11.14.06 Raising A Listener

I’m Gabriella’s (about to turn six) music teacher one day a week.  She’s mastered dynamics: She sings a song or plays the piano at forte or pianissimo and a few other other dynamics depending on what flash card I hold up.  She’s mastered half the notes on the keyboard: She put stickers on all the Cs, and the next week the D’s and on and on until now all she lacks is three of the white keys.  She’s mastered rhythm: She can tap eighth notes while I tap quarters, half notes while I tap quarters etc.  She knows the difference between a brass instrument and a woodwind and can listen to music and tell me about half the time three instruments she hears in the recording.

She loves music and learning about it or I wouldn’t bother filling her brain with this kind of pretty useless info.  Or she liked learning about it.  Until this morning when she was forced to listen to “bad” music.

I don’t believe “good” and “bad” music have absolute definitions.  What’s good to you might not be to me.  We’ve talked about this here before.  Every generation has it’s elitists who are certain they know what good and bad “art” is.  Truth is what we like or label “art” or “bad” has a great deal to do with where and when we live, what we believe, what we’ve heard before - all this and more affects how and how well we listen and what we call what we’ve heard.  Thats what I believe anyway.  I subtly started brainwashing Gabriella to believe what I believe today.