BunnyBlinks » Education

“The Two Ginsbergs”

Greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:25:47 +0000

This got me thinking of two things I learned from Allen Ginsberg, whom I briefly met 15 years ago after he read and sang to a large group at my alma mater:

(1) William Blake’s poems are meant to be sung. Ginsberg performed some of Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience” with a slightly slobbery awkwardly energy I would never forget. (I had yet to hear these.)

(2) When a 69-year-old gay elder statesmen of beat poetry asks a fairly innocent 20-year-old man from Ohio at 9pm if he’d like to join him for “breakfast,” he’s neglecting to mention that breakfast would lie at the end of an unspoken chain of hoped-for events, implied by the shaky but confident placing of the former’s wrinkly hand on the latter’s corduroyed knee. Although flattered, I declined. No hash browns were had, but I made the most of my bragging rights.

Listen Without Prejudice.

Greg — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:00:00 +0000

This image via Slog, the blog of The Stranger, “Seattle’s only newspaper,” which is edited by Dan Savage. Apparently, they will now be dropping the star system from their album reviews.

It’s a move in the right direction. Whether in a formal class setting or informal conversation, I’ve always tried to point out that we should treat songs like we do people, listening to them on their own terms, not judging/rating them so much as figuring out what they’re trying to say, and thinking critically about why they’re trying to say it.

The rating system isn’t much more than a tool for marketers, and it’s rarely used in the one way I can think of that might be at all productive. Much like letter grades in a composition course, stars should be assigned with an ear to how well the composer/performer is saying what they’re trying to say, and not with an ear to whether the evaluator likes the musical message.

That said, I wish they would drop the new labels that replace the star system. Yeah, it’s Seattle, the land of Archie MacPhee. I get it. Cute. But they don’t exactly promote the open-minded critical thinking that has the potential to keep bridging the narrowing gap between popular and academic music criticism.

Not to mention they’re missing a label, aren’t they? They’ve got “cute,” “magical and/or gay,” “tough,” and “slow.” Can you tell me which one is missing?

Marriage and Music Education.

Greg — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:06:00 +0000

If more and more people want to participate in a given institution, the institution had better welcome the new energy or risk crumbling.

Preventing large emerging groups of people from participating in “marriage” will ultimately do for marriage what keeping large groups of emerging musics from participating in music education did for music education programs.

(Hint: they aren’t exactly thriving these days).

Your fundamentals of music are likely not mine. Her fundamentals of marriage are likely not his.

I ain’t sayin’ we need to throw out moral codes.

But maybe it’s time for music educators to focus once again on the songs we’re actually singing, not just the ones that seemingly confirm the theories of harmony, counterpoint, and other distilled “elements of music” promoted for all sorts of weird historical reasons by a steadily shrinking group of increasingly anachronistic people.

Lord knows it’s certainly time for the “institution of marriage” to enrich the relationships we’re actually in, rather than dismissing the ones that don’t conform to the beliefs no doubt also promoted for all sorts of weird historical reasons by a steadily shrinking group of increasingly anachronistic people.

[self-editing note: It should—but I admit probably doesn't—go without saying that many of my friends and I belong to one or both groups of the aforementioned "increasingly anachronistic people." I would never wish to exclude you, them, myself, nor anyone else from either institution.]