The Tragic Decline of Music Literacy (and Quality)

@schubert, wasn't this always the way? 
Everything is of its time, no escaping that but civilisation goes up and down.
Between the end of the great Greek golden age and the beginnings of the Renaissance very little progress seemed to happen. Then it took off.

With music, its always about expression first. Different decades had different feelings to express. Wasn't the youthful frustration behind much Rock and Roll in the 50's mirrored by a similar frustration behind Punk/New Wave/Metal/Rap in the 70s/80s and beyond? 

I'm not sure what the kids of today are trying to say but it'll never stray too far from frustration, dating, lack of money etc.

Strangely enough politics seems to be totally unfashionable nowadays whereas they were at the forefront during Punk, (and Folk decades earlier). 

I'm not worried, I've got my archives!

@mahgister,

"Hollywood was and is propaganda masquarading in art....Chomsky wrote about that...Where is Chomsky in american TV? the most influential linguist is unknown in america and he is also one of the most interesting historian of the American empire...Nowhere to be seen...."


Err.. Chomsky does tend to say unpopular things, which in this day and age especially are liable to be banished to the further reaches of the university library - or your favourite search engine.

These are worrying times for anyone interested in preserving historical integrity. For instance historical truth can now easily be airbrushed out, or carefully selected to only present only one side of the story.

With digital manipulation this process can make the truth from the fake very difficult to discern.

Once again the value of archives is demonstrated. Just as precious out of print vinyl is sometimes our only link with certain performers and performances so are those out of print books which encapsulated the feel of the the times in which they were published.

Hindsight can sometimes be a wonderful thing, but it can also be a terribly destructive one.

Truthseekers must tread carefully.

@remembrances,

Very Proustian.

There are those who can create.

There are those who can also appreciate.

Then there are those who can do neither.

n80,

"The public school system is the domain of the left. The left drives STEM. The right approves."


Unfortunately true of the UK schools curriculum too.

My 16 year old daughter said her history school curriculum has dictated that her class spent two whole terms learning about the African slave trade and one term each for the past two years on WW1 trench warfare.

Fair enough, but she said there has been nothing on ancient Greece or the history of the Roman empire.

Therefore the entire history of the Romans in Britain and the importance of the ancient Greeks for the development of western civilization has been totally omitted.

Her artwork seems to be centred around a few post WW2 artists and photographers.

Once again no mention of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Dali etc.

As for musical education, this seems hardly any better today than it was back in my school days.

Thankfully our music teacher, who never bothered teaching us anything about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven etc did bring in his collection of Beatles LPs. He was quite an eccentric, often dressed as John Lennon as on the Abbey Road sleeve, and would bring in his own record player to play his discs.

On one shocking occasion he threw the school’s turntable across the room, claiming it was rubbish! He said he had a better record player in his car.

We may not have learned anything about Beethoven or Mahler, but he did make us write out lyrics from various songs from Sgt Pepper. So thank you for that Mr R, if not for the seemingly endless recorder lessons.

Anyway, this neglect of an historical context does seem to be a strange way of delivering education; whereby most British children will leave state education at 16 with hardly any awareness of what has gone before.

History still matters, doesn’t it?

Things weren’t much better in my day but at least we got to learn about some of the prime ministers since Pitt the Younger (Gladstone, Disraeli etc) and some of the key events in history such as the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Boston Tea Party!

In the UK we also seem to have a particular blind spot when it comes to the influence of the various Roman invasions of Britain under Julius Caesar and the emperor Claudius and their subsequent importance and legacy.

Another key event that gets glossed over is the English civil war of 1651 which is up there with Henry the 8th and his break with the Catholic church in regards to British history.

Yet Cromwell, as far as our education system (?) goes, remains to this day a largely unknown figure (like Guy Fawkes) who is mainly there to be mocked from time to time but never explained or explored.

I guess, as Michelle Shocked once sang, "The Book of History has many missing pages."

Especially in the books of the ones who seem to be setting the schools curriculum nowadays.

I’d like to think that in the British 2 tier school system, free and paid for, the private schools (from where most of our political leaders emerge), are still bothering to teach their children something of classical education and the arts.

@mahgister,

"Incredible..... Without history people are pathetically lost about societal issues...How easy it is to manipulate the brain of someone knowing no history....How difficult it is to try that with an educated man...."



This is the point. History itself is under attack, along with truth.

How many of us are familiar with the old germ v terrain theory debate?

And why not? Could it be that the pharmaceuticals might be less than favourable to anything that challenges germ theory?

Education can be a wonderful roadmap for the journey ahead, but it’s only that.

No more than a map.

Better than nothing for sure. Otherwise you are at great risk of being manipulated. Usually for the goal of increasing someone’s profits.

In any case musical literacy matters less and less today due to technology. It didn’t even matter that much in the days of the Beatles. Remember they couldn’t even read or write music, just chords.

Luckily for them they had George Martin and they still had to build songs up by constant rehearsal.

I suspect the way most songs are assembled today are quite different. And a different set of skills are required. The only thing that counts is the end result. Everything is geared towards that goal.

Sales.

In that way nothing has changed. Today’s artists are still doing what Bing, Frank, Nat, Elvis, Buddy, and the Beatles were all trying to do - make money.

I don’t believe any of them were trying to make art that would last even 50 years. But they did.

Yet who knows what tomorrow’s audience will be into? Artists like authors are also prone to the vagaries of fashion.

W Somerset Maugham was the best selling author in the world in the 40s and 50s. How many read him now?

Maybe it's not about the decline of musical standards after all?

Maybe it never was?

Maybe instead it's only more about the decline of our generation?