A favorite podcast of mine happens to be Classical Et. Cetera, a production of Memoria Press. In the interests of full disclosure, I adore the people who regularly populate its episodes: Paul Schaeffer, Martin Cothran, Tanya Charlton, and, until recently, Sean Saxon. Other folks move in and out, depending on the pedagogical or cultural field under consideration. Reliably framing nearly every episode is the opening question: “What are you reading now?”
A rare listener to podcasts in general at that time, I found myself surprised by this question when first invited on the program to talk about the arts. I confess to not doing my homework (always do your homework!). Still, I was reading something worthy of comment—a book on Berlin after the Second World War that, as a happenstance, matched up nicely with titles others were reading about the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Asking this specific question as a kickoff is not unique to Classical Et Cetera. Still, is it not a grand opening? What colorful reactions it stirs up: after all, most people are about to begin, in the middle of, or still feeling the glow from a book that was striking. In fact, just weeks ago when I was working a Holiday Market tour, this same question transformed the quiet mood of our Smithsonian Journey’s “official” dinner table into one of rollicking excitement!
Rarely asked, though, is its equally powerful and vital sister-question, namely: “What are you listening to now?” Now that question is likely to give people pause.
The last time I remember this question shaping interpersonal discourse takes me back to rock n’ roll’s heyday, when the question would have been worded “What album have you scraped up enough money to buy recently?” Virtually anyone young had an enthusiastic answer—one likely received with shared passion by the questioner. That vital paradigm continued through the 1980s, as the marketplace for pop culture began to fracture through the waning of traditional media (radio) and the rise of new technologies (mp3 players, iPods, streaming).
Today, this fracturing is extreme. Case in point: you may wish to sample this video clip offering a window into the listening world of today’s younger folk. Overall it’s a nice clip, with those questioned, sporting the ubiquitous ear buds, responding in almost charming fashion to the interviewer’s question “What Song Are You Listening To?” (writ large upon a poster board because no one can hear him ask the question!).
Yet, as pleasant as the clip is, it documents a listening culture where listening is without common threads, individually directed, and often passive in order to fill up acoustical space (thus annulling the acoustical space as an arena for thoughts, reflections, or conversations that might otherwise resound). The new listening patterns of the “earbud-age” serve to cancel out the environment or foster isolation from those around us (note the gal listening to nothing at the moment, who wears ear buds so no one will bother her). Noteworthy to me was the percentage of folks who were not sure what they were listening to and, thus, had to “check their phones.” Couples who might otherwise have shared a conversation or at least the experience of shared music were just as likely to be listening to separate songs.
What struck me the most, though, were the happy sparks, however brief, that moved between the questioner and ear-budded answerers whenever a momentary statement of common appreciation for a song was shared. Now, take those sparks and blow them up. Multiple them. Let them remind us just how powerful the experience of listening together really is. Let us ask ourselves the question: “Where, in our lives, individually or collectively, do we hear music and to what purposes?”
Popular music will always captivate the young. Every generation connects with the popular music of its day in different ways. My mother grew up learning to Charleston to songs on the radio. She danced to the legendary Big Bands like Benny Goodman’s, experiencing some of the greatest tunes ever performed at affordable venues in the New York City of her youth. Today, that music is rightly considered “classical” and her experiences illustrate the fact that select popular music (e.g. The Beatles) will indeed speak to future generations.
But standing quietly next to that fact is another one: our Western heritage abounds with a mountain-range of extraordinary musical works that have stood the test of time (symphonies, operas, concertos, chamber works, art songs, cantatas and oratorios, ballet scores, instrumental sonatas, and character pieces). These works offer the equivalent substance and value of the classic literature that figures so prominently in today’s discourse surrounding educational renewal. Yet, how often does this repertoire figure in our curricular considerations? Where does it lie in our personal and professional conversations about material that matters? At what point will compositions by Mahler or Sibelius, Brahms or Bach, Ravel or Shostakovich attract us (and be presented to our students) with the same force as the masterworks of Homer, Chaucer, Dickens, and Dostoevsky?
To continue with questions, what steps can we take to stoke the fires of our, and our students’, musical curiosity and receptivity? How do we sweep away negative connotations attached to the label “classical music” so that these pieces are free to shine as the spectacular testaments to Western creativity they are? “Exposure” is a fine starting point. Truly, one cannot come to love something without being exposed to it. But exposure as often practiced in formal education resembles more the act of waving broccoli and carrots across the plate of a child, hoping that some of the nutrition will drop into the child’s mouth.
I have more to say on this topic (not surprisingly). And I am going to take up the matter of today’s “earbud” culture in future essays. But for now, let close by asking you the question: “What are you listening to now?”
