The course I have taught the most is Music Appreciation. Ironically, it also tends to be the course with which I struggle the most. This is partly because, as a music major, I never took a Music Appreciation course. Thus, I don't have personal knowledge of the needs of the types of students who do. I think it rarely happens that the instructor for Music Appreciation took such a course since most of us were music majors.
Another of my difficulties with the course is that I'm not convinced that a course in merely appreciating the aspects of a medium is really meaty enough for college. I have also taught the course as a more sociological exploration of the music world, but I'm not sure that's really what the title of the course suggests. Striking a balance between these two seems ideal.
A third issue is that , as I am not always convinced of any particular approach to the course, I struggle to be fully committed to the project.
The good news is that I think I have struck upon an approach this semester that I believe I will find to be more compelling and meaningful. My goal is to equip the students to recognize the universal application of great music.
I have been led to this new approach by the struggle outlined above, and by the fact that I am now teaching in a Christian university in which I feel more at liberty to explore the spiritual aspects of the material I cover.
For the most part, I'm teaching the same basic material that I've usually taught. Only I'm looking for deeper connections and references to provide the students a conceptual framework for relating to the music, and maybe even growing as people through that relationship.
So far, we've studied the basics of musical organization - two trinities:
melody, harmony, and rhythm;
dynamics, timbrer, texture.
(Musical form is a bigger category in my mind.)
We started with rhythm, which is analogous to the human pulse. Thus, it relates to the physical body and to movement. As long as we are living, there is the rhythmic motion of blood pulsing through our veins. There are poignant pauses in music that make me wonder if the music can go on, and if so, how? Miraculously, the music continues, just as we do. The persistence of life is fundamental and good.
Melody has been described as relating to the human soul, and I would suggest that its twists and turns, its risings and fallings, relate to the state of the soul. Melodies move us mysteriously. It is hard to understand (even for people who spend lots of time analyzing music) why melodies affect our emotions the way they do. I don't want to discount this mystery and the fact the melodies seem to speak in a spiritual way that cannot be approached by mind or body. But, I think it is meaningful that the state of the human soul is often described in terms of human posture. We lift our hearts, or we are down-trodden. As melodies make their journeys, theyfollow a paths of posture that may relate to the various states of our souls.
Harmony has been described as musical perspective. That is, a series of chords often creates a sense of depth. For example, when we hear a dominant chord, we know we are one move away from tonic. I say "move" because perspective is based on location. So on a fundamental level, harmony might be understood as somehow relating to location.
Sometimes we musically move from home and back again. Other times, we think we're going to stop off at home, but suddenly find ourselves in the house next door (deceptive resolution.) Still other times, we end up in another town entirely (modulation.)
That's my new model. It's a work in progress and a subtle revision of other peoples' ideas.
A quick review before I develop these ideas a bit more:
rhythm - pulse, the body
melody - the state of the soul
harmony - location
It seems like that accounts for the basic aspects of human existence in musical terms.
This scheme becomes more interesting to me when I consider the intersections of these categories - and I have to consider those intersections as we rarely encounter only one of these aspects in a piece of music.
Melody and harmony:
The really touching and expressive melody notes tend to be dissonant. Dissonance is a term that really makes the most sense in the context of harmony. Maybe those expressive tones are so touching because they show us the freedom of melody being shackled by the constraints of harmony. This might resonate with the pain of our own coming to grips with limitations and boundaries.
Rhythm and melody:
At certain moments in music, rhythm seems to motivate the arrival of some superb melodic event. On the the other hand, rhythm sometimes seems to be excited by the intensity of melody. Here we might sense the body and the soul acting upon each other. The outcome of that interaction in life can be joy or friction. Perhaps it is in this way that the stucture of music can tell us of the relationship of body and soul in the culture that created it.
1 comment:
Thank you for taking the time to document this thinking. I think you are on to something and I wonder if we can apply the learnings of a systematic theology as seminarians to the study of theory and music history. There seems to be quite a unique parallel here. For me music is about the experience, and the journey just as ministry and worship are about the actions and the experiences, not necessarily the outcome.
As a musician, I must remain focused on the perfect performance, but I must never become obsessed by it in such a way that it compromises the ability to learn and develop.
As a minister, if we focus on only the spirituality and theology, we miss the point, the very function.
As musicians, we are meant to MAKE music. the level/value is not for us to judge.
sorry to wander a bit, but I was mostly just thinking in response to your writing. I hope it helps.
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