Ignorance of classical music - does it matter?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Classical music is increasingly marginalised in schools. If English Literature lessons were restricted to Dennis the Menace, Batman and Eastenders, there would be an outcry.

[MrGongGong]

So where were all you wonderful "classical music enthusiasts" when the National PLan For Music Education was being written ?
Armchair enthusiasm is fine BUT there is a real danger that we might loose the little that we have !!!

a bit late maybe
but worth a read

http://www.howardgoodall.co.uk/articles-press-etc/the-end-of-music-in-schools-as-we-know-it

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

HG is spot on - sadly.

[Pabmusic]

Classical music is increasingly marginalised in schools. If English Literature lessons were restricted to Dennis the Menace, Batman and Eastenders, there would be an outcry.

So true. In the 60s, the BBC had Top of the Form - a sort of junior University Challenge - which usually contained classical music questions. That disappeared with the move away from grammar schools. There was also a weekly TV programme aimed at children, and revolving around classical music - I don't recall the name, but I won a 10/- postal order on it in 1964! Then, in the 1970s, there was Face the Music - an evening 'prime time' quiz that treated classical music very seriously.

No doubt there were 'good' reasons at the time for scrapping them, but they probably included words like 'cosy', 'minority' and 'elitist'.

That sort of attitude, consistently apparent in many fields over 40 years or more, has left us with the situation we have today. Young people do not generally value art of any sort, at least partly because they are not shown how to see it as important, or why it might be in the first place.

I am pleased my own daughter appreciates artistic achievements - and not because she was 'forced' to, but because the arts were always permissible subjects of conversation at home, and going to a concert or play, or visiting a gallery were 'natural' things to do.

[teamsaint]

Sadly, for "Classical Music" you can insert any number of things.
Knowledge about how technology works.
Understanding of the banking system.
Natural remedies.
How crops work.
How things are built.
The size of the arms industry.
Basic philosophical thinking.
Whatever. A thousand things.
IMO, we have had our skills , knowledge and thus powers stripped away over time(generations), and has left us with little islands of knowledge in a sea of ignorance.(not the people on this board , obviously !!)
Really, what do those years of education give us ?why are we banging on to 8 year olds about apostrophes, when they have lives to live, and there is a wondrous world and its workings to discover ?

Like so much, Classical music has been put in a little box marked...."Danger...open with care", and locked away in teacher's cupboard.
Well, sort of.

[visualnickmos]

.....a radio brain teaser I managed to wrongly identify as Carmen an extract from Massenet's Le Cid, and that was in the absense of a critical audience and television cameras.

Moi aussi!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Last edited by teamsaint; Today at 08:58. Reason: bad apostrophe !!

I blame Kenneth Baker and the National Curriculum.
"All children will learn...
All children must..."

No wonder we have so many disfunctional children who struggle to get by as they move towards - and reach - adulthood.

Square pegs in round holes.

Noisy discos for Special School children who cannot cope with the volume, or the percussiveness.

No experience of the wonders of classical music.

[teamsaint]

Moi aussi!

There is a good thread in this...music you have misidentified, or couldn't hum when asked... !!

[verismissimo]

Noisy discos for Special School children who cannot cope with the volume, or the percussiveness.

Not just special school children, Eine. My ten year old daughter dances for a while then leaves the building.

It's a form of abuse, especially for young ears.

[MrGongGong]

Noisy discos for Special School children who cannot cope with the volume, or the percussiveness.

?

Surely you mean "quiet" discos ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No, I mean noisy ones. The teachers provide the loud music and the highly sensitive children have to put up with it.

[MrGongGong]

No, I mean noisy ones. The teachers provide the loud music and the highly sensitive children have to put up with it.

where is this ?

[visualnickmos]

There is a good thread in this...music you have misidentified, or couldn't hum when asked... !!

Risking being frogmarched off these boards for good - I actually misidentified a very brief bite of one of Rachmaninov's piano concertos as being that by Schumann...

[MrGongGong]

I think what we really need , rather than some kind of evangelical promotion of "classical music" which is bound to fail
is a more mindful approach to the whole area of LISTENING
developing sonic awareness is IMV the best way of encouraging people to explore music, sound art and the sounds of their environment. This inevitably leads to an appreciation of a much wider range of musics.

a good start that has been running in some schools is this

http://www.minuteoflistening.org/

[heliocentric]

I think what we really need , rather than some kind of evangelical promotion of "classical music" which is bound to fail
is a more mindful approach to the whole area of LISTENING
developing sonic awareness is IMV the best way of encouraging people to explore music, sound art and the sounds of their environment. This inevitably leads to an appreciation of a much wider range of musics.