Quote:
|
Originally Posted by noumenal
I grew up hating literary criticism. I loved reading, but I couldn't stand the wankering that we would do in English class - making conjectures about symbolism and so on.
However, music theory is copletely different. When I do music theory, I don't try to figure out what music means, that would be pointless. I just try to figure out how it works and doing that makes me a better musician, but more importantly, it makes me enjoy the music more. Listening to music is one thing, but listening after having played it and analyzed it is completely different. The reason I love music theory is because of the power it has to help me understand and enjoy music more.
Some people think that doing this is like learning how a magic trick is performed - that it takes away something from the experience, but this is completely wrong. If you haven't had the epiphany of understanding how a particular piece of music does what it does, you're missing out. I agree that music is "emotional and spiritual", but it is also intellectual and it isn't magic.
This distrust of academia is disturbing. The academic study of the arts has fallen behind, I'll give you that. It needs to catch up, particularly in music. But it's difficult because people don't want to change. On both sides. Rock music could benefit from a different viewpoint as well. However, I think that the tactic that a lot of academics take towards pop music is stupid as hell. All they talk about are the lyrics and sociological aspects - and this is the kind of crap that T&B is talking about. I shit on that stuff. But it would be great for rock music if there was a more systemized attempt to understand it musically. Ultimately, it would make for better music. IMO, rock music has yet to produce anything that can come close to the greatest music in the classical tradition. And it never will if people keep viewing music as magic that ought not be dissected.
|
yeah, i was talking about the socio-economic, and political analysis that is often applied to things. also i was speaking more from my experience as an art student, and critical theory rather than about actual music theory, which although i'm not very knowledgable on i give more creedence to because music theory has more basis in fact (physics and maths) than other art forms where it's entirely opinion and conjecture. in three years of art school i haven't received one single fine art lecture that is based on aesthetics or practical theory rather than some half-baked socio-political (or worse, identity politics) based theorizing.
anyway, my distrust of academia is based on experience, i'd love to wring various necks at my college, let me tell you. i'm sure most academics are working under some deluded notion that deconstructing a piece of work puts you on a level with the person who made the thing in the first place.