NYT Op Ed: "we're teaching music to our kids all wrong"

[AROIOS]

 

The topic of generational difference in musical taste comes up here a few times every year. And it never goes anywhere conclusive or very constructive. All these discussions turn into a predictable mixture of personal observations and anecdotes.
 

In the end, nothing changes, folks simply leave these posts holding their preconceived opinions. A couple of months later, another one of these posts comes up, and we all utter pretty much the same old stuff again.
 

Paulo "SynthMania"s synth-in-Pop webpage reminded me how much crap co-existed with some of my favorite tunes between the 70's and 90's, and that my own rosy view of those two decades is no exception to selective bias.

And I ask myself: even if I manage to prove that today's popular music in general are crappier and today's listeners are more tone-deaf, what's the point of doing that? There's nothing I can do to force-feed Whitney Houston instead of Nicki Minaj down their  throat like the record companies or iHeartMedia did.
 

What I found more helpful, is to simply play a few pieces of chord progressions (for example, the ones attached below) to friends who claim to "love music", and ask them to pick their favorite. I (politely, of course) avoid wasting too much time on the topic with anyone who prefer the 1st one.
 

Btw, well over half of non-musician friends of mine can't describe the difference between the 1st and the 2nd progression. It goes to show the sad state of music education the OP mentioned.

 

 

 

 

[CyberGene]

1 hour ago, AROIOS said:

What I found more helpful, is to simply play a few pieces of chord progressions (for example, the ones attached below) to friends who claim to "love music", and ask them to pick their favorite. I (politely, of course) avoid wasting too much time on the topic with anyone who prefer the 1st one.

Now, I am one who loves reharms and complicated harmonies, chord extensions, etc. and of course I prefer the second progression more, it’s my boat. However, I can still realize (sadly) and understand pretty well that the obsession with harmony is a single-sided way of approaching music. Because music has many elements too, there’s also melody, rhythm, form, timbre, modal vs tonal approach, tonal vs atonal, various degrees of polyphony or the lack of it, etc., etc. It’s just too narrow-sided to obsess with harmony as the sole element of music quality and again, I’m one who suffers from that harmonic obsession, so please don’t get insulted 😀 Remember how the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky was heavily criticized for focusing too much on the rhythms. But nobody talks about that anymore, it’s one of the cornerstones of all modern music.

[re Pete]

Too much of todays 'music' relies on optics instead of the ear. Pretty sad.

[ElmerJFudd]

46 minutes ago, re Pete said:

Too much of todays 'music' relies on optics instead of the ear. Pretty sad.

Optics has always been a factor in every genre of music.  Everyone is drawn to the package - the talented and oh so attractive performer.   Thankfully there have always been those whose musical skills are so outstanding that they capture our ear, mind and soul regardless of the optics.  This is a much more common occurrence in musical genres that value a high skill level, years of experience and manipulation of all the elements of music in real time.  A style like pop (which tends to be for seasonal mass consumption)  may not be the best choice of listening material for fans of music that expect more. Although there are always nice surprises when a great artist chooses pop as their vehicle. 
 

 

 

[ProfD]

18 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

If we want our kids to play musical instruments they have to love it.  Which means exposing them to a lot of music and a variety of music early so they did something they love.  Let them be involved in selecting their instrument when the time comes and support them with lessons if you can afford it. But loving it is definitely the first step.  

That's it in a nutshell.

 

There's no shortage of trained musicians who never pursued it and/or who gave up playing because they didn't have a passion for music. 

 

OTOH, there are many untrained musicians who are crushing it playing music because they have a passion and found a way to express themselves musically.

 

The best aspect of teaching folks how to play music is that it's good for the economy in providing job opportunities. 

 

Otherwise, there is no way to teach folks how to have a passion for playing music. 

 

The potential musician has to have a passion for it already.   That starts with exposure to music and building on what the listener likes.😎

[allan_evett]

18 hours ago, Stokely said:

I think some of you might be surprised at what (some) younger people listen to.

 

 

19 hours ago, Rod S said:

 

... I think BOTH are needed. 

 

I've been teaching private lessons since the late 1980s; almost full-time to minimal part-time.  In the mid-1990s I came off the road from a barely surviving county act, and started teaching again. I quickly acquired several students, and began to implement some alternative approaches to teaching. One adult student mentioned that he was intrigued with resuming lessons because of a line in my ad, "Lessons tailored to the individual".  Though he wanted to re-develop technique he also wanted practical theory: chords/voicings, and basic improv - so  that he could play in a band, accompanying himself singing, maybe even learn some jazz standards.  

 

The above has repeated itself many times since, though with even greater musical diversity. A recent student - who just left to attend an out-of-state university - was assigned to me in early 2022.  He wanted to learn basic note reading plus a better understanding of chords. He was trying to figure out what exactly he was playing when recording in FL Studio, and also wanted some insights into his beat making. He was a little skeptical of the student-teacher fit, as my experience with beats is minimal. But by listening and using overall production knowledge, I was able to help him somewhat; also learned a lot.  Still, I want to delve much deeper into beat-based writing and production. My original ideas seem so plain, and redundant now; outside influences-styles are badly needed. Would be awesome to find a collaborator in the style of DJ Pain 1.

 

Most of my students have highly diverse playlists, and I teach a lot in the age range of 6 to 25; beats to Bach, to Zeppelin... I was wrapping up my space the other night and checked in with the last teacher in the building. His guitar student - who looked to be perhaps 12 - was learning "Go Insane", by Lindsey Buckingham. So much for stereotypes...

[bill5]

3 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Optics has always been a factor in every genre of music.  Everyone is drawn to the package - the talented and oh so attractive performer.  

Sounds like you've never seen a rock concert.   The majority of them seem to go out of their way to look like hell...like that's "cool" or something...and most it wouldn't matter anyway because they aren't exactly lookers. The form-over-substance thing has grown out of more recent music. Take country. Good luck finding a country singer (female at least) who couldn't be a model too. I think it all started wtih MTV and went downhill from there.

[AROIOS]

7 hours ago, CyberGene said:

Now, I am one who loves reharms and complicated harmonies, chord extensions, etc. and of course I prefer the second progression more, it’s my boat. However, I can still realize (sadly) and understand pretty well that the obsession with harmony is a single-sided way of approaching music. Because music has many elements too, there’s also melody, rhythm, form, timbre, modal vs tonal approach, tonal vs atonal, various degrees of polyphony or the lack of it, etc., etc. It’s just too narrow-sided to obsess with harmony as the sole element of music quality and again, I’m one who suffers from that harmonic obsession, so please don’t get insulted 😀 Remember how the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky was heavily criticized for focusing too much on the rhythms. But nobody talks about that anymore, it’s one of the cornerstones of all modern music.

I agree 100% with what you said about the abundance of joy music could offer besides just harmony. I remind myself that exact fact all the time and I love rhythm programming and sound design.

My approach is simply a shortcut to indulge in my obsession with harmony, and to avoid the trauma from the retarded formula that plagued popular music after the late 90's (as shown in the viral video below), rather than a be-all-end-all mechanism to judge anyone's musicality.

Now let's bring more reharm fun to this place, cheers!
 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

1 hour ago, bill5 said:

Sounds like you've never seen a rock concert.   The majority of them seem to go out of their way to look like hell...like that's "cool" or something...and most it wouldn't matter anyway because they aren't exactly lookers. The form-over-substance thing has grown out of more recent music. Take country. Good luck finding a country singer (female at least) who couldn't be a model too. I think it all started wtih MTV and went downhill from there.

I disagree only to the extent that if that’s what the audience expects then that image is the optics.  

[MathOfInsects]

[ElmerJFudd]

7 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

Optics 

[MathOfInsects]

17 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Optics 

Exactly.

[bill5]

1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I disagree only to the extent that if that’s what the audience expects then that image is the optics.  

I guess my point is how much visuals/appearance matter to the listeners can vary widely per genre and/or the generation and has increased more over time in general... 

[confidence]

When I read articles like that I always wonder when the writer last set foot in an actual school. They seem to just be lamenting their experience of school music 40 years ago, with no concept of how things have moved on.

[ElmerJFudd]

16 minutes ago, bill5 said:

I guess my point is how much visuals/appearance matter to the listeners can vary widely per genre and/or the generation and has increased more over time in general... 

perhaps with video - it killed the radio star.  

[Josh Paxton]

On 9/28/2023 at 11:58 AM, Baldwin Funster said:

Alot of kids don't want to make the kind of music you play with guitars, pianos ect. Thats "Boomer Music".

 

No way, man! We're gonna keep on rockin' forever!... Forever!... Forever!... Forever... Forever... forever... forever... 

[Docbop]

6 minutes ago, Josh Paxton said:

 

No way, man! We're gonna keep on rockin' forever!... Forever!... Forever!... Forever... Forever... forever... forever... 

 

DAD, stop playing!!!!  You're embarrassing me with that ancient stuff.    Hello Siri, write me a song about teen frustration with old fathers!

[ElmerJFudd]

Real guitars are for old people.  
 

 

 

[Docbop]

My buddy still teaches guitar and so many of his students are old guy going through their Mid-Life Crisis and instead of going out and buying a Mazda Miata they head down to Guitar Center get a guitar and amp and trying to relive the youth fantasy of being a Rock Star.     I'd that the huge number of Boomers and other OGs buying  expensive guitars and other gear are keeping the music industry going.   Music industry pays it bills on people with lots of money and not a lot of skills, but are happy because they have the same gear as <fill in the blank>.    

[ElmerJFudd]

58 minutes ago, Docbop said:

My buddy still teaches guitar and so many of his students are old guy going through their Mid-Life Crisis and instead of going out and buying a Mazda Miata they head down to Guitar Center get a guitar and amp and trying to relive the youth fantasy of being a Rock Star.     I'd that the huge number of Boomers and other OGs buying  expensive guitars and other gear are keeping the music industry going.   Music industry pays it bills on people with lots of money and not a lot of skills, but are happy because they have the same gear as <fill in the blank>.    

I do see a lot of adult players come in and out of GC lesson rooms, but there are still kids playing guitar, bass, drums and keys, preferring rock music and even the lineage of it all.  Learning from the oldies.  School of Rock assembles pickup bands and assigns songs and parts.   So it’s not dead, they know the music - it’s the text book.  
 

But what’s most exciting is when they make their own music and take it someplace else.  Possibly not so traditionally blues based, not really using bends, no overdrive or distortion.  
 

I stumbled on Polyphia recently.  This is a very different sound than I expected from a 4 piece (2 guitars, bass and drums).  This isn’t boomer rock.  I’m not sure what it is yet, but it ain’t boomer rock, that’s certain.  
 

 

[jazzpiano88]

Y'all must've missed this while eating your grapenuts or oatmeal :

 

 

[ProfD]

I'd seen that Beato interview wirh Tim Henson a while back. That young fella is a monster guitarist.

 

There are many young musicians who are out there tearing it up which contradicts the grumbling and complaining and criticisms from older folks about the state of music and musicianship.

 

Young folks are learning how to play music just fine. Their peers know it too.😎

[jazzpiano88]

Agreed!  You can't just go by the top X spotify.   When you dig, people are better than their predecessors.  It's the mainstream consumers whose tastes have degraded since yesteryear.  

 

Just as an aside, one thing that has changed over the years is that there are fewer novelty songs in the top 10 than yesteryear.   The Streak, Monster Mash, Disco Gorilla, etc.   So back then there was a mix of weirdness and artistry that you don't see today.

[ElmerJFudd]

37 minutes ago, ProfD said:

I'd seen that Beato interview wirh Tim Henson a while back. That young fella is a monster guitarist.

 

There are many young musicians who are out there tearing it up which contradicts the grumbling and complaining and criticisms from older folks about the state of music and musicianship.

 

Young folks are learning how to play music just fine. Their peers know it too.😎

Ya of course.  But just as with players’ players before they aren’t doing pop.  There have been moments in history where musically deep, sophisticated (for lack of a better word) styles were popular if not the actual pop of the day. But it’s not fair to grade the quality of today’s music simply on what’s selling to the widest audience. That’s like saying Crocodile Dundee (1986) is the best film of the 80s because it grossed $174m (enjoyable at times, certainly funny moments and a great catch phrase - but a film maker’s film? 🤷‍♂️).  
 

There will always be music being made that’s intriguing to players.  But with as much music that’s being published today we have to go look for what’s great to us.  As JP88 says it’s not in top X Spotify.  

[Leroy C]

2 hours ago, Docbop said:

 Music industry pays it bills on people with lots of money and not a lot of skills, but are happy because they have the same gear as <fill in the blank>.    

I resemble that remark ...

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, JazzPiano88 said:

It's the mainstream consumers whose tastes have degraded since yesteryear.  

 

...novelty songs in the top 10 than yesteryear.   The Streak, Monster Mash, Disco Gorilla, etc.

If mainstream consumers were born to folks who were digging those novelty songs...they inherited degraded tastes in music.🤣

 

To be fair, McDonalds, er, Popular music hardly ever contains the most advanced displays of melodic and harmonic sophistication and musicianship. 

 

Musicians music has always required a deeper dive from both a listener and consumer perspective. It wasn't on Top Pop chart or Billboard. 😎

[jazzpiano88]

18 minutes ago, ProfD said:

If mainstream consumers were born to folks who were digging those novelty songs...they inherited degraded tastes in music.🤣

 

 I guess I don’t really regard those novelties as “music”.   More like a Whoopi Cushion.
 

 It’s more an observation that in the past, we had these entities on the pop charts that were like a gag prize on “Let’s Make a Deal”.  And somehow we just allowed it, like we allow commercials on network tv. 

[MathOfInsects]

This is always a bit hard to tease apart effectively, so bear with me.

What changes over time is not the quality of music (or any art), it's what each generation uses as its yardsticks for measuring art. So it's completely true that 50 years ago, it was popular (and preferred) to write songs with harmonic cleverness or complexity. That was that generation's aesthetic. Before that, pop music was dominated by doo-wop and the 1-6m-4-5 "Heart and Soul" progression. That generation's aesthetic was associated with the vocal approach and the rhythm, with less interest in that (predictable) harmonic component. Before that was big-band, before that a whole bunch of songs with "blues" in the title that were really just brassy pop songs, and so on.

Each new generation is born into a world where the previous generation's music already exists. That means that, right or wrong, it's inherently associated with an "old" sound. That is not the same thing as "good" or "bad," it's just factually true that the stuff our parents listened to, already existed when we were born. So when the new generation's artists start to develop their own aesthetic, they "speak" a language that is different from the previous generation's. It's analogous to slang; the whole point is to be inscrutable to the old folks. 

 

It doesn't mean the old stuff goes away or is somehow off-limits to new listeners, it just means a new aesthetic arises with each new generation that is "of" that generation, as the previous one was to its generation. It doesn't even mean people are wrong to like the old stuff. It just means that "new" stuff will likely reject the previous generation's most identifiable elements. 

What almost always ends up defining the "next" generation's music is the absence of whatever the previous generation valued most. It's the thing so essential to the previous generation's understanding of music that they can't even hear what comes next as music. If you read what people said about rock 'n roll contemporaneously, you will be hard-pressed to find a single syllable that people aren't saying now about pop, or 20 years about about grunge, or 20 years before that about hip-hop, or before rock 'n roll about bepop, or before that about jazz in general, or before that about Stravinsky, or before that about Debussy, or before that about Wagner, etc. 

So those who associate "music" with the harmonic cleverness, are absolutely right: there is not as much of that in pop music today. But saying that the absence of that particular element means--even "proves"--that music is "worse" now than when their yardstick was created, is not correct. The yardstick is self-defining. It is like saying a painting is bad because it doesn't use enough blue. It might not have a lot of blue, but who said "blueness" is what makes a painting good or bad?

It is indisputably true that the defining characteristic of the pop music of the mid-60's to mid-70s is not present in the pop music of today (or even 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, or 1910s, 1920s, and so on). It's not true that today's music lacks an aesthetic as meaningful to its listeners and creators as that previous generation's was to them, and the one before theirs was, and so on. 

 

This same process led composers in what we came to call the Classical Era to reject Baroque as too ornate and showy and meaningless, and Romantic era composers to reject Classical composition as too cold and stodgy, and ultimately led to almost a century of experiments in rejecting "tonality," which itself is a pretty young and idiosyncratic idea across the globe and across time. Funny enough we live in a time when American pop music is both as tonal as it as been since doo-wop, and also the least tonal (in hip-hop) that it has maybe ever been. It's a pretty amazing juxtaposition.

For those who grew up with early hip-hop, mumble-rap is aggravating. The whole point of rap is supposed to be the rapping!

Our role on the planet is to both reject and build on the pillars of the previous generation. We move toward progress/change. We're essentially perpetually teenagers, culturally speaking. We think we know everything and life starts with us. Then a new generation of perpetual teenagers comes along and they know new stuff, so we think they know nothing. And so on, and so on, forever and ever amen. 

 

 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

Music has several definable elements, right?  Tempo, meter, rhythm, pitch (harmony, melody), dynamics, timbre being the most notable.  
 

Musical styles may favor developing one element over another.  Or reject action some element(s) to bring attention to another or others. 
 

Because, as MOT suggests, the popular music of the day rejects characteristics that preceded it there is always the possibility that the result is boring (particularly to musicians) in one or more musical elements.  
 

The solution for players who prefer music that makes greater use of musical elements is to take or leave fashionable trends - which is what pop is. At any given time there are many styles of music being made (old and new) each with their own audience regardless of what’s happening in pop.  
 

Example - Vulfpeck is 2010s band that incorporates aspects of several musical styles that players may  appreciate.  They exist successfully at the same time as the Spotify top 10.  

[CyberGene]

37 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Example - Vulfpeck is 2010s band that incorporates aspects of several musical styles that players may  appreciate.

I may be in the minority here but I find their music pretty “made up” if I can call it that way. On a first glance everything is of natural and soulful quality, it’s like a bunch of great musicians are making some great down to earth music and it’s very appealing. But it’s that same quality that also creates the feeling of artificiality to me. Kind of like they didn’t play what they actually feel but rather crafted it in a particular likable manner. I might be wrong though. I loved them for a day and thought I found a great project only to find myself hardly needing it on the very next day. And I tried to understand why that was, so that’s my theory.