But let's start with a neutral stance and just have a look at music education on YouTube.
Of course, this is not a formal kind of music education, but there is a surprising amount of educational music videos on YouTube. Let's look at some categories.
Composer's Videos
One prominent figure with a lot of clips is David Bruce who has his own website that describes his music as follows:
Often witty and always colourful, pulsing with earthy rhythms, Bruce's music has a directness rarely heard in contemporary music, but also contains an emotional core of striking intimacy and sensitivity.
I wonder who wrote that? In any case, let's look at a couple of clips:
That is an answer to the composer Samuel Andreyev whose videos tend to be more analytical:
Music Appreciation
This is a much bigger category and one of the leading lights is Rick Beato who talks mainly about pop music but with some excursions into classical and jazz:
Here is a more typical one:
Learning Music
Here is an example of another category: basic videos about music for beginners.
A lot of this is a loss leader designed to encourage you to sign up for a more extended course. That was a 30 minute infomercial. This fellow does it in half the time:
This is a little more complex: how to compose first species, note-against-note, counterpoint:
The locus classicus of this is Johann Joseph Fux (1660 - 1741).
And I'm sure there are a zillion others, many devoted to learning specific instruments or specific solos in pop songs.
I have to confess that I usually avoid music education videos, but let me explain why, as it might not make sense for you. I find that usually I know what is being pointed out already. That's the curse of being over-educated in music. Also, especially with the more motoric presenters, I find the pseudo-certainty to be rather annoying. No, these are likely NOT the five greatest pop songs ever, or the greatest guitar solo, or the most brilliant concert ever played. I prefer to listen to people with just a bit of humility!
While straight music videos on YouTube are an astonishing boon to all music lovers, the ones with a lot of talking tend to waste time--at least for me. I would prefer an actual text that I can browse at my own speed.
Another thing that you might find annoying is the effort to pump up the enthusiasm that is undoubtedly related to the need for more clicks. Rick Beato always acts like whatever he is talking about is the Greatest Thing Ever. Even first year music students tend to be just a bit jaded.
But all that might not matter at all to you. For probably most people, YouTube videos contain a great wealth of very valuable knowledge about music--and with real sound examples.
Anyone have any thoughts on this, or more examples?
5 comments:
Indeed, this YouTube educational is maybe attractive for inexperienced musicians, who are dreaming about magic achievements, but ultimately it will distract/entertain more than seriously teach. Famous YouTubers are also there to sell their magic chords bible, or ultimate course, and to grab as much audience possible as to monetize big. I have seen Rick Beato, David Bruce, and similar others, but don’t feel much interest towards, for the most reasons you mentioned. Technically their staging or video editing style is more trendy than convincing as for learning efficiency, there is a lot of wasted time, kiddy like gimmicks illustrations, too much talk, moods, opinions, that I don’t really need for my enrichment. I much prefer to listen to a conductor talking about his music perception and the way he translates it to the orchestra. Or a musicologist sharing his research about a composer’s musical intimacy. The risk with these YouTubes is to loose the track to the real work, if of course this is the goal intended. For the one who seeks for entertainment, or likes following his favorite YouTube star daily thoughts, it’s fully ok. But for the one who wants to study the core of music, every corner of it is since long covered in books, scores, interviews, masterclasses, concert videos, recordings. Nothing beats having a score in hands, and analyse it, reduce it, cultivate inside audition, listen to a good rendition, play it, and take from it all the necessary substance for own growing. Even a beginner can start with this way. A good ear and intuition will have enough discrimination to find by itself the required steps for progress, without the need of external recipes. And how can you find your own voice if you are constantly flooded by entertainment or light information spots that scatter you to the periphery? I would add that the increasing virtual translation of the world won’t help, but going to the opposite direction of what is in first required (fragmentation vs unity). Which is in music to cultivate inner silence and audition, feel on the body level the subtle interactions when playing own instrument, and increase holistic hearing to integrate, as Celibidache said so accurately, how to reduce the infinity to a momentum which is connected to the whole. This is far from the catchy trends, unfortunately.
Adam Neely has an interesting channel, mainly about harmony with a mix of history.
I think these videos should not only thought of as educational in the sense of replacing formal education, but as educational in the family of infotainment or light documentary.
Viewed like this, one does not compare its educational capability to that of a written text or a video lesson, but to the alternative of watching something entertaining but not educational. It can also be a entry point for someone to develop a more serious interest in the subject, to be followed up with more rigorous material.
Eric, yes, quite true!
I forgot to include Adam Neely who has some brilliant clips about rhythm and one rather mean-spirited one claiming that classical musicians have a poor sense of rhythm based on one wobbly double-bass player.
I have gotten to know Adam Neely a bit over the past couple of years after helping out on a couple of his videos (he also wrote the forward to a music technology pedagogy textbook that I co-authored.) I asked Adam how he sees his relationship to music education. He told me that he doesn't see himself as an educator at all, that he's making "infotainment." Adam's mother is a music teacher and he takes music education very seriously, but does not consider that to be the work that his videos are doing. His main motivation for getting involved in YouTube was to create more opportunities for himself to perform, and is mildly surprised at how they have taken on a life of their own.
I think Adam sells himself short; amusing though his videos are, they do often have rich educational value. His recent one that debunks the myth of the tritone as "the devil in music" is something I would happily assign to a music history class.
I will have to check out the one on the tritone!
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