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Discove The Importance Of History Of Music
By Paul Zayer
I recall when I first started studying the history of music, I did not know what I was getting into. I had a notion that history was somewhat of a trivial pursuit. Honestly, I only took my history of classical course because I needed the credits. I did not know how fully fascinating history could be. You see, in our culture a lot of us do not truly study to understand music. For much of the world, is a language, but for us it is a thing that we consumed passively. When I started to study about the history of Western music, however, it changed all that for me. I have had some experience playing musical instruments, but I have not mastered one enough to truly comprehend what is all about. This class showed me.
When most of us think about the history, it means the history of rock music. We believe that the history is plain because the is plain. Actually, neither is the case. The history of music, whether you're talking about classical music, rock music, jazz music, or any other kind, is always complicated. New chord structures are set up carrying with them new ways of comprehending the world. New rhythmic patterns are introduced, bringing with them new ways of understanding history. And reflects all of it.
Even when the class was ended, I could not stop learning about the history of music. It had whetted my appetite, and I wanted more. I searched for all the
music history books that I could discover. I even started to explore forms of that had not interested me before in the hopes of increasing my musical comprehension further. When I was in school studying toward a very different subject - a degree in engineering - I had thought about quitting and going back to get a degree in musicology. That is how much I am enthralled by the subject. If you have never taken a lesson in the history of music, you don't realize what you are missing out on. The radio will never sound the same to you again. The whole thing will sound a lot more rich, a lot more luminous, and much more important. A new song can reproduce a new way of being, and a new way of imagining life in the world. This is what learning about the history of could do to a lot of us.
If your occupation is musician, sooner or later you might have to do something kind of humiliating in order to pay the bills. Many musicians play for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, or graduation and birthday parties. Others create for advertising and soundtracks. In my situation, I pay the bills working in a cover group.
It is more difficult than you might imagine. You have to stay on top of the tastes of the bar people, and that can be painful. At first, I really ignore how to stay up to date. I looked at the top 40 charts, figuring that that would be the best method to figure out what was popular and what was not.
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