The benchmarks for “Alltime Greatest Works of Fiction” are no less arbitrary than “Alltime Greatest Albums,” and I would argue the rewards are just as subjective. I’m sure literary types would argue that developing your brain by reading quality books makes you a better person, to which I counter: prove it. I wasted plenty of time in high school reading supposedly great books (like the atrocious A Seperate Peace) that did nothing but make me wonder why we had to waste our time. If we had, instead, spent our time writing comparative deconstructions of The White Album Vs. Exile On Main Street, I don’t think I would have been any less of a person and I would have been 100x more engaged in the process. So why can’t we develop our critical analysis skills with music instead of fiction?
ETA: Really I mean along with fiction, not instead of.
If you’re going to do critical analysis using words, you’re going to appeal to wordy-type people, who may or may not have any interest in, knowledge of, or appreciation for non-wordy art forms like music.
You could probably develop your critical thinking skills just as well through music as you can through books, but in school they’re often trying to teach you how to support your argument. It’s relatively easy to do that with text and not necssarily as easy to do it with music because a lot of the meaning is contained in the sound.
You’ve got a valid point there ****Hobo. After all, music is pretty much poetry with a backbeat. There’s no reason to study Emily Dickinson and discount Leonard Cohen. Simon and Garfunkel put the poem Richard Cory to music so why not study both versions? (ha, that’s funny. I can remember S&G, but I have no idea who wrote the poem)
We did, in middle school 6th grade English we went over Pippin and Jesus Christ Superstar. In 7th grade English it was Simon and Garfunkel’s I am an Island. In HS one marking period English choice was Rock Music. ( we chose new English classes quarterly based on theme).
I was referring to the whole album in the OP which includes the lyrics. Of course deconstructing lyrics is, as mentioned, basically the same as deconstructing poetry. I would, however, be interested in how lyrical (poetic) rhythms work within the construct of the song.
Yes, apologies for the confusion.
This is probably the real reason, but I think its a weak one. Just because it isn’t easy doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. I might argue that BECAUSE it isn’t easy, it SHOULD be done. And to those who think it isn’t possible, I disagree. Chuck Klosterman has built a career around that to a large degree, and he does it amazingly well. There are plenty of people who have careers writing about music. There’s no reason kids couldn’t do it, too.
Edward Arlington Robinson. And the S&G song was based on the poem, but it wasn’t exactly the poem itself set to music.
High school English lit classes do analyze poetry (at least, they certainly did in my day). And if the teacher is hip enough, the poetry may include some song lyrics. But I can think of several reasons why they might stick mainly, if not exclusively, with “regular” poetry (they want to introduce students to “the classics”; they want to focus on the words, and not how they’re influenced by the music or the performance; pop song lyrics aren’t as often printed in textbooks because it’s harder to get the permissions…).
I know of several lit professors who give assignments like this, though analyzing a particular song is more common.
I have a friend who just started back to college after a 20 year hiatus and for his English comp class he has to write a 5 page analysis of the theme song to Big Bang Theory by the Bare Naked Ladies. It must include the verses that aren’t on the show. If there’s a better way to take the fun out of a fun little ditty written specifically for the show (i.e. not to posit any real stance or convey emotion) I can’t think of it.
Arguably and IMHO people aren’t taught how to analyze fiction or poetry in school, even in most graduate schools. They just chit-chat about stupid plots and characters, and even most professors don’t know anything about correct theory beyond whatever happened to be trendy when they were “studying.” It’s the same pedagogy Oprah enforces with her book clubs or whatever they’re called.
Similarly, analyzing music requires knowing harmonic theory, being a very good sight-reader, probably skilled at some instrument. The same type of thing English teacher-types failed to have mastered with respect to their own discipline. What high school kid is going to give a shit about learning how to write counterpoint or how to perform basic roman numeral analysis, unless they’re already a pretty motivated young musician?
Teach them math instead, and they can figure the rest out if they want to. Time better spent learning history of philosophy – something a bit more rigorous, IMO. Or learning foreign languages (at least one modern language, but also Latin and maybe a year of Greek in HS).
Pretty much what Jaledin said. Musical analysis at a level high enough to truly forster critical and creative thinking requires an awful lot of fundamental knowledge and skill. There’s just no foundation to have the discussions necessary.
Music is also not taught as a fundamental curriculum element nor focused on to a fraction of the degree literary and language based subjects are.
I work in a variety of areas of music, but my primary income comes from teaching, writing instructional materials and delivering workshops. I’m in the midst of developing a comprehensive course in music theory at this moment. The first two sections - on which I’m actually pulling an all-nighter tonight to prep for publication - each encompass a minimum 8 weeks of instructional material, and text alone is over 150 pages.
And the skills involved and taught through these two sections along are barely sufficient for a functional analysis of a pop song, if at all.
Theory is a really dense subject. It’s a method of describing the functional relationships between tonal relationships; in many ways it is to music what math is to physics - the language and means of explaining events and happenings ex post facto.
I think it would fabulous if this were taught to the degree necessary to fulfill your purpose, but not in a million years. As much as we as individuals may value music, as a society it merely pastime or product. Not nearly as critical as literacy or arithmetic. YMMV.
Had to comment on this one, after seeing picker’s very good post (BTW, congrats on your book, man – hope it reaches out to some people).
Arnold Schoenberg couldn’t write about music? Or Allen Forte? Or Schenker? Or George Perle? Or even Adorno (still like his short book on Berg, even though I can’t abide his Marxism)? Cage? Lots of people write very intelligently about music, but as picker correctly pointed out, you need to have some pretty sophisticated tools to understand the music and the classic texts in a form available to discuss with others among your peers.
I wasn’t trying to disparage literature teachers – just making an analogy between the two fields and the kind of background that is needed to distinguish a proper discipline and the equivalent of a book club churning through novels. For me, analyzing a work of fiction or a poem has about zero to do with plot and character, compared to the real work to be done in the field. That’s why I’d emphasize work in the classics and in philosophy – the rest can just be picked up as one develops some sophistication in areas where a teacher might be necessary for most people.