On 31 Mar 2006, at 7:10 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

On 31 Mar 2006 at 18:57, Darcy James Argue wrote:

On 31 Mar 2006, at 6:40 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

When teaching my "pre-theory" class I have done a weekly project
where students bring in a recording of a piece of music they
particularly like. They have to talk about the piece before it's
played, describing what's going on musically, then we listen, then
the rest of the class talks about it i musical terms.

Two main things have surprised me:

1. they ignore lyrics

Ah, but they're music majors, right? . . .

No. The class is a *pre-theory* class for people with no musical
training at all.

Sorry, I misunderstood -- at my undergrad institution, there were "pre-theory" classes for music majors who needed remedial training before they could function in a freshman theory class. I thought you meant one of those.

Well, that may be true, but it's not applicable to this student
population.

For me it was a surprise because when I was their age, we studied pop
music lyrics studiously to try to figure out what the songs were
about.

And that included while I was in conservatory, which rather goes
against your point above.

I can only speak from my own experience, of course. What you report is very interesting, though. I wonder if it's a generational thing? If these students are in their late teens/early twenties, they're ten years younger than me and my peers, and almost certainly have a very different way of approaching music.

- Darcy
-----
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://secretsociety.typepad.com
Brooklyn, NY




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