The Chasm of Classical Music

Before Garage Band, before karaoke, and before iTunes there was a thing called a "Working Musician."  Working Musicians did all the things a computer does for us today.  These were things of integrity.  Talent was required.  So was knowledge.  Being a working musician had it merits.  It provided a living.  Today working musicians are soldiers.  Soldiers.  To be a working musician you must either go through basic training or Officer's Training School.  Okay.  Perhaps that is comparable to a collegiate music degree.  Other working musicians are academicians.  To become an academician today a doctorate is required.  They hand these out  at a cost.  If you are passionate and have the money, it would seem you can get a doctorate.  I almost have a doctorate, but I find myself different than the doctors of music around me.  

Coming home.  The most brutal thing about "Coming Home" for me are the wet dreams.   They are surprising.  So are the nightmares.  The short stories and complete novels to which I am privy to remember from sleep are a welcome diversion from the brutal reality of music in Fayetteville.  This is not so for the established local musical community.  They seem hungry.  They seem aggressive.  They seem to thrive on the seeds of music dropped for them.  It is surprising, and I do not connect with any of it.  I remember Methodist University, when it was Methodist College.  I remember both its voice and keyboard professors.  I played with and learned from both of these individuals.  Like my father they were a musical spine of Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Today we have an "Arts Council," which is the envy of the state.  The introduction of every concert I attend in the -Ville consists of a devout invocation of our Arts Council.  Like the former professors of voice and keyboards at Methodist College, I knew the Arts Council.  I knew its history, and I knew its diversions.  Now we have a Botanical Garden.  A Botanical Garden is a private country club built in the name of botany, which sponsors musical academicians among others.  It's a clique.  The Arts Council of Fayetteville is the envy of the state because...... "Drum roll please?  Who is chopped?"  The Arts Council of Fayetteville is the envy of the state, because they are rich.  They are the people who built the Botanical Garden.  In their later years realizing you can't pull a U-Haul behind a hearse, affluent Fayettevillians decided to become patrons of the arts.  That included upgrading a second rate symphony orchestra to a position of personal demagoguery.  Like Tom Quaintance, the artistic director of the Cape Fear Regional Theater, artistic leaders in the city of Fayetteville really are not free to administer as they please.  There is this beast of our Arts Council to consider, and they have the money.  

Okay.  The Court of Esterhazy also had affluence.  They were patrons of music, and Papa Haydn had no trouble working for them.  I am not an opponent of working for the affluent.  What I am a staunch opponent of is the abstracting of art for the purposes of patronage.  I don't mean abstraction in terms of Pablo Picasso or the Abstract Expressionists.  This style of visual abstraction in art is important and vital to the evolution of mankind.  So is the Avant Garde in jazz music.  In ways they are the same.  I am a staunch opponent of the abstraction of honest expression and content of art into Musica Reservata.  Defined often in contradictory ways Musica Reservata can be considered music for the elite few.  Also it can be defined as music which acknowledges the public's opinion more than it does the authors intent.  This is what we have today, and it is alarming.  

Okay.  I almost have a doctorate in musical composition.  That means I must have an undergraduate degree of some sort.  Mine is in music education from UNC-Chapel Hill.  This institution until recently was a reputable purveyor of academic knowledge, until  athletic contributions became more important.  Graduating from UNC-Chapel was the single most difficult thing ever I have achieved.  It was that difficult.  While the education component of the music ed. degree was a bust, the remaining curriculum of music was intense and demanding.  Seventy percent of music majors dropped out in their first semester not being able to pass Music Theory 101.  Luckily I had been playing the piano for twelve years, and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" was in my repertoire at the time.  I made it through Music Theory 101 and the rest.  I emerged an educated musician worthy of becoming a "Working Musician."  Many who pursue a doctorate degree choose to go  through the masters degree.  I did not.  I earned a Masters in Jazz and Commercial Music from USC-Columbia.  You may never have heard of this acronym, but you have heard of the Gamecocks.  This graduate program at USC was groundbreaking.  I wrote jingles, something that is not in fashion today.  I played commercial jobs on keyboards, I played jazz on the trumpet, and I learned how to arrange for various ensembles.  I wrote music including that for my first recording featuring Chris Potter, "Crystal Raindrops."  My doctoral studies began at OSU where my USC advisor John Emche matriculated.  He turned out well, so I figured Columbus would be a fruitful musical city.  I was right.  I began at OSU writing familiar jazz-oriented work.  After a few years I was told by my advisor, Dr. Thomas H. Wells, (also the advisor for Dr. Keith Dippre, Chairman of the Department of Music at Methodist University) that I would have to follow the same compositional path as the rest of the doctoral students.  This meant putting my jazz sensibilities on hold and opening an avenue to the Second Viennese School.  Needless to say years later I know  I am talking about.  I write serious piano music influenced by these gentlemen, and Aaron Copland, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Charles Ives.  These piano composition bridge the contemporary gap between America's jazz heritage and European classical music.  They are groundbreaking, and upon discovery I also will be affluent.  This is a bit difficult to stomach in the presence of the Fayetteville Arts Council.  One would think they are the only court in the book.  That is the way it seems around here.  As I attend their concerts and support the local musicians, a wider chasm is created between my musical sensibilities and theirs.  
Music to them it seems is some magical, mystical, empowering thing selfishly that seeks to exclude those not in their group.  Is it possible that those other than doctors can understand and appreciate music?  It is the first ever I have heard of it, and to my knowledge that point of view only exists in Fayettenam.  If one did examine  education in Cumberland County, it would be obvious why this chasm exists.  It should not.  Music is given of God, and it is natural in every human being.  Both Suzuki and Kodaly understand this and seek to connect with this musical inclination early in the years of child development.  It should be.  Classical music, including Beethoven, is not mysticism.  One only has to understand it and Heir Beethoven to reap its rewards.  Shouting, "Bravo" at the conclusion of a mediocre performance of his Triple Concerto shows only your ass.   This is an example of Musica Reservata, music reserved for the few who seek to exclude themselves from those around them.  "The Chasm of Classical Music," America's newest great divide of hypocrisy, is evil and unmerited.  Like suffrage, slavery, and civil liberty music never was intended to oppress or exclude the poor, and yet it does in Fayetteville.  The petulant Greek gods and goddesses who have nothing better to do with their money entertain themselves with an art form meant for better.