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From: mat@hou4b.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical,net.audio
Subject: Re: Why classical music is not popular
Message-ID: <1074@hou4b.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Aug-84 20:47:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou4b.1074
Posted: Sun Aug  5 20:47:26 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Aug-84 04:26:26 EDT
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I'm bouncing this followup to net.audio as well because I think it will
be of interest there.  If you followp to this, please delete the net.audio.
(Aside to Bill Mitchell -- if you see this, please send a confirming reply ...)

	In years past, if you wanted music, you had to play it.  Music was
written to be sold (sheet music) as well as to be performed.  The coming of the
phonograph changed all this.

	But what did the ``participatory'' nature of music mean?

	Most music would be within the range of a skilled amateur --
or at least could be arranged so that it was.

	People took interest in the technical challenges and the rewards.  If
a piece was difficult to play, the difficulties had to lead to a pleasing
result.  If it did things like modulate keys, invert, or reverse motion,
the player saw this.  The interesting things about the performance and the
structure were important, because the performer was a large part of the
audience.

	Since most people could play, even as listeners they could hear
the composer doing things that were interesting to the performer.

	Today's pop music is written to be heard.  It is not meant to pose
interesting puzzles of technique (with appropriate rewards) nor to give
fun to the performer.  It is not meant to be interesting from the technical
point of view -- the player's, but only from the listener's point of view.

	Contrariwise, ``classical composers'' after Stravinsky (with a few
exceptions) have gotten so wrapped up in the ``meaning of the medium of the
art'' -- ie. the technik -- that they no longer care to speak to the public.
Their language is the technik, not the effect upon the uneducated listener.
Their real audience is other composers and a few musically literate critics.

	What we have is epidemic musical illiteracy.  The non-performers, by
and large, are interested only in a ``song sung for an idiot, full of sound
and fury, and signifying -- nothing.''  Without a public to communicate to, the
meaningful composers have turned inward, playing little games like Cage's
random ``aleatory music'' -- a mastubatory excercise at best.

	I've become really aware of this because I am learning keyboard
(slowly).  Most classical lovers, and many others, will have heard the famous
Bouree' by J.S.Bach.  What most of us probably don't know is that this little
gem is a teaching piece.  I can make my way though the first part of it (my
touch is non-existant) and I have discovered something.

	Musical types:  I apologize if this is old hat.  Non-musical types:
please try to make your way through this.

	Bach keeps the left hand in one place for the first seven measures
(assuming the score is written in 4/4, which seems to be more convention
than reality for Bach).  The hand rests on (54321) E, F#, G, A, B.  Entering
the second-to-last measure, Bach writes G, (for 3 -- middle finger) then
2 (index finger) up to C and thumb to D.  Then he calls for 5 (little finger)
to go to D an octave down.

	The section is written in a nominal G major, and Bach will end it
there with a G major chord for the left hand.  Three notes, when the student
has been playing only one on each hand.  But look where that second to last
meaure has left us:

	The thumb is on D (dominant of the chord) and the middle finger is now
hovering back around G (the keynote or lowest note of the chord).  Meanwhile,
the index finger has pulled down over B -- the middle note of the chord.
Bach has put our left hand in just the right place!  All we have to do is
let it down on the keys.

	From what I can see, little or none of today's music teaching aids
present this kind of discovery or reward.  Why should they?  After all, not
everyone will learn to play.  Only those who are very dedicated or very
lucky will ever work this stuff through.

	What a tragedy!  Hundreds of years of musical development lost in
just two generations!  We worry about the effect of the computer on the
basic skills of our children.  Why, oh why couldn't we have recognized this
happening when the phonograph was invented?  Why did it take asbestos and
Thalidomide and Agent Orange and PCBs to make us suspicious of ``progress''?

	[ ... as the words fade, they are replaced by the opening ]
	[ measures of The Art of the Fugue ... ]
-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
		(scrape .. dig )	hou5d!mat
    ,..      .,,       ,,,   ..,***_*.  (soon hou4b!mat)