Issue #3: The Evolution of Music, or: Why Critics Told Us So

Not exactly sure what started it, but tonight I wound up reading Wikipedia's article on one of my favorite classical composers, Maurice Ravel. In high school, I had to do a report on him for Arts and Humanities and it was maybe my second big brush with classical music.

Up to then, I listened mainly to John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner because they scored the movies I watched as a kid, in favor of Sesame Street or Nickelodeon. When I was in 7th grade, my uncle gave me The Planets for Christmas, which was Classical Experience No. 1. Back to high school. For my report, I went to the library and checked out pretty much every Ravel CD I could find--which was just one CD of Ravel's piano works performed by Arthur Rubinstein. While I wasn't much of a piano solo kind of guy, the compositions were still pretty interesting. So I tracked down the orchestral versions of those piano works and was, as you guessed it, blown away. I did a little in-book research on Ravel, and put my project together as a Flash movie, rather than Power Point or posterboard. For the movie's narration, I used a voice synthesis program I found on the internet and recorded the entire project's script that way. What a geeky, bloated bunch of work. I probably got a C+ for it. The other kids in the class probably just did reports on their composers, got higher grades for it, and forgot everything by the weekend. Here I am, though, still listening to Ravel.

Something that was kind of eye-opening was that Ravel, someone who's seen as a musical genius today, was actually criticized back in the day by academics and critics. What the hell. A century ago, his artistic merit was as much in question as Lady Gaga's is today. A lot of people would think that makes sense. Classical=boring. Not hard to see how a classical composer would've been berated. Of course, the idea back then was that Ravel wasn't boring enough. When he studied at the Conservatoire, the academic types evaluating his work found it to be too unorthodox and non-traditional, so they basically were like, "You can either leave on your own or we can kick you out. Either way, you, Monsieur, are un fail grande." He exacted his revenge by becoming one of the most well-known, intellectual composers in history. For those who even know who he is nowadays.

Finally, we come to my little crisis of thought. Why are more people listening to Lady Gaga than Ravel? If I were to answer, I'd say it's accessibility and relevance. It's doubtful Ravel ever played a hand of poker and, subsequently, wouldn't know the first thing about how to use that to woo a paramour. A left-handed piano concerto, maybe. [Insert joke here.] This brings up the question, though, why listen to music that's only relevant and instantly accessible? Music is the soundtrack to our lives. It's sad that so many people settle for having such disposable, unimaginative music describe themselves. For me, Ravel and other classical composers take me places that words can't, both within and without myself. It saddens me that fewer and fewer people are being taken to these places, because they'd rather listen to cheap clichés over and over again. They're letting music tell them who to be and what to be, rather than figuring it out for themselves with reflective, inspiring music that opens their minds.

Despite complete lack of artistic merit, Lady Gaga is leaving her mark on our culture. It might largely be forgotten in twenty years, but someone even more fatuous and mundane will come along and shepherd our weak minds into mediocrity. And this is the kind of thing critics of Ravel accused him of doing a hundred years ago! Sure, we got Ravel out of it despite the warning, but at what cost? According to critics, by loving Ravel, we accepted mediocrity. A century later, and we're still lowering the bar for the next dummy to step up to the mic and dumb our culture down a shade. Can we get back to the top, pull ourselves out of the nosedive, and redeem our declining intelligence or will we prove Mike Judge to be a prophet of sorts? Regardless, I suppose God will still find a way to use us to accomplish His will.