I know, I know, I sound like I'm up on a pretty high horse myself, but please hear me out. I'm as guilty as everyone else on this one, and in the future, I know that I'll have to hear this too, so let me have it when I do. But really, we've been hurting ourselves with an exclusionary attitude for far too long.
I understand where it comes from, I really do. Those of us who are musicians develop our love of music from the inside out. We start working on our instruments when we're 10 or even younger, before we've developed any critical faculties. For many of us, we understand things like tuning, technique, and phrasing before we can even identify what makes a piece of music touch us. That's how it is, and how it has to be. High art that requires such a refined skill set has to be started early and music education is a major part of the development of many children. This does, however, have a few negative effects.
Because we spend all those hours in private lessons, having our playing put under a microscope by our teachers, facing critiques as an essential part of the learning process, we grow up to be pretty critical people ourselves. It's not necessarily our fault, it was bound to happen, but man, it gets exhausting.
It manifests in many ways. Somebody makes a mistake in a practice room as you pass and you scoff, someone has an off day in orchestra and for the rest of the year they're "the problem," you sit in band waiting and listening for someone to fail to tune a chord or hit a rhythm, so YOU can have the satisfaction of correcting them. I've been the guy on both sides of this, and it's no way to live. Everybody loves to help, but if you're looking for mistakes ALL the time, you'll find them and never enjoy anything. It makes you cynical and it's hard to interpret a piece with a free and open mind if you're weighed down with so much cynicism. And it's impossible to listen to one.
It happens almost all the time when I attend a local symphony concert. I or someone with me spends the whole way home griping about something. A horn player was out of tune. The timpanist missed an entrance. The cello player got lost. And we dwell on it and stew and bitch.
"But wasn't that harp solo awesome?"
"*grumblegrumblegrumble*"
"That Shostakovich piece was beautiful huh?"
"Yeah...whatever."
It's like we hardly even tolerate the thing we supposedly love. I've even seen it invoked by educators. They'll tell me "My sax student is awful," or "My clarinets can't tune," in the same tone they use to shame their peers, and that's disgraceful. It is your job to cultivate a love of music in your students, to teach them and critique where necessary, and if your self-righteous cynicism is getting in the way of that, THE PROBLEM IS YOU.
Our inability to turn off the part of us that needs personal validation of our musical skill through the demeaning of others isn't just annoying and exhausting either. I believe it is hurting us directly. It's said that only 3% of people listen to classical music, which is abominably low compared to how many people listen to country, pop, rock, electronica, or even our beloved little sister jazz.
Now, let me ask you, do you really think that only 3% of people can identify with the misery of "Adagio for Strings?" That only 3% of people can feel the righteous rage in Shostakovich #5? Do you REALLY think that 97% percent of people can hear "Carnival of the Animals" and not be charmed and entertained. Sure, way too many people go "What, no words? No thanks," but we are not helping. Nobody likes going to the symphony to try something new or to experience some culture, only to be corrected on the pronunciation of "Dvorak," or to be sushed for clapping between movements, or to be scolded for being under dressed.
Worst of all nobody likes being told "You just don't get it."
They'll get it. Given the chance, they'll understand. The great, involved, emotional works touch on things that are universal to the human experience. If we shame people and make them feel like they're somehow below us, because we make the music and are the only ones who understand it, we are doomed to spend all eternity as a medium stuck up our own butts, sniffing the ripe farts of self-satisfaction.
The time has come, my fellow musicians, to cast aside the snobbery and cynicism that we've learned over the years, and be understanding and compassionate to our peers, students, and audience. That or face our own irrelevance. And again, folks, I needed to hear this just as much as I needed to say it. So, from hear on in, I'll watch out for you and you'll watch out for me, and we'll call each other out the next time our snobbery shuts someone out.
Deal?
Deal.
-Jimmy
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