I remember when I first started studying the history of music, I did not realize what I was getting into. I had a notion that music history was somewhat of a trivial pursuit. In fact, I only followed my history of classical music course because I needed the credits. I did not realize how fully fascinating music history is. You see, in our culture a lot of us do not actually study to understand music. For a lot of people, music 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 really understand what music is all about. This class taughed me.
When the majority of us think about the history of music, it means the history of rock music. We think that the history is plain because the music is plain. In fact, neither is the case. The history of music, whether you mean classical music, rock music, jazz music, or any other kind, is always complicated. New chord structures are introduced taking with them new forms of understanding humanity. New rhythmic patterns are introduced, carrying with them new ways of understanding history. And music reflects all of it.
Even when the class was over, I would not stop learning about the history of music. It had whetted my appetite, and I wanted more. I got a hold of all the music history volumes that I could discover. I even started to research forms of music that had not interested me before in the hopes of improving my musical comprehension further. Although I was in college 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 course in the history of music, you don't know what you are missing out on. The CDs will never sound the same to you again. Everything will sound much more rich, much more shinny, and much more important. A new song can reflect a new way of being, and a new way of imagining existence on earth. This is what learning about the history of music could do to a lot of us.
If your occupation is musician, sooner or later you will 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 music for advertising and soundtracks. In my situation, I am able to pay the bills playing music in a cover group.
It is more tough than you would think of. You have to be on top of the tastes of the bar crowd, and that can be painful. At first, I really did not know how to keep being up to date. I looked at the top 40 songs charts, figuring that that must be the best method to know what was in and what was not.
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Paul is a well known author and an Internet enthusiast and enjoys sharing information with readers. You can read more about music and all about music and history infos at his website www.musicsongslyricsonline.com
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