I keep getting this repsonse...

[kenjari]

As I'm sure everyone has figured out by now, I'm a composer. Over the years, whenever I've told people this, I have frequently gotten a somewhat odd response. One of the first things non-musicians often do after I tell them I'm a composer is to reveal or even describe their own lack of musical aptitude or knowledge. "Oh, well, I can't carry a tune in a bucket". "The only thing I can play is the radio." "I was never any good at the (insert name of instrument here)." It's never resentful or negative in any way. In fact, these statements are more like disclaimers, or even confessions. I find this a little puzzling. I can't ever recall reacting in a similar way when meeting people of other professions. I don't respond to artists by immediately blurting out "I can't even draw a decent stick figure", or to programmers by admitting that I never could find sufficient patience for code. I wonder if other composers or musicians with other specialities (performance, musicology) get this response as much as I do. And I wonder if there is something in particular about music, or even about me specifically, that elicits this response. I don't really mind - it's a lot better than the people who immediately inform me that I'm not going to make much money from my chosen profession (thanks, tell me something I didn't figure out 10 years ago). It's just odd.

Comments

[epilimnion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, music ed is in a sorry state. I too get that "what instrument do you play?" question after stating I'm a composer. Follow up questions lead me to believe it's because people are under the mistaken impression that you must compose on an instrument, and you must be composing for an instrument you play. They have no idea that it's not (necessarily) related.
back to music ed: my housemate's kids go to a private school in chestnut hill. They have music class as part of their curriculum, and one of the music teachers was instructing the students how to read music (this was junior high level). One of the kids found it difficult and his parents complained to the teacher, saying that they felt it was unnecessary for their child to be struggling over something that he didn't need to know. Would those same parents complain about their kid learning calculus, because he would never become a physicist and therefore didn't need to know such higher math?

Ugh, it's so frustrating that our culture thinks of music, and all art really, as something superfluous, something you do as hobby, and not fit for a serious career.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had to stifle an urge to punch a co-worker once when her response to being told that I was taking composition lessons was that it must be great to just get to be creative and have fun. Yeah, like doing music is nothing more than extended recess playtime.

I do have to admit to feeling slightly ambiguous about the emphasis placed on learning to read music in some school curriculums. It's a good idea in the years leading up to introduction of instrumental lessons to ensure that the kids have the necessary skills to make it an option. But I think that it is sometimes over-emphasized at the expense of other important aspects of music education, like a basic sense of music history, critical listening skills, and rudimentary music theory. And in my experience at least, there was not enough concentration on the relationship between the music notation and the sounds it represented.

[iralith.livejournal.com]

>not enough concentration on the relationship
>between the music notation and the sounds it represented

I'm a pretty good illustration of that failure, I think. Although I might just have been predisposed not to "get" theory when it finally was offered to me.