Don't teach classical music this way!

02 Dec 10 - 09:48 AM (#3044891)
Subject: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Jim Dixon

Something I saw in another thread reminded me of this:

When I was in about 6th grade, there was a teacher who came to our school to teach us "music appreciation." These lessons only happened 1 or 2 hours a week, I guess. One of the pieces she taught us to "appreciate" was Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

She taught us words to go with the symphony, and made us sing them:

"Schubert, we sing to you. We love to do the tunes of Schubert…."

I remember more, but I won't inflict them on you. I am NOT asking for more lyrics. I wish I had never learned them. I can't forget them. Whenever I hear that symphony (which is rarely; I'm not much of a fan of classical music), those damned words pop into my head.

And the words are so inane, stupid, puerile, uninspired, uninspiring, unpoetic—I can't think of enough synonyms—that they have destroyed any real appreciation I might have had for that symphony.

As a pedagogical technique, this is the pits.

I can understand how a naïve young teacher might have the misconception that putting words to symphonies is a good thing. The words do work as a mnemonic. They help you learn the tune. But they don't help you like the tune. No, if anything, they have the exact opposite effect.

Although I have since learned to enjoy many pieces of classical music—especially Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Handel—I detest the Unfinished Symphony. I don't think it's Schubert's fault. I think it's that damned teacher's.

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02 Dec 10 - 10:20 AM (#3044908)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Acorn4

I think I've heard this referred to before:-

"This was the symphony that Schu - Schu -Schubert never finished"


Seems to have been quite common around that time.

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02 Dec 10 - 10:31 AM (#3044920)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Peter the Squeezer

I got much more from finding out that if you speeded up the Moonlight Sonata - you got "In The Mood"

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02 Dec 10 - 11:30 AM (#3044971)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST,leeneia

Jim, I agree with you 100%.

Remember when I started a thread asking for techniques for getting rid of unwanted, memorized lyrics to a song? That was exactly the same kind of thing.

(If I were going to introduce kids to classical music, I wouldn't use a lengthy, massive, uninteresting piece like Schubert's 'Unfinished' in the first place.)

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02 Dec 10 - 02:08 PM (#3045091)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

I remember music appreciation at our primary school used a set of records, but I don't think any words were given to us unless they were part of the composition.
These many years later, I don't remember any of the pieces in the set.

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02 Dec 10 - 03:45 PM (#3045164)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST,Grishka

I knew a fan of classical music who could sing bawdy French verses to most symphony themes. In German, nonsense verses are preferred, some are very widely known. To be sure: appreciation must come first.

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02 Dec 10 - 03:53 PM (#3045166)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Crowhugger

Although in general I agree with you Jim, I do love the words to Mozart's horn concerto...who recorded that, was it Flanders & Swan? And quite apart from being in stitches when I first heard them (I never totally knew them, and now forget whatever I did once have memorized,) when I hear the music, I smile an extra-deep smile thinking about what it took for the soloist to become able to play such an acrobatic melody. In full support of at least part of your OP, I still need to make an effort to hear purely the musical motifs and not have in mind a cloudy memory of the story told by the words I've forgotten.

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02 Dec 10 - 04:16 PM (#3045183)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Joe Offer

I'm torn. I have a hell of a time remembering melodies without lyrics, but I have to say that some pop musicians have ruined classical pieces by adding pop to them - "Lover's Concerto" is a good example, but I also have to admit I learned a bit about music from that piece.
But some classical pieces bring some really inane lyrics to mind (some of my own, spur-of-the-moment composition, I confess), and that's annoying.
I guess I should confess that if I were teaching music appreciation, I'd have kids make up their own silly lyrics to help them recognize classical themes. How else can you do it?
-Joe-

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02 Dec 10 - 04:48 PM (#3045195)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: SRD

Mother's got a knocking shop
Knocking shop
Knocking shop
Mother's got a knocking shop in Eaton Palace Square.

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02 Dec 10 - 05:20 PM (#3045209)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST,Grishka

I think we agree that the verses Jim Dixon mentioned are really silly in a way that will frighten off any self-respecting student. Many nonsense verses, however, are fun, which will hardly go amiss, even if they don't help to appreciate music.

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02 Dec 10 - 07:35 PM (#3045271)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: The Fooles Troupe

"Schubert, we sing to you. We love to do the tunes of Schubert…."

My God - she wasn't brought up in Germany in the 1930s was she?

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02 Dec 10 - 07:51 PM (#3045275)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Tattie Bogle

I was in a pub session in Glasgow on the day that England were playing Germany in the last football world cup. i was surrounded by brilliant young musicians and the folk tunes were really flying. The roars from the TV-football-watching crowd came bombarding up from another bar down below: of course, the Scots were applauding the German goals, as they do here (anyone but England!)
So I played, in slightly satirical mood, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from his 9th Symphony on my button accordion. "Oh what was that tune?" I was asked. So I ask, "Don;t they teach classical music at all?"

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03 Dec 10 - 02:56 AM (#3045403)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: VirginiaTam

Laverne and Shirley ruined Strauss for me

The blue Danube waltz
By Strauss
the Louse
He lives in a house
with Mic
key Mouse

shudder.

Perhaps this is why I detest all waltz tempo pieces?

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03 Dec 10 - 06:19 AM (#3045450)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Jim Dixon

I have found the source of those awful lyrics:

From an article—a regular column, I suspect—called "Ad Libitum" by "FESTE" in The Musical Times, September, 1937:

Both Beethoven and the conductor quoted above [saying "Highbrow music can never be really popular until lyrics are included…."] have recently been well backed up by an American author, Sigmund Spaeth, who has brought out a book 'Great Symphonies: How to Recognize and Remember Them.'

Everybody know the difficulty in distinguishing between the classical symphonies. It is, for example notoriously hard to remember which is which of the involved opening themes of, say, Beethoven's 'Eroica' and the C minor; indeed, looking at all the nine, it is hard to differentiate them except by their numbers and keys. The same difficulty exists in all the repertory. Dr. Spaeth has therefore invented three hundred and fifty little poems to help the youthful of all ages. For example, the tortuous theme of the slow movement of the 'New World' Symphony is fixed in the mind (if any) by singing it to:

'English Horn,
All forlorn,
Pipe your plaintive lay;
Dreaming slow, soft and low,
What does Dvořák say?'

The 'New World' has always been a flop; with Les Allen standing beside the conductor fervently crooning—slightly off pitch, of course—these words at the start of the Largo, this hitherto neglected work of Dvořák's might at last make its way.

The title of Schubert's B minor takes on a new significance in the light of these new ideas: it is Unfinished in the sense that it has had to wait till to-day for its clever lyrics. Dr. Spaeth's effort for the opening subject is:

'Low minor tune,
Schubert will sing right soon.'

For the next subject Les will help Franz out with:

'Schubert, beloved Schubert,
We call on you!
These notes are all too few'!

Let not the pedant make a quatrain of it by adding:

'These words are all too many'!

Any project that enables serious music to capture public fancy deserves the warm co-operation of all earnest propagandists of the best.

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03 Dec 10 - 06:41 AM (#3045456)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Jim Dixon

I should have cautioned: set your irony detectors on "high" when reading the above article.

Sigmund Gottfried Spaeth (1885-1965), by the way, will be recognized by many Mudcatters as the author of "Read 'Em and Weep" which has been the source of many lyrics posted here; also "Weep Some More, My Lady" and around 50 other books on a variety topics in the field of popular and classical music.

Foolestroupe: Spaeth was indeed American, but his name suggests you weren't far wrong.

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03 Dec 10 - 06:43 AM (#3045457)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Leadfingers

'Music Appreciation' is a VERY Dubious way to introduce youngsters to 'Good' music !
I recall (at Age Fourteen) being sat with thirty other lads and having Beethovens Fifth played on a relatively inexpensive player , with the SOLE Comment , " This is GOOD music - Listen and enjoy "
Guaranteed to put ANY one off Classical music for life !

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03 Dec 10 - 07:29 AM (#3045477)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Acorn4

Perhaps Schubert didn't finish it because someone came up with those words!

The main point about classical stuff is surely that it's more than just a "good choon", although some of the greatest works do indeed have a memorable melody.

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03 Dec 10 - 07:56 AM (#3045488)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST,Patsy

In my primary school they would play all kinds of classical music on a crackly old record player as we went into morning assembly and I loved it. But nothing was said to inform us what it was so I could do would be maybe how to hum it in an infant way without my parents being any the wiser but I am glad that they didn't put words to any of it I must say. This has been a bug bear of mine for ages. The same for me is 'Classic goes Rock' I wish that hadn't been done, Roll over Beethoven is okayish. Sometimes Reggae just about gets away with stealing some, just.

However Bugs Bunny's interpretation of Wagner's operatic stuff with Elmer Phudd was a classic in it's self and to this day I will always sing 'Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit!' and the family know exactly what I am talking about.

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03 Dec 10 - 09:25 AM (#3045536)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: MGM·Lion

<<<<
From: SRD - PM
Date: 02 Dec 10 - 04:48 PM

Mother's got a knocking shop
Knocking shop
Knocking shop
Mother's got a knocking shop in Eaton Palace Square.
<<<<

What's that supposed to go to, please, SRD. Polly Put The Kettle On is what comes to my mind.

A friend of my 7-years-older sister when I was about 12 endeared the last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concert to me {look away now if you don't want to know the score [pun intended ~ I think with "A scotch&soda, a scotch and soda; Just one for you and one for me".

♥♫❤Michael❤♫♥

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03 Dec 10 - 10:24 AM (#3045579)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: open mike

i recall peter And the wolf as being the best educational symphonic piece. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtns6R757i8

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03 Dec 10 - 10:30 AM (#3045588)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST,Silas

I know exactly what you mean. There was a TV ad in the sixties/seventies for a doll that used Brahms lullaby as its tune for some nauseating words. I can't listen to it any more.

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03 Dec 10 - 11:29 AM (#3045619)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: The Doctor

'Mother's got a knocking shop' sounds like Hall of the Mountain King, or at least it fits.

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03 Dec 10 - 11:29 AM (#3045620)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: MGM·Lion

Following the Flanders & Swann Mozart ref above, I have always sung in my head to the Mozart Horn Concerto rondo the words of "Are you the O'Reilly they speak of so highly?"; which I think is supposed to go to "The Irish Washerwoman", but fits the Mozart beautifully.

~Michael~

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03 Dec 10 - 12:13 PM (#3045639)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: terrier

..and then there was This (youtube clip) . Unforgettable :)

I guess I was lucky as a school kid. Our music teacher procured tickets for the Liverpool Philharmonic 'Youth Concerts'. Those were surely the best days of my life. Sir Charles Groves introductions really made the music come to life for us kids and seeing one of the finest orchestras in the world playing live on stage was awsome. I was an immediate convert.

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03 Dec 10 - 12:25 PM (#3045649)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Jim Dixon

The Flanders & Swann piece that is based on a Mozart horn concerto is called (by F&S) ILL WIND. The lyrics have been posted here, in the Mudcat forum.

I just updated that thread with links to YouTube.

I have no objection to this because the words are actually clever and fun. I probably had already heard the horn concerto (as an adult, on the radio, not in a "music appreciation" class) before hearing ILL WIND—which is as it should be. A parody is always more fun when you're already acquainted with the original.

I also like the Bugs Bunny cartoons with classical music themes. If I remember correctly, there were several of them, but only the one phrase "Kill the wabbit!" was sung.

I'll probably go looking for them on YouTube also—unless somebody beats me to it.

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03 Dec 10 - 01:34 PM (#3045696)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: dick greenhaus

If you haven't heard Bob Blue's take on Eine Kleine Nacht (and the words--or lack of words), you really should. Brilliant!

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04 Dec 10 - 09:59 AM (#3046202)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Mooh

"Kill the wabbit" was Wagner. Those cartoons just slay me.

Peace, Mooh.

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04 Dec 10 - 01:49 PM (#3046314)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Piers Plowman

"Kill the Wabbit" is from the Warner Bros. cartoon "What's Opera, Doc?" directed by Chuck Jones. I'm fairly sure it was also he who directed a parody of Disney's "Three Little Pigs" without dialogue, but with music from Brahms' "Hungarian Dances". There was another cartoon with music where animals were building a skyscraper, but I don't know the composer.

Jones loved music and made several musical cartoons. One used the tune "Little Brown Jug" and the characters were the notes on the score.

Hugh Harman und Rudolf Ising made many musical cartoons at Disney, Warner Bros. and MGM. One that sticks in my mind especially used Strauss' "Tales of the Vienna Woods".

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04 Dec 10 - 01:58 PM (#3046320)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Piers Plowman

The musical cartoons in the so-called "Golden Era" of Hollywood animation were often "one-offs" rather than ones featuring popular characters and are unfortunately rarely seen nowadays. There was a Woody Woodpecker using Figaro's famous aria from "The Barber of Seville".

Warner Bros. owned the rights to lots of popular songs, and they used (or "recycled" them) in these musical one-offs. For example, there's a short that includes snippets from several songs from the film "42nd Street", which would seem to have been from right around the same time.

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04 Dec 10 - 02:05 PM (#3046324)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Piers Plowman

" [...] snippets from several songs from the film "42nd Street", which would seem to have been from right around the same time."

Words and music by Al Dubin and Harry Warren. For example, an egg falls off a table, a chick hatches and starts to sing "I'm Young and Healthy" and ... now I can't remember any others from the film. Maybe it was just the one. Anyway, a bottle of laundry blueing (no household should be without one) sings "Am I Blue?" This gag appeared in several shorts. "Lady in Red" and "When Yuba Plays The Rhumba on the Tuba" were also used over and over.

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04 Dec 10 - 07:37 PM (#3046549)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: McGrath of Harlow

Maybe it depends on the quality of the words.

Flanders and Swann's Mozart Horn Concerto for Karaoke aficionados.

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04 Dec 10 - 10:45 PM (#3046643)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: beeliner

"Bar-ca-role, from tay-ales of Hoff-, -man written by Off-, -enbach."

Which in turn reminds me of the "Out To Lunch" sign on the door of my local music dealer:

"Bach at 1 - Offenbach sooner."

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05 Dec 10 - 12:57 AM (#3046680)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: MGM·Lion

---Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Piers Plowman - PM
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 02:05 PM

[...] snippets from several songs from the film "42nd Street, which would seem to have been from right around the same time.---
Words and music by Al Dubin and Harry Warren.---
===
I included these two as prime examples on thread below which I OPd just a year ago, and which I shall refresh for purpose of re-drawing attention to their neglect:~
=====
---Subject: Great but forgotten
From: MtheGM - PM
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 01:09 PM
Some names of the great songwriters of the past, composers, lyricists or those who are both, are remembered and revered to this day — Porter, Gershwins, Berlin, Mercer (contd p 94). Others, just as distinguished, have left names known only to a few with the specialist interest. I will instance Harry Warren [see below] - any other notable instances?
I have just looked up composer Harry Warren in my 0xford Guide to Popular Music. Just a selection:—
words by Al Dubin: 42nd St; We're in the Money; Keep young & beautiful; I'll string along with you; I only have eyes for you; Lullaby of Broadway; September in the rain;
W Johnny Mercer: Jeepers creepers; You must have been a beautiful baby; Jezebel; Acheson Topeka & Santa Fe.
w Mack Gordon: Down Argentina Way; I-yi-yi-yi like you very much; Chattanooga choo-choo; Gal in Kalamazoo; I like to be loved by you; You'll never know;
w Jack Brooks: That's amore

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05 Dec 10 - 03:41 PM (#3047038)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Tootler

There are a substantial number of popular songs that have used classical themes for their tunes.

This link provides a list. I don't know how comprehensive it is, but there are quite a number here.

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05 Dec 10 - 04:07 PM (#3047051)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Acorn4

The list misses "Saturday Night at the Duck Pond" by the Cougars - this use of the Swan Lake theme was enough to get it banned by the BBC.

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05 Dec 10 - 04:20 PM (#3047056)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Ron Davies

"...massive uninteresting..."    says more about the poster than about the music.


I love a huge array of classical music--including the Unfinished.    I've read that the reason he didn't finish it it that he got syphilis at around the same time he was writing it and associated the two.    Perhaps that also would not be a good story to tell kids about the Unfinished.

But I certainly agree the mnemonic chosen by the teacher cited is stupid, patronizing and didactic at the same time. A neat trick.

A lot better to let the music speak for itself.

There are some other, better stories to tell about Schubert.   My favorite is that he was very near-sighted and only 5' 1" tall, which got him out of military service in the latter stages of the Napoleonic wars. But his physical characteristics also made him unpopular with women.

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05 Dec 10 - 04:37 PM (#3047061)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: SRD

>>From: The Doctor
Date: 03 Dec 10 - 11:29 AM

'Mother's got a knocking shop' sounds like Hall of the Mountain King, or at least it fits.<<

Quite right, my father-in-law had several more of them, how about:

Oh what a pity
She'd only one titty
To swing the baby on....

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06 Dec 10 - 08:28 AM (#3047374)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler

"Oh Ebeneezer Prout you are a funny man. You have made Bach's fugues as simple as you can. You have made Bach's fugues as simple as you can."

This was what my father was taught and would quote to me.

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06 Dec 10 - 08:44 AM (#3047383)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: MGM·Lion

Oh what a pity
She'd only one titty
To swing the baby on....

I have always know to Sousa's 'Blaze Away'.

~M~

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06 Dec 10 - 07:51 PM (#3047816)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Tattie Bogle

Re Tootler's (Wikipedia) list: another missed one is Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony (Pathetique)1st Mvt: the tune is used, with a change of time signature, for "John Of Dreams" - and Les Barker's "Custard Creams".
And there are quite a few more based on Pachelbel's Canon than those in the list.

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07 Dec 10 - 12:24 PM (#3048165)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: SRD

From: MtheGM

>>Oh what a pity
She'd only one titty
To swing the baby on....

>I have always know to Sousa's 'Blaze Away'.

I think it was actually written by Abe Holzmann

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07 Dec 10 - 01:44 PM (#3048204)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: MGM·Lion

Quite right, SRD: Blaze·Away by Holzmann indeed. Sorry.

~M~

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07 Dec 10 - 02:17 PM (#3048227)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Crowhugger

Hey, open mike, me too! I LOVED Peter and the Wolf as a small child, certainly I was pre-school aged when it became my favourite; it remained so until age 10 or so when I fell in love with Bach violin concerto (in E I think), and on it went from there. PatW always drew me in completely, both story and music, as well as remembering and anticipating the instrument sounds and the characters' themes. I'm sure I had no idea that I was learning anything.

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07 Dec 10 - 03:42 PM (#3048278)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: MGM·Lion

I don't think, talking of Peter & the Wolf, that that excellent wiki list included "I've got the GI jive" to the "Peter" theme which I recall from the 1940s.

~M~

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08 Dec 10 - 12:03 AM (#3048537)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Ron Davies

Is that the same GI Jive Louis jordan used to do?

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08 Dec 10 - 12:38 AM (#3048550)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: LadyJean

My mom said the music majors she knew in college sang;
It sounds just like something
you used to sing in grade school.
It's really the first movement
of Brahms' first symphony.

A mnemonic of sorts.

The music teacher I suffered under in fourth, fifth and sixth grade would, occasionally, tell the class the story of one of Wagner's operas. "Taunhaueser" and, I think, "Die Meistersinger". She was, by the way, a Jewish lady. I enjoyed the stories, but I can't say I care for Wagner.

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08 Dec 10 - 06:43 AM (#3048668)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST

Not exacly a classical music theme, but our daughter once had a teacher who was a keen Christian, and who taught them some words to the Match of the Day theme tune. They began "Why don't you put your trust in Jesus.." and ended with something like, "..let him hold your hand/He will love and guide and lead you till you reach the promised land."

She is a keen football fan, and 20 years on she can still not quite forgive her teacher for planting these earwormy words in her head. As Jim implies, the worse the words are, the more persistently they cling in the memory.

Marje

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08 Dec 10 - 03:29 PM (#3049078)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: mayomick

For the Toreador Song I've still got ; "The Esso sign means happy motoring, call at the esso sign For happy motoring ".
The libretto for The William Tell Overture : Come away ,come away with William Tell
Come away for the land he loved so well. Peeda bow peedabow and on we go, For Tell and Switzerland !

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09 Dec 10 - 05:25 AM (#3049436)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: GUEST,Patsy

The Esso sign means happy motoring was another really good advert from 'those days' and I think I remember different faces on the trademark symbol depicting all characters across Britain.

The nauseating Brahms Lullaby was for Tiny Tears sadly yes I still remember the words and no I am not going to repeat them.

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09 Dec 10 - 06:15 AM (#3049475)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: The Fooles Troupe

"occasionally, tell the class the story of one of Wagner's operas. "Taunhaueser" and, I think, "Die Meistersinger""

You should listen to Anna Russell's version of the full Ring Cycle ... :-)

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09 Dec 10 - 06:55 AM (#3049493)
Subject: RE: Don't teach classical music this way!
From: Ron Davies

Also, obviously try some PDQ Bach.    Especially PDQ Bach On The Air--above all "New Horizons in Music Appreciation"---first movement of Beethoven's 5th broadcast as a baseball game.

Priceless and immortal.

Maybe also the 1712 Overture--with Pop Goes the Weasel mixed in with Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms etc.

Also I think he has one called the Unbegun Symphony.

In his hands classical music is anything but stodgy.

Admittedly I'm not an unbiased observer, having had the chance to play second kazoo under him.

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