Or of the even simpler sentence 'It would not do to omit this symphonist.'

My personal reaction to this is that I believe that, faced with the insanities of modern consumer society, it is absolutely essential to ask those questions; and that there are a few who are doing so, like Peter Maxwell Davies in the lecture that caused such a furore on these boards a while back ....

However, the story my friend told me was in the context of a conversation about the reluctance of students to explore more widely and to look beyond the commercial; to recognise not just that there is a canon of Western art music that has allowed a richness and diversity of expression that many of us simply do not detect in (at least the more commercial forms of) popular music, but that there are other things too - like jazz and non-western music, which are worth exploring.  The point was that this student's smugness and arrogance was cutting him off from things that might enrich his life.  What seems to be lacking is the element of challenge - the sense that all true education is counter-consensual, because it is about encouraging people to ask questions.

What the hell are you spouting on about Syd? (You sound like Sir Humphrey Appleby in his most drunken stupour!)

Asyndetic? Hypotactic? Extraposed? All I'm asking for is this: ENGLISH!

Now let's take a poll then. Those who would like to respond, please indicate your preferred (i.e. more to-you intelligible!) alternative between a) and b) of the following:

a) "Here a mighty symphonist to omit whom would not do."

and

b) "This great symphonist should not be omitted"

My guess is that most people (and they don't need PhDs in Linguistics!) would more readily understand the structure, syntax and the actual meaning of b) more readily and instinctively than that (insofaras as any exists) of a).

I may be wrong, but then I always was a traditionalist at heart.

Baz 

That's one possible line of reasoning. The other, which is what I was attempting to put forward, is this:

If one did expect persons 'schooled, skilled and practised in "Art Music"' to know something about other musical traditions too, then one might be better placed to tell a student more inclined to the popular and even somewhat commercial that he, likewise, should take note of other traditions (including 'Art Music' both Western and non-Western, contemporary and historical). I quite agree with perfect wagnerite that the student he mentioned was smug and arrogant in his refusal to engage with another tradition; the only point I was trying to make is that it would be equally narrow-minded of a classically-trained teacher to dismiss something outside his/her own tradition.

The enemy is not particular kinds of music, whether 'Art', 'Popular', or 'commercial'. The enemy is ignorance, and refusal to engage with things outside one's own realm of experience. I chose Messrs Stock Aitken and Waterman as a deliberately somewhat provocative example from a musical tradition often ignored by classical musicians, and I fear that the commercial aspect of their work may have slightly muddied the waters of my argument. I don't make any great claims for their music, but I think it's a good example of how any manifestation of the musical impulse could be turned to educational advantage: it's much more productive to say 'I'll learn about your tradition if you learn about mine' than to say (or imply) 'my tradition is better than yours'.

It was Syd's frustration with R3OK boarders reluctance to ANSWER such questions that led him to set up this thread in the first place! The reluctance to engage with quality judgements (eg "greater than") and to mask them as mere personal preference / opinion is something I feel in my guts to be avoidance tactics.

There are, though, two different types of ignorance. The first is simply "not knowing" (for whatever reason); while the second (as Thomas Aquinas eloquently argued) is quite different - it is not merely "not knowing", but rather "not wanting to know".

My "lack of knowledge" about Messrs Stock Aitken and Waterman is really the former. I'm happy now to explore their work, but only because the purpose of exploration is not necessarily only to enjoy.

Baz

An admirable summing-up, Baz. I'm glad you've confirmed that your not knowing SAW was of the former kind rather than the latter; as long as that's established, I really wouldn't say there's any need for you to 'explore their work'. Exploration is not only about enjoyment, as you say, but on the other hand none of have enough time on this earth to explore everything.

As for 'untrained functional harmony combined with a vocal line totally bereft of melodic content, in which the lyrics are articulated with something describable as being in a "transatlantic accent"', you may be right, although - as I'm sure an early-music specialist such as yourself would know - 'functional harmony' is a somewhat problematic ideal to judge music by, while 'melodic content' is positively slippery!

Agreed on that count, and I find the tendency to either dismiss popular music out of hand on snobbish grounds, or fight shy of ever saying anything critical about such a field of activity in a broad sense, do not really get us very far.

The point that t-i-n was making, I think, had to do with why we can hold our hands up in despair at someone not knowing about the Western art tradition, when their own musical interests lie in a different field, but apply a very different set of standards when it's someone involved with Western art music not knowing about popular things. In one sense I agree, though do actually believe that there may be good reasons for arguing that the Second Viennese School constitute a 'greater' contribution to music than do the the products of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. But the dismissal of one and elevation of the other usually is on grounds of snobbishness and ignorance, which are entirely indefensible.

But this is about a bigger question in education: it has been assumed for a long time that musical education in schools and universities should be centered upon the Western 'classical' canon. In recent times this assumption has been challenged, to such an extent that some maintain that one's musical education needn't particularly feature that canon at all (and especially not its modernist variety) on the grounds that such a thing has become increasingly marginal in society as a whole, whereas the situation with popular music is different. By that measure, why shouldn't someone be able to do A-Level Music and a degree entirely studying popular work (just as earlier students studied only classical work)? And to some extent this is being put into practice. It also raises such questions as, for example, why the teaching of contemporary classical composition in universities should be given more status (and money) than the teaching of popular songwriting, say? And whether there will necessarily be a place in the future in universities (or even conservatories) for those whose experience, expertise and desires in terms of teaching fall within the Western classical tradition? Those are very serious questions: what I'd ask of Baz, roslynmuse, t-i-n and anyone else is whether this current direction is a good thing or not, and if not, on what grounds they would argue for the maintenance of a prominent role for Western classical music? (hopefully we can get beyond the 'it's good to have a plurality of traditions represented' argument - in any form of teaching some decisions have to be made on what to include and what not to (including within genres) - upon what basis are such decisions to be made?).