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Article from 'The Economist' on music, technology, and cultural shifts

4K views 25 replies 13 participants last post by  mascio 
#1 ·
Instruments of Mass Delight

Here's an excerpt:

"While the personal rewards of mastering a musical instrument are palpable and plenty, it is a huge investment in time and effort-and one that few people these days seem willing to make. Children forced to practice scales on the piano, violin, flute or whatever invariably dream of the day they will be free of the tyranny. Yet, adults frequently look back wistfully on childhood music lessons, wishing only they had persevered...

Ironically, interest in music has never been greater. But in an age of instant gratification, people want to be accomplished musicians without investing the long hours and painstaking effort required to learn the theory, to become adept at reading sheet music, and to master a chosen instrument. Want to play the piano? There is an app for that-in fact, plenty. Compose hit songs? There are algorithms and online services that promise to turn neophytes into instant Lennons and McCartneys. Why sweat the hard stuff when technology can do the grunt work for you?"
 
#3 ·
The very next paragraph reads:

"Except that it does not do it particularly well. To learn to play a musical instrument requires students to sharpen their cognitive and psychomotor skills, and, most importantly, to hone their affective abilities—in particular, their sensitivity to mood and emotion. Meanwhile, their ears have to become attuned to not just pitch, but also to a sound's timbre and timing. Computer programs are not good at such things."

Quotation, like saxophone and trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, is an art. It takes a lot of practice time to get it right.

The article goes on to say:

"In many ways, learning to play an instrument is like learning a foreign language. And like language, music is what distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal world. Yes, birds sing—often exquisitely so to human ears—but it is still mere chatter among the flock. People make music because they want to convey their inner-most feelings, not just signal their presence or immediate needs.

As with language, it is easier to learn to play an instrument when a child—while the brain is still plastic enough for extra connections to be built between the auditory, visual and motor regions. Brain scans of musicians who learned music at an early age reveal accumulations of white matter in the corpus callosum—a bundle of nerve fibres that connect the motor regions of the brain’s right and left hemispheres. When tested, such people are way above average at synchronising their limbs with cues from their eyes and ears."

I have read this sentiment on this forum many times to the point that I'm wondering if The Economist's science writer is a fourm member.

Misquoting in this way, either intentionally or not, is peddling ignorance.
 
#4 ·
Misquoting in this way, either intentionally or not, is peddling ignorance.
Calm down - you're needlessly overreacting.

It's a long article; I wanted to give a small taste of it. I decided two paragraphs was a reasonable length for people to quickly and easily read, and then decide for themselves whether or not to delve into the full article. The two paragraphs I chose were an excerpt, not a summary (hence why I labeled it as such). You understand the difference, yes?
 
#5 ·
I was wondering about what the author of the article meant by “ Ironically, interest in music has never been greater” .

Music as a form of mass communication and the music market or making music?

If it is the latter, as I might make from the general idea of the article, I am confused because I can clearly see around me that there are definitely less and less people playing a musical instrument.

There are probably several reasons for this and they might have local configurations.

In the Netherlands there were, in the past, many places where one could study and practice music (sports followed more or less the same path by the way), borrow an instrument and play for little or no money at all.

These places are disappearing quickly these days.

The tradition of associationism of all kinds ( or religious or social grounds) was deeply rooted in Dutch society but this tradition has been eroded by the social and political changes in the country (of which secularisation is one) and last but not least the fact that there has been a continuous reduction of any public money going in the support of arts and sports and we are left now with these two former pillars of Dutch society being left to be financed by oneself.


When I came to live in the NL, 23 years ago, the process had already begun. We sent our child to study guitar at the age of 6. We bought a good guitar for him and looked for a music school.

The local music school had been just privatised. It used to belong to the council. The rates went up and lessons at the school were only marginally cheaper than private lessons.


If one lived in other councils one might have been a little more fortunate and pay less but to be studying at one of these cheaper places one had to live in that particular council.

One of the cities which did a lot to support this was Amsterdam, a city which had a deep tradition of subsidised Sports and Arts for the citizens and also the people from outside the city.


It is still going on but it is a pale image compared to what it was before.
 
#10 ·
there has been a continuous reduction of any public money going in the support of arts and sports and we are left now with these two former pillars of Dutch society being left to be financed by oneself
Yeah, here in the States, when public school funding is decreased, performing arts programs are often the first to be axed. Sports tend to get more leeway, especially in schools with a good [American] football program.
 
#24 ·
There's also the community aspect. Communities get behind a team much more readily than a band. Sports deal in the obvious, the physical, and the here-and-now, and carry associations to winning and leadership that everyone can value - as long as they're not stuck-up intellekshuls.
 
#25 ·
I think this is true; but I also think that just about all sports are more of less subliminal stand-ins for war and combat. Not that this is a bad thing--it's a very valuable, civilized substitution, and participation in sports either as part of a team or one-to-one, can be incredibly exhilarating. However, as such, I think sports for both participants and audience tap into the element of human nature that makes us want to annihilate enemies (I view chess and lesser board games as cerebral versions of that drive). The arts, I think, drive us in the opposite direction, towards a sense of and appreciation for the universality of the human condition, thereby tending to reduce the desire to annihilate one another. Because what's behind sports is more immediately accessible and visceral than what's behind art, and because we'd rather play/watch a football game than be killing each other, it gets the most public support. In fact, the difference in public support is overwhelming. It's hard not to be a bit sad about that. Just my opinion.
 
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