When first I heard the contrasting tones ,the colours of the building blocks of the music of the Western classical structure as a child,it struck me that the order and symmetry ignited an excitement that has stayed with me from boy to man.Its maybe not so much of a gift as a sensitivity a leaning you could so and almost a longing.
Wether reflected in the Baroque keyboard compositions,or choral works ,down to the early ensemble orchestras of the period from 1685 right up to the classical period,my senses were ignited and satiated by these pieces.Being award of these composers is one thing,but appreciating them for the colours they show in their music is another.As music education is now under threat by the sheer weight of forces put upon hard pressed educational and cultural organisations,I wonder just how exposure to music will continue in quite the same way as in other generations.
As music ,on the one hand,appears everywhere within our society ,it’s roots can sometimes be forgotten.Like the internet is everywhere now ,apart of the connected life’s of all of us,it might not have had the affect for good that Sir Tim Burners Lee had envisaged when he invented it.While children have an array of music from which to chose from,the culture that they find themselves in ,the pressures to be part of a group of consuming can rob them of the breathe of music ,and it’s history .Its possible that the great masters could be completely closed off to people in a generation because music isn’t taught ,or made available to others.
Because music to me ,is a fusion of modes,a structure of appeal,it seems vital that we u lock them ,gaining insight into how they work because if we don’t,we lose out on the artistic thread that binds of music,the puzzle as it were the inner meanings of what our ears receive and then our mind interprets.
Just as colours can be nuanced ,like the shades of green surrounding our sight lines,so to ,our music has so many subtle textures,it has a dynamic range which takes us into unchartered waters where a colour Bermuda Triangle exists to many,causing intellectual panic,and emotional flight.Oh for a little explanation from a kind Pedagogue to help us navigate our way ,making the strings of the Bach string concertos amplify in our minds,the Haydn symphonies glow in our heart as it were.Why just a little explanation of the structure of musical forms can draw us to these vistas that we might have thought never existed.When the explanations ,let alone the exposure is gone,then where will the heritage be .I fear that it might belong in the hallowed quarters of the cloisters of our prestigious independent schools,far from the deprived provinces and estates of our living population,our folk with access to You tube that promises so much but doesn’t explain ,let alone instruct.
As with all appreciation in art and music,it has to start with a seed of creativity,but that seed has to be planted,rooted in the ground of established knowledge and understanding,so to music has a creative seed that started not in the sixties with the Beatles or with the birth of rock and roll,but it began centuries ago .To quote Paul MaCartney,it took a visit to a symphony concert where he heard the Purcell Trumpet for the first time to ignite in him a love to incorporate these musical colours into the modern genre of the time and it became an integral transitional phrase in Penny lane that we all view now as a musical standard,but it’s seed was traced back into the music of the Baroque era.
As many other examples exist because of the sheer volume of compositions down through the centuries,it needs ,to me,at least,explanation ,or it will become lost in the mists of time.
So,in my conclusion,I’m grateful for the depth of explanation that I was taught I hope that I’ve had a very small part in passing in that explanation to others.
kernowsmith 