salem@sri-unix.ARPA (Bruce B. Salem) (10/23/85)
When it comes to matters of taste there is no despute. If someone
says that he doesn't like Mahler there is no need to persuade him otherwise
beyond the point where particular approaches can be suggested. This remark
is directed to the person who studied Mahler Symphonies for a year and a
half and still couldn't make anything of them.
What I'd like to suggest is that one needs something to hang one's
ideas on. With artworks a certian degree of basic memory is necessary
to recall the pleasure of experiencing the art. I cannot stress this notion
enough. I would not mention the need to recognize basic forms in serious
music such as sonata form, variations, etc. without the view that the way
these ideas are used in Music Appreciation classes does the whole notion
a disservice by putting knowledge of form before knowledge of music. You
have got to hear Mozart 40th Symphony in your head before you can appreciate
the fact that the first movement is a sonata form. To talk analytically
about music one has to assume that someone knows the piece you are talking
about.
With the above reservation, I can go on to say that when I was still
in High School, 22 years ago, I discovered that a pocket score was an
excellant aid to the simple task of remembering much about a piece of
music. Since then I have taught myself much basic theory and skills of
music including sight-singing from collecting pocket scores and learning
the literature with them. I have studied all the Mahler Symphonies from
score and although this is not necessary it does speed one's acquaintence
with the music and you can point to specfics and do detailed analysis.
The visual experience of having a beautifully printed score in front
of you, I'm thinking of the Dover set of the Beethoven Quartets from the
Urtext, is wounderful, an excellant aid to learning the music.
Formal approaches to music are aids to memory and they require some
skills, for example emough tonal memory to hear the arrival back at the
tonic key in a sonata form. I found it hard at first to keep the transition
to the second key subject, or key area, in a sonata exposition separate
from the false transition in the recapitulation which goes to the rhyme
of the second key area in the tonic. The real payoff of such considerations
is that you get insight into the way a piece was composed. This includes
tricks with form as a method of composition.
Use of form within form is an important consideration, for example the
use of a fugue as the developemnt in a sonata movement as in the first
movement of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, First Mvt. Beethoven Quartet in F
op. 59 no. 1, or in a variation as in Last Movt. Beethoven Eroica.
I do not really criticize the alturnative notion that subjective feelings,
images, rhymes etc., can do something like all of the above. I find that
music carrys for me recollections of my past, but through the music. There
must ultimately be something that makes the music in one's own mind. It is
as if we must recompose it ourselves which is not so uncreative when
recalling a large movement. I find that if I listen to a piece with the score
that I must go through it again with the score alone if I am going to
learn the music.
Bruce Salemjak@adelie.UUCP (Jeff Kresch) (11/06/85)
> etc. > > What I'd like to suggest is that one needs something to hang one's > ideas on. With artworks a certain degree of basic memory is necessary > to recall the pleasure of experiencing the art. I cannot stress this notion > enough. I would not mention the need to recognize basic forms in serious > music such as sonata form, variations, etc. without the view that the way > these ideas are used in Music Appreciation classes does the whole notion > a disservice by putting knowledge of form before knowledge of music. You > have got to hear Mozart 40th Symphony in your head before you can appreciate > the fact that the first movement is a sonata form. To talk analytically > about music one has to assume that someone knows the piece you are talking > about. > > etc. I strongly disagree with this notion. First, there are many musically illiterate individuals who appreciate the large, late-romantic works of composers like Mahler and Bruckner. How do you account for them? I am relatively well-educated musically, and I am sure I don't appreciate one-tenth of the musical structure in many of these large works, although I still enjoy them immensely, and not just on an emotional level. I believe that music should be enjoyed from the inside out, not the other way around. Individuals need to understand what makes a simple phrase, or group of phrases sound good before they can appreciate sonata-allegro form. This is one of my pet peeves against music theory and music appreciation classes in general. They miss the trees for the forest. When one approaches a new piece, one should start off by listening to and remembering the smallest melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas. Try to predict where the composer is going to go. See how one's predictions compare with what happens. How did the composer create surprise? Why does what the composer did make sense? Gradually, one can expand outwards, examining aurally larger and larger chunks. One still does not have to know the technicalities of formal structure to listen, compare, expect, and be surprised by what happens. Most people are not going to learn how to sight-sing, read alto clef, transpose, and all the other things required for reading a score. Let's give practical advice to those who want to appreciate music more, not advice too difficult for the majority of people to follow. They call me when the sun rises JAK