"The Case Against Pop & Rock"

[yolland]

BTW, not sure how much you want to pursue this topic, but I recently read this great article about the roots and development of hiphop-

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0704/feature4/index.html

I consider it a little on the academic side of a subject that isn't necessarily designed with extensive analysis in mind, but it does a thorough job, and gave me some new insights into the genre.

(Also, since the topic has come up: I love the Beatles, and think they deserve all the credit they get, but I tend to see Elvis as very over-rated, though I'll admit I haven't done a lot of reading up on him.)

Yes, it's an interesting article. The part about the long history of spoken-word art forms, and in particular "verbal dueling," in West African culture reminds me of a fantastic course I took in college on troubador literature. The professor, whose rather obscure specialty was Welsh troubador poetry, invited a visiting African scholar who specialized in Bantu oral culture (can't recall which country; he was Xhosa, but I don't think South African) to lecture to us for one session on African spoken-word traditions and their connections to rap and hip-hop, as a way of offering some cross-cultural perspective on some of the poetic modes we'd been studying (in particular Welsh englyn, an elaborately metered form that bards often used for 'playing the dozens' by--very, very lewdly--slamming one another while boasting about themselves). While they were preparing the lecture, our professor showed this visiting scholar one such englyn we'd studied, in which the famous (well, famous in Wales, anyway) 14th-century troubador Dafydd ap Gwilym skewers one of his bardic archrivals. The African professor loved it and offered to 'perform' it, Xhosa-style, in class along with some of the African and African-American examples he'd collected. I still vividly recall the spectacle of watching him go from standard professorial mode, drily lecturing on the role of spoken-word poetry in Bantu traditions, to pacing and pivoting and pumping his fists in the air for emphasis as he growled and bellowed his way through, first, a spectacular political protest poem in Xhosa, then H. Rap Brown's famous rap from Die ****** Die ("Yes, I'm hemp the demp the women's pimp/Women fight for my delight/I'm a baaad motherfucker/Rap the rip-saw, the devil's brother in law/I roam the world, I'm known to wander/and this .45 is where I get my thunder/...And ain't nothing bad 'bout you but your breath"), then finally Gwilym's englyn in translation ("Stained with gulped meat, you swaddled tomcat/Sound of a heaving, constipated gut sucking the hollowest sour apples/Since you don't know, you angry thruster with sticky shit-lump pants/Your awdl from your englyn/...Run! and drink your tavern-dregs").

So, yeah, these so-called "underground," "lowbrow" forms often have much deeper and more complex roots than we imagine, but their 'profane' qualities do make them vulnerable to being canned, pasteurized and marketed as nothing more than titillating shock-value fantasy fodder.

As far as Elvis goes, I'm not much of a fan either, and tend to see whatever greatness he had more in terms of Elvis the performer than Elvis the musician. Then there's all the controversies surrounding the the irony of a white boy raised in Tupelo and Memphis making it big by playing 'black music' in the Jim Crow era...Still, the consequences of his success for the future development of rock were enormous regardless of 'talent', and that's a major reason why he remains such a celebrated figure.

Actually I've been surprised when listening to (an admittedly rather small amount) of traditional folk music, i guess i'm thinking primarily of West African, Middle Eastern and East Asian, (and definietly European) that I have heard combinations of throaty, solo vocals, drum (or other percussion), and some sort of stringed instrument with surprising frequency. I may have the wrong impression about how common it is, but in some ways I don't see an enormous stylistic distinction between the evolution of late 19th and 20th Century blues into rock and what we consider "pop" music today.
...
Also, maybe from an uneducated 21st Century perspective, when I listen to recordings of traditional folk music originating centuries ago 1) perhaps I insert 20th century sophistications into the music when I'm listening which aren't really there, and//or 2) maybe the musicians playing them in the age of recorded music, despite their best efforts not to, may be inserting more modern musical conventions into their performances than they're aware of.

I think you may have taken that as a more generalized statement than I intended. I meant that rock is characterized as a genre by a specific combination of twelve-bar progressions, backbeat, throaty vocal timbre, and an ensemble based on the particular instrument, the guitar, plus drums. Not that any one of those characteristics, let alone 'similar' traits, can't be occasionally or even regularly found in other genres, whether 'classical' or 'traditional.' While I think rock (and country, and pop, and rap, and perhaps some jazz) might be better compared to the latter than the former for the purposes of the thread topic, I don't necessarily see them as wholly comfortable fits for that particular sense of the term 'folk,' if nothing else on account on the scope of influence they've had (and absorbed).

I listen to a fair amount of 'traditional' music too (Indian, West African, South African, Moroccan, Scandinavian, Celtic, Balkan, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish, mostly), and yeah, you definitely hear BOTH plenty of surprisingly familiar, yet thoroughly 'traditional' elements--backbeat in Celtic music, twelve-bar progressions in West African, 'open-throated' singing and various kinds of drums in most all of them--as well as plenty of 'newfangled' introductions (Irish folk artists using acoustic guitar, South Indian artists using violin, Scandinavian artists covering a Hungarian folk dance that happens to share metrical similarities to their own forms) in the process.

It reminds me of the notion that young children are better at learning languages before the age of six or so. Do you think there could be a connection between the concepts? I haven't heard the Mozart Effect people specifically claim that it's most effective before a certain age, but the increased language acquisition capacity before a certain age is more or less accepted as fact, isn't it?

Sort of--I'm not very knowledgeable on this topic, but there's a decent-looking Wikipedia entry on it (the Critical Period Hypothesis). I have no idea to what extent comparable theories might exist concerning spatio-temporal skill acquisition, though.

So the essential distinction between classical and folk then deals with the complexity of the music, and the presence of musical features such as polyphony, phrase length variation, modulation, etc. I can buy that (though I'm not intimately familiar with the nuances of those terms off the top of my head).

It may be hairsplitting, but personally I prefer to think of the difference more in historical--thoughly closely related--terms, along the lines of what I was saying earlier about the (extremely structurally diverse) array of works conventionally lumped together as 'classical' being united above all else by having been developed and transmitted using a standardized system of written notation. Granted, in our present era almost any genre can avail itself of those same techniques--thanks to the analytical tools the classical tradition developed--but still it isn't central to them in the way it is to classical. (Caveat: I'm speaking only of the history of Western music here; several Asian 'classical' traditions have their own notation systems, and the ancient Greeks had one too, though it was 'lost' with the fall of the Roman Empire.) And the development of that system of musical notation introduced new possibilities for innovation, transmission, and further refinement of 'musical thought,' so to speak, in a similar fashion to what written language did for cultures which developed that. That's not to say that music developed through such means is "superior" or magically bestowed with unprecedented sophistication merely by virtue of being written (let alone being 'pleasanter to listen to'), but it does impose certain tendencies on the directions it heads in from there.

Wow, thanks. You wouldn't consider writing an interference essay on all of this, would you?

I'm more often found in FYM than B&C (and this is really a pretty FYM-y thread, I must say), but any regular FYMer could tell you I do tend to go on at length about things.

 

[dr. zooeuss]

I didn't

Haha, I don't think you're in a minority there, and it's not a big deal in any case. I just remember it being an "aha" moment for me when I put those pieces of info together. It added another little bit of depth to the ZooTV-Zooropa concept for me. I'm not even sure many Americans realize that the tour and album coincided with the formal establishment of the EU. And as it is the most direct and interesting connection I can think of between U2 and classical music, thought I should throw it in there. Who knows, you may find an excuse to mention it in your class. (haha)

No worries. I honestly didn't expect anyone to read it because it was huge.

I've tried to start similarly complex threads before, and have had them sink through the forum like a stone.. ..you probably know this, but just posting one compelling paragraph from it, with a link to a song//vid. you were talking about probably would've received some response.

If there's anything from it that seems relevant to this discussion, fire away..

I think pretty much everyone on the board is in the same boat...we all want way too much music.

haha, too true.

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Yes, it's an interesting article. The part about the long history of spoken-word art forms, and in particular "verbal dueling," in West African culture reminds me of a fantastic course I took in college on troubador literature. The professor, whose rather obscure specialty was Welsh troubador poetry, invited a visiting African scholar who specialized in Bantu oral culture (can't recall which country; he was Xhosa, but I don't think South African) to lecture to us for one session on African spoken-word traditions and their connections to rap and hip-hop, as a way of offering some cross-cultural perspective on some of the poetic modes we'd been studying (in particular Welsh englyn, an elaborately metered form that bards often used for 'playing the dozens' by--very, very lewdly--slamming one another while boasting about themselves). While they were preparing the lecture, our professor showed this visiting scholar one such englyn we'd studied, in which the famous (well, famous in Wales, anyway) 14th-century troubador Dafydd ap Gwilym skewers one of his bardic archrivals.

Wow, just in the last year or two I've learned Edge is of Welsh descent, I wonder if he's aware of that guy.

The African professor loved it and offered to 'perform' it, Xhosa-style, in class along with some of the African and African-American examples he'd collected. I still vividly recall the spectacle of watching him go from standard professorial mode, drily lecturing on the role of spoken-word poetry in Bantu traditions, to pacing and pivoting and pumping his fists in the air for emphasis as he growled and bellowed his way through, first, a spectacular political protest poem in Xhosa, then H. Rap Brown's famous rap from Die ****** Die ("Yes, I'm hemp the demp the women's pimp/Women fight for my delight/I'm a baaad motherfucker/Rap the rip-saw, the devil's brother in law/I roam the world, I'm known to wander/and this .45 is where I get my thunder/...And ain't nothing bad 'bout you but your breath"),

haha

then finally Gwilym's englyn in translation ("Stained with gulped meat, you swaddled tomcat/Sound of a heaving, constipated gut sucking the hollowest sour apples/Since you don't know, you angry thruster with sticky shit-lump pants/Your awdl from your englyn/...Run! and drink your tavern-dregs").

Nice "hands on" lesson. Guess it's fortunate they decided not to follow it up with a fistfight.

I once had a creative writing prof who set some of his poetry to music and sang it for us while playing guitar accompaniment. Your story sounds a little more exciting, and probably more culturally textured than any open mic hip-hop events I've been to- great illustration of cross-cultural similarities than run far into the past.

So, yeah, these so-called "underground," "lowbrow" forms often have much deeper and more complex roots than we imagine, but their 'profane' qualities do make them vulnerable to being canned, pasteurized and marketed as nothing more than titillating shock-value fantasy fodder.

Funny thing is, a lot of the early rapping in hip-hop was good-natured sparring.

As far as Elvis goes, I'm not much of a fan either, and tend to see whatever greatness he had more in terms of Elvis the performer than Elvis the musician.

Funny you should say that, I actually wrote out that I understand his talents as a performer much more than as a musician or composer, then decided to go for brevity and deleted it.

Then there's all the controversies surrounding the the irony of a white boy raised in Tupelo and Memphis making it big by playing 'black music' in the Jim Crow era...Still, the consequences of his success for the future development of rock were enormous regardless of 'talent', and that's a major reason why he remains such a celebrated figure.

Right, he had some talent and may have had a small hand in the evolution of rock, but in the overall scope his role is much more celebrated than he really deserves, and the deprivation of deserved credit occurs largely along racial lines. I think this probably has improved a bit over time, but still has a way to go.

I think you may have taken that as a more generalized statement than I intended. I meant that rock is characterized as a genre by a specific combination of twelve-bar progressions, backbeat, throaty vocal timbre, and an ensemble based on the particular instrument, the guitar, plus drums. Not that any one of those characteristics, let alone 'similar' traits, can't be occasionally or even regularly found in other genres, whether 'classical' or 'traditional.' While I think rock (and country, and pop, and rap, and perhaps some jazz) might be better compared to the latter than the former for the purposes of the thread topic, I don't necessarily see them as wholly comfortable fits for that particular sense of the term 'folk,' if nothing else on account on the scope of influence they've had (and absorbed).

I listen to a fair amount of 'traditional' music too (Indian, West African, South African, Moroccan, Scandinavian, Celtic, Balkan, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish, mostly), and yeah, you definitely hear BOTH plenty of surprisingly familiar, yet thoroughly 'traditional' elements--backbeat in Celtic music, twelve-bar progressions in West African, 'open-throated' singing and various kinds of drums in most all of them--as well as plenty of 'newfangled' introductions (Irish folk artists using acoustic guitar, South Indian artists using violin, Scandinavian artists covering a Hungarian folk dance that happens to share metrical similarities to their own forms) in the process.

Very cool. I'd like to have more of an open-ended discussion on this sort of thing... don't know that I'll have time in the next few days to brush up on what I've heard in the past, but I'd like to continue that discussion at some point.

Sort of--I'm not very knowledgeable on this topic, but there's a decent-looking Wikipedia entry on it (the Critical Period Hypothesis). I have no idea to what extent comparable theories might exist concerning spatio-temporal skill acquisition, though.

Thanks, in skimming that, it seems there have been studies that document correlations and trends between language acquisition and age, but nothing that "proves" age as a consistent determining factor in all cases.

It may be hairsplitting, but personally I prefer to think of the difference more in historical--thoughly closely related--terms, along the lines of what I was saying earlier about the (extremely structurally diverse) array of works conventionally lumped together as 'classical' being united above all else by having been developed and transmitted using a standardized system of written notation. Granted, in our present era almost any genre can avail itself of those same techniques--thanks to the analytical tools the classical tradition developed--but still it isn't central to them in the way it is to classical. (Caveat: I'm speaking only of the history of Western music here; several Asian 'classical' traditions have their own notation systems, and the ancient Greeks had one too, though it was 'lost' with the fall of the Roman Empire.) And the development of that system of musical notation introduced new possibilities for innovation, transmission, and further refinement of 'musical thought,' so to speak, in a similar fashion to what written language did for cultures which developed that. That's not to say that music developed through such means is "superior" or magically bestowed with unprecedented sophistication merely by virtue of being written (let alone being 'pleasanter to listen to'), but it does impose certain tendencies on the directions it heads in from there.

Good points. That makes sense, but actually is a bit surprising. However I guess in the pre-20th Century world, literacy and use of musical notation systems would've required education (and possibly writing materials) that only the wealthy and educated class could afford. Therefore the same music that was commissioned by the wealthy, and//or created by the musically educated was almost always the same music that was recorded on paper for future generations, whereas the music that was passed down by word of mouth, or by ear was almost always the same music created by the lower classes, with no education or material means to write the music down. That would also seem to prevent it from becoming sophisticated in any consistent manner, as it was likely just the most basic elements of melody and meter that were successfully passed down over time.

I'm more often found in FYM than B&C (and this is really a pretty FYM-y thread, I must say), but any regular FYMer could tell you I do tend to go on at length about things.

Ok, haha, well as you've no doubt noticed about me I have the same tendency (on certain topics). I haven't spent much time in FYM yet, but maybe in future. I would like to read and discuss Bono's book "On the Move," whenever I get my hands on a copy.

Haven't read that by any chance, have you?

 

[onebloodonelife]

Haha, I don't think you're in a minority there, and it's not a big deal in any case. I just remember it being an "aha" moment for me when I put those pieces of info together. It added another little bit of depth to the ZooTV-Zooropa concept for me. I'm not even sure many Americans realize that the tour and album coincided with the formal establishment of the EU. And as it is the most direct and interesting connection I can think of between U2 and classical music, thought I should throw it in there. Who knows, you may find an excuse to mention it in your class. (haha)

It is an interesting connection, and it's one that I wouldn't think of myself.

I've tried to start similarly complex threads before, and have had them sink through the forum like a stone.. ..you probably know this, but just posting one compelling paragraph from it, with a link to a song//vid. you were talking about probably would've received some response.

If there's anything from it that seems relevant to this discussion, fire away..

Yeah, it's okay, got an A on the paper anyway I'll try to think of anything from it that'd be relevant to this discussion...


Fun classical connection from my music class today: We're discussing Michael Jackson, and my professor was talking about his voice, when he brought up that back in the 18th century, some of the greatest opera singers to ever live were made that way by castration to preserve their higher vocal ranges and prevent puberty from occurring. He quickly said he doesn't think Jackson had this done, but that his voice does have certain qualities that make it sound as if he never went through puberty.

I thought it was quite the interesting classical connection in class today...and, I didn't know that they actually used to do that to opera singers back then. Frightening if you ask me.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Ah, able to get in and catch up on all this now...

Moshing at a classical music concert, haha.

...I was once involved in a moshpit to a They Might Be Giants polka-type number at an outdoor festival...that was a bit weird and very dusty... definitely drew a comment from the singer... people still had it in their system from the preceding band (don't remember who that was now).

LOL, cool, sounds like fun! Yay for They Might Be Giants, such a goofy band.

Moshing at a classical concert would be quite interesting. There are some classical pieces that I've heard people talk about that seem as though they're a bit heavy in terms of sound based on their description, though, so I guess it wouldn't be too bizarre to imagine that happening...

So, yeah, these so-called "underground," "lowbrow" forms often have much deeper and more complex roots than we imagine, but their 'profane' qualities do make them vulnerable to being canned, pasteurized and marketed as nothing more than titillating shock-value fantasy fodder.

...very sad but true, and that brings up a question. Okay, we always wind up revering books that are "profane", that have offensive content all over. Sure, they were controversial back in their day, but now they're looked at as being important works, required reading in schools, even. We have that whole "Read a banned book" week. But for some reason, people don't do that as much with music. I don't see a "Listen to a banned album" week or something, and a lot of people automatically dismiss genres like rap because of their profanity. If we're so willing to defend books that get people fired up, why not be just as steadfast with music. I see more people being supportive of banning certain music nowadays than I do books, and I don't think either should be banned at all. But I'm curious why that is.

I once had a creative writing prof who set some of his poetry to music and sang it for us while playing guitar accompaniment. Your story sounds a little more exciting, and probably more culturally textured than any open mic hip-hop events I've been to- great illustration of cross-cultural similarities than run far into the past.

I agree, that must have been an incredibly cool thing to witness. It's a shame that people normally wait until they're in college to experience that sort of thing and have discussions on that stuff. Why isn't this sort of thing being taught sooner in schools?

And speaking of schools and kids and stuff, why is it that it seems you're able to learn things better at a certain age than others? It always seems the best musicians are ones who've been playing since they were little kids, or teenagers. I've yet to hear a musician talk about how they picked up a guitar for the first time in their 20s. What is it about being a kid that makes learning that sort of thing easier?

Also, dr. zooeuss, your mention of your teacher brings up yet another question. I keep hearing people say that lyrics are not a form of poetry. I tend to disagree with that, but I'm curious why people insist on keeping the two separate?

Plus, and I feel I can say this because I'm part of this generation, most younger people see classical as boring and aloof compared to pop music, which is the kind of music they were brought up on.

Indeed. The same thing happened with opera-I remember a sixth-grade teacher of mine, before starting a unit on opera, asking the class what their thoughts on opera were. The words "boring" and "stupid" and things of that nature came up a lot (including from me, I'm sad to say. I still don't listen to opera regularly, but I have more respect for it now (speaking of which, by the way...wow, they seriously did that to opera singers back then, oneblood ? Yeesh. Poor men. It's stories like that that make me VERY glad that I'm a girl).

Like I said earlier, I've never minded classical music from the small bits I've heard. I just don't have that big a knowledge of it-I don't know much about things like movements and songs in such and such flat or whatever. And then there's pieces I've heard, but can never put the title/artist to the piece. But I'm certainly willing to learn more-any recommendations of where would be a good place to start expanding my knowledge of that stuff?

Also, thanks, yolland, that is exactly what I meant regarding classical artists and the time periods they lived in. I need to stop typing in the wee hours of the morning-I have a harder time articulating things then . Eh. That's what I get for being a night owl.

And please, everyone, feel free to be as long-winded as you want. I love reading your guys' posts, no matter the part of the forum you're in .

Angela

 

[dr. zooeuss]

It is an interesting connection, and it's one that I wouldn't think of myself.

my inner dork shows itself, haha

Yeah, it's okay, got an A on the paper anyway I'll try to think of anything from it that'd be relevant to this discussion...

[/B][/QUOTE]

ah well, congrats. no pressure, just feel free of course.

Fun classical connection from my music class today: We're discussing Michael Jackson, and my professor was talking about his voice, when he brought up that back in the 18th century, some of the greatest opera singers to ever live were made that way by castration to preserve their higher vocal ranges and prevent puberty from occurring. He quickly said he doesn't think Jackson had this done, but that his voice does have certain qualities that make it sound as if he never went through puberty.

Oy, what a connection for him to make to Michael Jackson, lmao. Yes, I'd heard of that before- I think the terms "eunuch" and "castrato" were/are used to describe that. !!!

I thought it was quite the interesting classical connection in class today...and, I didn't know that they actually used to do that to opera singers back then. Frightening if you ask me.

definitely

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Ah, able to get in and catch up on all this now...

Haha, welcome back..

LOL, cool, sounds like fun! Yay for They Might Be Giants, such a goofy band.

Moshing at a classical concert would be quite interesting. There are some classical pieces that I've heard people talk about that seem as though they're a bit heavy in terms of sound based on their description, though, so I guess it wouldn't be too bizarre to imagine that happening...
[/B]

The 1812 Overture is always first to mind on that account; it often includes cannons when performed outdoors..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LSyOumYb0wY

Hehe, hey, I'm not gonna argue with you on that.

I can't believe I forgot about rap/hip-hop as being another notable mention from the '80s and '90s . Shame on me. But I definitely think that, like with everything else, the further away we go from the '80s and '90s, the easier it will be to see just how much of an impact certain artists/genres have. I'd be quite interested to see what happens with the rap/hip-hop genre as time goes on-I fully believe it will have a lasting impact of some kind. And I think people will rightly acknowledge the achievements of those who were there from the beginning up through to the current time period-I've seen some people do that already.

This is an interesting point, though...
[/B]

I'm a visual artist and enjoy thinking of the parallels between music and visual art. To me hip-hop is the musical equivalent of collage, sampling and recombining things that past eras have created. It seems kind of unoriginal at first glance, but when you look at how much there information, art, history, data there is at this point in time, it starts to make sense and reveals itself to be a very complex art form in ways that would be impossible or extremely time-consuming and less effective when creating something brand new from scratch.

...very sad but true, and that brings up a question. Okay, we always wind up revering books that are "profane", that have offensive content all over. Sure, they were controversial back in their day, but now they're looked at as being important works, required reading in schools, even. We have that whole "Read a banned book" week. But for some reason, people don't do that as much with music. I don't see a "Listen to a banned album" week or something, and a lot of people automatically dismiss genres like rap because of their profanity. If we're so willing to defend books that get people fired up, why not be just as steadfast with music. I see more people being supportive of banning certain music nowadays than I do books, and I don't think either should be banned at all. But I'm curious why that is.
[/B]

Good point, I think people naturally defend that with which they're more familiar, and the administrators of a school are going to be more familiar with "The Catcher in the Rye" of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" than an NWA or Eminem album.

Eh, not at that moment, no-I would've been happy to hear from any artist. But you know, it would be interesting to see what Mozart or John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain would have to say about how their music is being seen nowadays.
[/B]

True. I think each of those artists did witness some of their own popularity, but certainly not the full scope. Cobain was almost tortured by it, Lennon seemed to handle it fairly well, not as sure about the other two.

LOL, hey, go for it. I wonder where exactly that balance comes in, and if artists know when the line's been crossed?
[/B]

Improvisation is what we were talking about here, right? I think there's more tolerance for it in some genres than in others. Rock and pop are somewhere in the middle, of course Jazz is where it thrives.

Yeah, I don't know who all may have done that before U2. But I think your theory makes sense-I can only begin to imagine the amount of messing around with songs that goes on in the recording studio sometimes. I'd love to sit in on something like that, I think that'd be absolutely fascinating.

I really need to expand on my collection of live U2 stuff. I've got a few live versions of songs here and there, and various DVDs, but I really need to hunt down more. Something to work on.
[/B]

For whatever reason, I still don't often go out of my way to obtain live recordings of U2's music. If there's a signifcantly different arrangement that I really love, I might, but I really don't understand the appeal of having 16 different versions of a song performed live, that would kind of ruin it for me..

I agree, that must have been an incredibly cool thing to witness. It's a shame that people normally wait until they're in college to experience that sort of thing and have discussions on that stuff. Why isn't this sort of thing being taught sooner in schools?
[/B]

Well that's a huge and very important question. The arts always seem to face the most uphill battle when it comes to funding in schools. It is so important, but the decision-makers so often fail to see this because it's benefits often reveal themselves in a less-immediate, less linear and more subtle fashion.

Someone started a thread a day of two ago about the music curriculum Steven Van Zandt (from Bruce Springsteen's band, the "Little Steven" Bono refers to at the beginning of the live version of "Silver and Gold" from Rattle and Hum) has recently designed about rock, pop, and is currently advocating for adoption in schools.

And speaking of schools and kids and stuff, why is it that it seems you're able to learn things better at a certain age than others? It always seems the best musicians are ones who've been playing since they were little kids, or teenagers. I've yet to hear a musician talk about how they picked up a guitar for the first time in their 20s. What is it about being a kid that makes learning that sort of thing easier?
[/B]

That's a complicated question, I don't think there are clear cut answers, but rather a combination of factors. I'd say the two most prominent factors though are that in some ways a young child's brain is designed to better absorb certain things. Language is the subject usually cited (see the link Yolland posted earlier about "Critical Period Hypothesis"). I think the other is that when you have a certain gift in an area, 99% of the time you'll experience a natural attraction to that subject- you'll enjoy it more than your peers who don't have that gift. ie: naturally gifted musicians would consider it torture not to pick up an instrument or try singing before their 20s; it's just a part of who they are.

Also, dr. zooeuss, your mention of your teacher brings up yet another question. I keep hearing people say that lyrics are not a form of poetry. I tend to disagree with that, but I'm curious why people insist on keeping the two separate?[/B]

People here on interference or elsewhere? I don't recall seeing that view expressed here often, if at all.

Definitely no expert on the subject, but I'd say with a band like U2, almost all their lyrics could be considered poetry, because Bono puts a lot of heart, mind and soul into nearly everything he writes. Britney Spears on the other hand, well, it would be a bit insulting to poetry to consider most of her lyrics as representative of that art form. But in the end it's going to be a subjective call most of the time.

Indeed. The same thing happened with opera-I remember a sixth-grade teacher of mine, before starting a unit on opera, asking the class what their thoughts on opera were. The words "boring" and "stupid" and things of that nature came up a lot (including from me, I'm sad to say. I still don't listen to opera regularly, but I have more respect for it now [/B]

I'll admit Opera is one of the last genres of music I don't have much appreciation for. The concept of "Rock Opera" used to make me wince, but as I've learned that U2 look up to the Who (who as far as I know created the first "rock opera"), and the fact that this Spiderman project Bono and Edge are working on is now being called an opera, I may decide those are good avenues for me to better introduce myself to the art form. Also, there are a few musicals I enjoy, such as 'Les Miserables', parts of 'Hair' and 'Fiddler on the Roof', and it's not much of a leap from musical to opera. Another problem is that there just aren't many operas originally written in English, and the ones that get translated always lose something in the process.

Like I said earlier, I've never minded classical music from the small bits I've heard. I just don't have that big a knowledge of it-I don't know much about things like movements and songs in such and such flat or whatever. And then there's pieces I've heard, but can never put the title/artist to the piece. But I'm certainly willing to learn more-any recommendations of where would be a good place to start expanding my knowledge of that stuff?
[/B]

Cool. Well I find wikipedia a tough resource to beat when you want to get an overview of a topic you know very little about. Anytime I need to rely on the truth of the info though I always verify it elsewhere, as it can be inaccurate.

Also, my interest has been re-kindled in uploading the 6 CD set from a past college course to my itunes. I'll re-post this list I made earlier in the thread about the music from that which appeals to me most right now-

Musorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Russian, 1870s),

Mozart's "40th Symphony in G minor" (Austrian,1780s),

Aaron Copland (Appalachian Spring" (American, 1940s),

Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata (German, 1801),

Ravel "Bolero" (French, 1928)

also interesting to note that an early version of "Ave Maria" (which many of us know Bono covered) is included- apparently the earliest version of that composition dates from around 1500 (!)

And please, everyone, feel free to be as long-winded as you want. I love reading your guys' posts, no matter the part of the forum you're in .

Angela [/B]

Haha, same to you. I probably don't need any encouragement in the area of being long-winded though.

I'm still thinking this thread is sort of a series of one-on-one discussions. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but if anyone has any general questions or points to throw out to everyone, please go for it.

-Jay