Do You Have a Basic Knowledge of History of Music?

I remember when I started to study the history of music, I did not know what I was getting into. I had a notion that music history was somewhat of a trivial pursuit. Honestly, I only followed my history of classical music class because I wanted the credits. I did not know how fully interesting music history could be. You see, in our culture many 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, though, it changed all that for me. I have had some experience playing musical instruments, but I have not mastered one enough to really appreciate what music is all about. This class showed me.

When most of us think about the music history, it means the history of rock music. We presume 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 carrying with them new forms of understanding humanity. New rhythmic patterns are established, carrying with them new methods of understanding history. And music reflects all of it.

Even when the class was over, I could not stop learning about the history of music. It had stimulated my appetite, and I wanted more. I got all the music history books that I could locate. I even started to explore forms of music that had not interested me before in the hopes of enhancing my musical understanding further. Although I was in school studying toward something very different - a degree in engineering - I had thought about giving it up and going back to obtain a degree in musicology. That is how much I am captivated by the issue. If you have never taken a lesson in the history of music, you do not know what you are missing out on. The radio will never sound the same to you again. The whole thing will seem 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 music could do to many of us.

If your job 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 write songs for commercials and soundtracks. In my situation, I pay the bills working in a cover group.

It is tougher than you might imagine. You really have to stay on top of the tastes of the bar people, and that can be tough. At first, I really did not know how to keep being up to date. I looked at the top 40 songs charts, thinking that that could be the best way to know what was popular and what was not.

Paul is a well known author and an Internet enthusiast and really likes sharing information with readers. You can learn more about music and all about music history idea at his web site musicsongslyricsonline.com