response 73 of 97:

Feb 18 21:56 UTC 2000

Well, it's a complicated matter.

On the one hand, when (for instance) the Beatles were new and wildly 
popular, they were dismissed by many people in terms frighteningly 
similar to those used not just about today's popular music, but about 
old pop trash that really has disappeared.  Yet musicologists have 
slowly come to acknowledge (Derek Cooke and Wilfred Mellers were the 
first) that Lennon & McCartney wrote songs of real musical complexity 
and sophistication, even if they didn't know notation or the 
terminology.

So to that extent I applaud the idea of, _when trying to bring music 
appreciation to the masses_, starting off by explaining pop song AABA 
form and going on from there.

But on the other hand, I really bristle at the term "elitist virus".  
For all that some rock is good, the masterpieces of classical music got 
to be called masterpieces for a reason.  (Give rock a couple centuries, 
it'll get there too.)  I am frequently called an elitist in my literary 
as well as my musical tastes, to which I reply "Yes!  I dare to believe 
that some works are actually better than others!"

If _my_ introductory music appreciation classes had been filled with 
rock, I would have walked out and never returned.  That is not what I 
went there to learn about.  There should be classes for all kinds.

Also, there is a belief, and I think it can be justified, that kids 
don't need classes to learn to appreciate rock: they listen to it 
without any classroom help.  Instruction should be for what they are 
less likely to learn by themselves.  (This is not a popular view these 
days.  It's the reason that for decades the Oxford University English 
curriculum ended at 1830, deeply annoying lazy students who wanted to 
major in reading modern novels.)

Much classical music has got what most people like in popular music: 
good tunes and a strong beat.  But it's so much more than that (even in 
the same pieces), and almost all pop isn't more than that.  I know many 
people who like the classical they've heard, but aren't tempted to 
explore further because they're intimidated by the technical and 
academic air surrounding it (much easier to penetrate nowadays with all 
the good amateurs' listening guides published in recent years) and 
because nobody's taught them to listen for the other aspects of the 
music.

The single best guide to the other aspects I've ever seen is a CD-ROM 
of Beethoven's Ninth, published by Voyager with the guide material 
written by Robert Winter, about ten years ago.  It's probably no longer 
available: if not, what a shame.  (Several other CD-ROMs in the same 
series were also pretty good.)