In the case of classical music, the benefit of learning to like it
isn’t really in the form of enjoyment of classical music; it’s in the
form of getting to sincerely claim to like classical music, and no
longer being left out when highly cultured people discuss classical music.
How would you know this given your admittedly limited experience with
classical music?
Speaking for myself, there is lots of music that I love listening too,
in many different genres, but nothing else has such power to move me as classical music as its best does—for example
—the Confutatis from Mozart’s Requiem, or the Bach d-minor
Chaccone, or in a lighter vein that I think anybody can appreciate and feel moved by, Paganiniani or the vitali chaconne.
I love lots of popular music, and probably listen to popular music about as much as I do classical, but there is a certain kind of ecstatic—almost mystical—experience that some classical music triggers that I’ve never gotten with popular music.
Okay—so you get special, unique value from classical. Meanwhile, I get special, unique value from Phantom of the Opera. Why should I think that learning to like classical music is more worth my time—given that I’m now left bored by most classical, or think of it as pleasant background noise—than pirating more Andrew Lloyd Weber?
I’m not so much arguing for learning to like classical music as for learning to understand classical music. I think most people would enjoy it more if they had greater understanding. Classical music is especially rewarding with greater appreciation/understanding, and especially difficult to enjoy with less appreciation/understanding. Perhaps an analogy will convey my point better.
You write fiction, yes? Have you ever studied creative writing, taken a class, read a book on creative writing? Have you ever had an English class with a skilled and passionate teacher that involved analysis of texts that you gained more and more appreciation for after really careful reading and study? Do you feel that the process of becoming a better writer and/or learning to analyze fiction has increased your appreciation and enjoyment of fiction? Most people find that going through those sorts of processes results in much greater enjoyment and appreciation, and they are also able to enjoy fiction that they formerly would have found boring. I think the process is the same for classical music (and jazz as well, for that matter [it’s true of any art/music/etc., but to different degrees]).
Expecting to either just “like it” or “find it boring” and thinking of it as being just another genre like rock or pop is like approaching Dostoevsky with the same background/expectations/skills/patience as you would a Tom Clancy novel. The fact that Dostoevsky is more difficult than Clancy, that most people find Dostoevsky boring and Clancy (or an equivalent easy read) engaging, doesn’t mean that it’s just a matter of taste which you happen to enjoy more. Some things require considerable experience and skill before it is possible to have an informed judgment about them: the literature classics, for example, and classical music.
As for whether it’s worth anybody’s while to do so, that’s an individual choice.
You write fiction, yes? Have you ever studied creative writing, taken a class, read a book on creative writing?
Yes. No. No. No.
Have you ever had an English class with a skilled and passionate teacher that involved analysis of texts that you gained more and more appreciation for after really careful reading and study?
Hell no. I have a completely unbroken track record of hating every single book that I have ever read for the first time as a class assignment, and have never found that a book I already liked was improved by this kind of dissection.
Do you feel that the process of becoming a better writer and/or learning to analyze fiction has increased your appreciation and enjoyment of fiction?
Not one bit! I have mostly become a better writer by learning related skills (I was allowed to make up my own second major in undergrad, and therefore literally have a degree in worldbuilding), practicing, and emulating the good parts of what I read. I now have to turn off my critical faculties entirely to enjoy any works of fiction at all, even those that are overall very good, because detecting small flaws in their settings, characterization, handling of social issues, dialogue, use of artistic license, etc. will throw off my ability to not fling the book at a wall. Works that aren’t overall good turn on said critical faculty in spite of my best efforts. I can barely have a conversation about a work of fiction anymore without starting to hate it unless I’m just having a completely content-free squee session with an equally enthusiastic friend!
Most people find that going through those sorts of processes results in much greater enjoyment and appreciation, and they are also able to enjoy fiction that they formerly would have found boring.
I guess I’m a mutant?
Expecting to either just “like it” or “find it boring” and thinking of it as being just another genre like rock or pop is like approaching Dostoevsky with the same background/expectations/skills/patience as you would a Tom Clancy novel.
Although I have never read an entire Dostoevsky novel (my reading list is enormous and I haven’t gotten around to it), I have really liked the excerpts I’ve read—immediately, without having to work for it. This is why I plan to read more of his stuff when I get around to it. I’ve never tried any Tom Clancy. Is he worth reading?
Some things require considerable experience and skill before it is possible to have an informed judgment about them: the literature classics, for example, and classical music.
Maybe this is just my idiosyncrasy, but I think making the reader work hard when this isn’t absolutely necessary—in fiction, nonfiction, or anything else—is a failure of clarity, not a masterstroke of subtlety. This isn’t to say that you can’t still have a good work that makes the reader do some digging to find all the content, but that’s true of any flaw—you can also have a good work with a kinda stupid premise, or with a cardboard secondary character, or that completely omits female characters for no good reason, or has any of a myriad of bad but not absolutely damning awfulnesses.
I’ve preferred classical music over other genres since preschool. I think that’s sufficient to rule out any explanation of my tastes involving signaling, because a preschooler’s appreciation of classical music signals nothing to other preschoolers. Neither of my parents was particularly into classical music, so I wasn’t reflecting any expectation of theirs either. I’m in agreement with anonym about the value of music education: it has heightened my enjoyment and appreciation of all music: classical especially, but pretty much everything else as well, other than maybe hip-hop.
However, I also agree with you about literature. Every English class that I had to take in middle school through college completely destroyed my ability to enjoy the subject under study for years to come. I used to love Michener until I had to write an essay about his work during my junior year of high school; I haven’t been able to face him since. I don’t think this contrast reveals anything unusual about my psyche; rather I think it means that the comparison of English education to music education is apples-to-oranges.
I don’t think I’ve ever claimed that the only reason anyone would like classical music would be because of signaling. If you liked it as a preschooler, it seems to me that’s just your taste, and I’d neither privilege it nor scorn it compared to the taste of someone who, in preschool, liked any other kind of music. I think that the only reason to devote time and energy to learning to like classical music when you don’t already—which I doubt you did in preschool—is for signaling purposes.
What about the desire to make an “aesthetic investment”—that is, to put in some work upfront in order to reap the rewards of a high-quality experience later on? (Why, I wonder, are people so quick to dismiss the possibility of such rewards?)
As regards signaling as a “common” motivation: maybe this works in continental Europe, or in certain idiosyncratic communities where this kind of music enjoys social prestige. In the mainstream of American society, however, an interest in art music buys you little to no status (particularly as compared with a corresponding interest in similarly elevated forms of other arts, such as literature or painting). To be a devotee of this kind of music is to be a nerd of one of the worst kinds. (It’s even considered un-American: witness Bill Clinton’s remark that “Jazz is America’s classical music”.)
You know the cultural asymmetry that C.P. Snow famously described, wherein “well-rounded” educated people are expected to know about more about the humanities than the sciences? Well, it’s dwarfed into insignificance by the asymmetry that exists between what “cultured” people are expected to know about music versus what they are expected to know about other arts.
So be extra cautious when positing status-signaling explanations for the behavior of art music devotees, particularly in America.
I’ve also wondered about the implicit assumption lots of people have that if music were going to yield extreme degrees of pleasure for them, then it would do so without much effort on their part and in quick order. I’ve also noticed the assumption you touch on that because all non-deaf people have a pair of working ears and have known how to use them since childhood, they are all equally capable of judging different types of music and recognizing that there they’re basically all the same, like different flavors of ice cream.
I think you’re spot on about classical music and status in America, at least in my neck of the woods. I work at a well-known company in the SF bay area that has a lot of very smart and very well-educated people, and it would be embarrassing for me to admit at work that Bach is my favorite musician or that classical music is my favorite music. It would be viewed as pathetically old-fashioned and uncool.
ETA: I think the status thing with regard to classical music in the SF area is generational. I’m in my thirties. If I and my peers were a generation older, then I think classical music would be regarded more positively and be less stigmatized. When I go to a classical music event, I see mostly people who are at least a generation older than me. In my workplace, the median age is probably something like 28-34, so the classical music listeners are of my peers’ parents’ generation. To be honest, I completely agree with the accusations of signaling for the vast majority of people you see at classical music events around here. Few of the (mostly older) people I see at concerts seem like they’re there for the music—they spend their time dozing off, fidgeting with things, people gazing and being gazed at, counting the minutes till intermission and then rushing out at the end without wanting to hear the encores. People my age and younger at concerts seem much more sincere, even if there are so few of them.
Here’s a couple more: desire to learn an instrument (because training often uses mainly classical repertoire), or the recommendation of someone trusted. One could argue the latter is about status, but I don’t think it always is.
Hell no. I have a completely unbroken track record of hating every single book that I have ever read for the first time as a class assignment, and have never found that a book I already liked was improved by this kind of dissection.
Maybe I’m the mutant. I know that your reaction is very common, but I attribute it to either the result of bad teaching and/or students being forced against their will to do something that they will therefore be very likely to hate. When I have been in classes with smart, passionate teachers, and the students were there because they were genuinely curious and not to fill a requirement, I’ve seen lots of minds get turned on in a way that extended past the end of the course and positively affected their enjoyment afterwards. I’ve also recommended books like Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers to adult friends that are avid readers and have had only positive feedback, some of it of the ‘profoundly changed the way I read for the better’ variety.
Maybe this is just my idiosyncrasy, but I think making the reader work hard when this isn’t absolutely necessary—in fiction, nonfiction, or anything else—is a failure of clarity, not a masterstroke of subtlety.
I don’t think very many people would disagree with you on that as a general principle. I certainly don’t. Not all difficulty is gratuitous though.
I’ve never taken an English or literature class voluntarily—it’s one of many subjects that I was permanently turned off to in high school and was glad to be rid of after I finished my gen ed requirements in undergrad. (Except English in the sense of fine points of grammar, vocabulary, etc. which I’ve reclassified as “linguistics” to be comfortable with it.) So maybe I was badly taught. But except for the part where I suffered during required English/literature classes and (maybe) developed a block about a handful of books that I might have liked if I’d run into them on my own, I don’t think I’m badly off for not having this sophisticated level of appreciation—given how I react when I exercise what artistic discernment I do have, and given how much fiction I find and enjoy without the help of literature instruction.
Not all difficulty is gratuitous at all! There are plenty of bits of content that would lose their impact if stated directly, for instance. But I think a large portion of the difficulty that is found in so-called classic literature is gratuitous.
Oh, for the love of chocolate-covered strawberries, never again. I spent a week in that sinkhole and am now mostly inoculated—I’ve read the majority of pages that catch my eye on a casual scan and don’t feel compelled to re-read them.
How would you know this given your admittedly limited experience with classical music?
Speaking for myself, there is lots of music that I love listening too, in many different genres, but nothing else has such power to move me as classical music as its best does—for example —the Confutatis from Mozart’s Requiem, or the Bach d-minor Chaccone, or in a lighter vein that I think anybody can appreciate and feel moved by, Paganiniani or the vitali chaconne.
I love lots of popular music, and probably listen to popular music about as much as I do classical, but there is a certain kind of ecstatic—almost mystical—experience that some classical music triggers that I’ve never gotten with popular music.
Okay—so you get special, unique value from classical. Meanwhile, I get special, unique value from Phantom of the Opera. Why should I think that learning to like classical music is more worth my time—given that I’m now left bored by most classical, or think of it as pleasant background noise—than pirating more Andrew Lloyd Weber?
I’m not so much arguing for learning to like classical music as for learning to understand classical music. I think most people would enjoy it more if they had greater understanding. Classical music is especially rewarding with greater appreciation/understanding, and especially difficult to enjoy with less appreciation/understanding. Perhaps an analogy will convey my point better.
You write fiction, yes? Have you ever studied creative writing, taken a class, read a book on creative writing? Have you ever had an English class with a skilled and passionate teacher that involved analysis of texts that you gained more and more appreciation for after really careful reading and study? Do you feel that the process of becoming a better writer and/or learning to analyze fiction has increased your appreciation and enjoyment of fiction? Most people find that going through those sorts of processes results in much greater enjoyment and appreciation, and they are also able to enjoy fiction that they formerly would have found boring. I think the process is the same for classical music (and jazz as well, for that matter [it’s true of any art/music/etc., but to different degrees]).
Expecting to either just “like it” or “find it boring” and thinking of it as being just another genre like rock or pop is like approaching Dostoevsky with the same background/expectations/skills/patience as you would a Tom Clancy novel. The fact that Dostoevsky is more difficult than Clancy, that most people find Dostoevsky boring and Clancy (or an equivalent easy read) engaging, doesn’t mean that it’s just a matter of taste which you happen to enjoy more. Some things require considerable experience and skill before it is possible to have an informed judgment about them: the literature classics, for example, and classical music.
As for whether it’s worth anybody’s while to do so, that’s an individual choice.
Yes. No. No. No.
Hell no. I have a completely unbroken track record of hating every single book that I have ever read for the first time as a class assignment, and have never found that a book I already liked was improved by this kind of dissection.
Not one bit! I have mostly become a better writer by learning related skills (I was allowed to make up my own second major in undergrad, and therefore literally have a degree in worldbuilding), practicing, and emulating the good parts of what I read. I now have to turn off my critical faculties entirely to enjoy any works of fiction at all, even those that are overall very good, because detecting small flaws in their settings, characterization, handling of social issues, dialogue, use of artistic license, etc. will throw off my ability to not fling the book at a wall. Works that aren’t overall good turn on said critical faculty in spite of my best efforts. I can barely have a conversation about a work of fiction anymore without starting to hate it unless I’m just having a completely content-free squee session with an equally enthusiastic friend!
I guess I’m a mutant?
Although I have never read an entire Dostoevsky novel (my reading list is enormous and I haven’t gotten around to it), I have really liked the excerpts I’ve read—immediately, without having to work for it. This is why I plan to read more of his stuff when I get around to it. I’ve never tried any Tom Clancy. Is he worth reading?
Maybe this is just my idiosyncrasy, but I think making the reader work hard when this isn’t absolutely necessary—in fiction, nonfiction, or anything else—is a failure of clarity, not a masterstroke of subtlety. This isn’t to say that you can’t still have a good work that makes the reader do some digging to find all the content, but that’s true of any flaw—you can also have a good work with a kinda stupid premise, or with a cardboard secondary character, or that completely omits female characters for no good reason, or has any of a myriad of bad but not absolutely damning awfulnesses.
I’ve preferred classical music over other genres since preschool. I think that’s sufficient to rule out any explanation of my tastes involving signaling, because a preschooler’s appreciation of classical music signals nothing to other preschoolers. Neither of my parents was particularly into classical music, so I wasn’t reflecting any expectation of theirs either. I’m in agreement with anonym about the value of music education: it has heightened my enjoyment and appreciation of all music: classical especially, but pretty much everything else as well, other than maybe hip-hop.
However, I also agree with you about literature. Every English class that I had to take in middle school through college completely destroyed my ability to enjoy the subject under study for years to come. I used to love Michener until I had to write an essay about his work during my junior year of high school; I haven’t been able to face him since. I don’t think this contrast reveals anything unusual about my psyche; rather I think it means that the comparison of English education to music education is apples-to-oranges.
I don’t think I’ve ever claimed that the only reason anyone would like classical music would be because of signaling. If you liked it as a preschooler, it seems to me that’s just your taste, and I’d neither privilege it nor scorn it compared to the taste of someone who, in preschool, liked any other kind of music. I think that the only reason to devote time and energy to learning to like classical music when you don’t already—which I doubt you did in preschool—is for signaling purposes.
Wait, the only reason? Really? I’ll certainly admit it’s a pretty common reason.
Okay, you’re right, that was an overstatement. There could be boredom, or course requirements, or curiosity, or things like that.
What about the desire to make an “aesthetic investment”—that is, to put in some work upfront in order to reap the rewards of a high-quality experience later on? (Why, I wonder, are people so quick to dismiss the possibility of such rewards?)
As regards signaling as a “common” motivation: maybe this works in continental Europe, or in certain idiosyncratic communities where this kind of music enjoys social prestige. In the mainstream of American society, however, an interest in art music buys you little to no status (particularly as compared with a corresponding interest in similarly elevated forms of other arts, such as literature or painting). To be a devotee of this kind of music is to be a nerd of one of the worst kinds. (It’s even considered un-American: witness Bill Clinton’s remark that “Jazz is America’s classical music”.)
You know the cultural asymmetry that C.P. Snow famously described, wherein “well-rounded” educated people are expected to know about more about the humanities than the sciences? Well, it’s dwarfed into insignificance by the asymmetry that exists between what “cultured” people are expected to know about music versus what they are expected to know about other arts.
So be extra cautious when positing status-signaling explanations for the behavior of art music devotees, particularly in America.
I’ve also wondered about the implicit assumption lots of people have that if music were going to yield extreme degrees of pleasure for them, then it would do so without much effort on their part and in quick order. I’ve also noticed the assumption you touch on that because all non-deaf people have a pair of working ears and have known how to use them since childhood, they are all equally capable of judging different types of music and recognizing that there they’re basically all the same, like different flavors of ice cream.
I think you’re spot on about classical music and status in America, at least in my neck of the woods. I work at a well-known company in the SF bay area that has a lot of very smart and very well-educated people, and it would be embarrassing for me to admit at work that Bach is my favorite musician or that classical music is my favorite music. It would be viewed as pathetically old-fashioned and uncool.
ETA: I think the status thing with regard to classical music in the SF area is generational. I’m in my thirties. If I and my peers were a generation older, then I think classical music would be regarded more positively and be less stigmatized. When I go to a classical music event, I see mostly people who are at least a generation older than me. In my workplace, the median age is probably something like 28-34, so the classical music listeners are of my peers’ parents’ generation. To be honest, I completely agree with the accusations of signaling for the vast majority of people you see at classical music events around here. Few of the (mostly older) people I see at concerts seem like they’re there for the music—they spend their time dozing off, fidgeting with things, people gazing and being gazed at, counting the minutes till intermission and then rushing out at the end without wanting to hear the encores. People my age and younger at concerts seem much more sincere, even if there are so few of them.
Here’s a couple more: desire to learn an instrument (because training often uses mainly classical repertoire), or the recommendation of someone trusted. One could argue the latter is about status, but I don’t think it always is.
Those are reasons too—good ones, even. And it probably depends on the motivation behind the recommendation whether it’s about status.
Maybe I’m the mutant. I know that your reaction is very common, but I attribute it to either the result of bad teaching and/or students being forced against their will to do something that they will therefore be very likely to hate. When I have been in classes with smart, passionate teachers, and the students were there because they were genuinely curious and not to fill a requirement, I’ve seen lots of minds get turned on in a way that extended past the end of the course and positively affected their enjoyment afterwards. I’ve also recommended books like Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers to adult friends that are avid readers and have had only positive feedback, some of it of the ‘profoundly changed the way I read for the better’ variety.
I don’t think very many people would disagree with you on that as a general principle. I certainly don’t. Not all difficulty is gratuitous though.
I’ve never taken an English or literature class voluntarily—it’s one of many subjects that I was permanently turned off to in high school and was glad to be rid of after I finished my gen ed requirements in undergrad. (Except English in the sense of fine points of grammar, vocabulary, etc. which I’ve reclassified as “linguistics” to be comfortable with it.) So maybe I was badly taught. But except for the part where I suffered during required English/literature classes and (maybe) developed a block about a handful of books that I might have liked if I’d run into them on my own, I don’t think I’m badly off for not having this sophisticated level of appreciation—given how I react when I exercise what artistic discernment I do have, and given how much fiction I find and enjoy without the help of literature instruction.
Not all difficulty is gratuitous at all! There are plenty of bits of content that would lose their impact if stated directly, for instance. But I think a large portion of the difficulty that is found in so-called classic literature is gratuitous.
I suggest self-study on the TV Tropes Wiki. ;)
Oh, for the love of chocolate-covered strawberries, never again. I spent a week in that sinkhole and am now mostly inoculated—I’ve read the majority of pages that catch my eye on a casual scan and don’t feel compelled to re-read them.