How to Appreciate Music: Part II
The subtle indifference of "liking" something
Between 2006, when they had 12 million users, and 2012, when they reached the 1 billion mark, Facebook upended the way people related to online content.
They didn’t exactly create the idea of “liking” things - but they pushed that idea out beyond the limits of where internet culture had been before their “like” button came along. And along the way, the concept of “liking” things has changed in a lot of subtle ways. You may click “like” because you are deeply moved by some viral video, or you may just idly click it to feed the algorithm and keep similar content rolling into your feed.
But what do you think you mean when you say you “like” something?
What do you think you mean when you don’t like something? And how much time do you spend examining what you do and don’t like to figure out why you feel the way you do?
That examination is what I mean when I talk about appreciating music.
Music Appreciation is a fundamental part of any musician’s education, but I’m willing to bet that most students approached it as an easy credit. In my experience, it didn’t require the rigor of Music Theory, though theory can be an important part of Appreciating music. The programs I’ve taken either approached the subject as an overview of broad categories of music or attempted a slightly deeper look at specific sets of genres, focusing on “Jazz History” or types of “Classical” music.
The intent to expose students to unfamiliar music may be good, but often the takeaway students get from lower-level Music Appreciation is that the examples used represent The Best of their eras or styles. And I’ve always felt like that result misses the intent of the coursework. Just because a piece of music is representative of its era, that doesn’t mean it is the “best” representative or that you are required to like it.
And having an academic program reinforce what is “best” about music sends a message to students, whether intended or not.
Fundamentally, what you like about music is a very personal thing. Not everyone is built for analysis - at least not the kind of Music Theory analysis that you find in the academic world. So when students are confronted with unfamiliar styles and at the same time have to grapple with the theory of what they’re hearing, they often lose out (or ignore) the history and context behind what they’re hearing.
This is a shame because sometimes the music of a time or place can give you a window into what that world was like in a way that reading about it can’t.
The courses that seem to hit the mark best are the ones that use music as a tool for getting at that cultural and historical context. My instructors at Towson University did a fine job presenting several entertaining and engrossing courses on “The History of Music in the U.S.” and “Jazz History.”
Take, for just one example, a performance by the Carolina Chocolate Drops that puts an old folk song in a new context:
There’s a lot to dig into here - starting with “Do you like this song?”
Your taste does matter, after all, and if you have a strong reaction either way, it can tell you a bit about yourself. Some Black students were uncomfortable seeing Black musicians performing a “corny” song that felt “too country.” Some students simply thought the tune was nostalgic (I know it reminded me of old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons) and couldn’t understand their classmates’ reactions.
Our class discussion addressed some of these feelings, talking about the tension within Black American communities over whether it was better to embrace rural roots or to aspire to more sophisticated art - a tension that manifested between the elegant Duke Ellington and the more rough-and-tumble Blues singers of the post-minstrel era. We also had to acknowledge the sometimes thorny ways in which the dominant white culture either suppressed or stole from Black artists - leading to questions about “authenticity” and “cultural appropriation” that started long before America was a country.
Opinions about this tension dog our society to this day, and our discussion considered the significance of a trained operatic soprano (Rhiannon Giddons, the banjo player in the video above) selecting and performing a song like this with her bandmates. And I suppose we could go digging for sales numbers and count “impressions” on social media to see how successful this song was, but… that’s not a very good measure of success, anymore.
I’m sharing this song with you in this post so we can appreciate it for what it is, what it means, and what we can learn from it. In its way, this has become an important song despite its simple structure and simple themes, because it has been enhanced by the appreciation that the Carolina Chocolate Drops brought to it.
I guess what I’m getting at is that the way we listen to music is sometimes as important as the writing and performance of it. How we think about a piece of music matters. How we carry it forward - like, share, or subscribe! - matters. But we haven’t always treated appreciation as a part of a song’s existence. The modern breakdown of our monoculture and the loss of charts and gatekeepers sometimes means that the only value music has is the appreciation that we give it.
And the great thing about music is that it all can be super without taking that superbness away from anyone else.