Is it important for musicians to study Music History?
July 13th, 2009
Prospero Reincarnate asked:
What is it’s ultimate purpose? We study theory to better understand how music is structured, and ultimatley to be able to write better music, we study our instruments (or voice) to develop technical proficiency. Why is it important for all musicians to understand musical history on some level?
DMASIV
What is it’s ultimate purpose? We study theory to better understand how music is structured, and ultimatley to be able to write better music, we study our instruments (or voice) to develop technical proficiency. Why is it important for all musicians to understand musical history on some level?
DMASIV
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You can see the evolution of music through music history. It may not seem very important but when you look at it we’ve come from greogrian chant to rock. Also, you can hear ideas from the past coming back in present music. I don’t know if you’re taking a class in college or anything but in my music history class we had to attend live perfomances and find different themes and variations in muisc and different aspects of the music. Theory, you don’t do that so much with it’s more about part writing and analization. Muisc history makes you look as music from an asthetic point of view rather than an analitical.
I know a lot of people find it boring but I find it quite interesting. I also think it’s great that we learn about the different composers and masters of our past. It’s like why do we take regular history? Because somethings in the past happen or could happen again. Because through history you learn more about yourself.
Because music history IS music theory. They are one in the same. What is the point of studying the music Beethoven,. if we have no idea as to why he would write something. Are you saying that we have nothing to learn from the lives of Beethoven or Mozart? How could you profess to understand a thing about their music when you don’t understand anything about the composers. That’s just plain hypocritical. What you are speaking of is like trying to understand the writings of Plato, without having any knowledge of the world in which he lived. History provides us with context. It allows us to see why music evolved the way it did. Eliminating music history eliminates the “who”, the “how”, the “when” and most importantly the “why”. All that we are left with is the “what”. And you can’t do much with that, without understanding all of the other four.
One of my biggest reasons for studying music history is to know how to play different styles. I don’t want to play a Baroque piece in a romantic way! That would defeat the purpose of playing that particular piece. You need to study your music history so you know how things were originally played and why. Only by knowing the history of a piece can you make an informed decision on how you want to play it.
Music history is related to music theory, harmony, form structures, stylistics and aesthetics. Every aspect of music evolved through time. You need to know music history in order to understand music, just as you need to know universal history in order to understand mankind.
Overall, it’s just useful. Why not be completely prepared? It helps to understand how everything musical relates, and it helps to have an intelligent conversation with someone.
I may be WAY out in left field on this but music is based on emotional feelings. It helps us to know the setting of the times of the writers of the music in order to understand their emotions. That way it enables US to find the emotional background to the music that we are listening or playing to or singing. When we can “empathize” with the composer’s emotional state during which the composition was assembled then we can appreciate the nuances of the music itself. Anyone can play the notes as written and it’ll sound just fine. But when you can put the emotions of the composer into the music then it just seems to have the extra energy added to it and it somehow sounds much better. We can especially see this with vocalists as they seek for and finally find the emotions of the lyrics and music that they are singing. Once they find those emotions it just comes out in the subtle nuances of vocal inflection and body language and ****** expression. A really excellent recording doesn’t even need the physical aspects at all, you can get ALL of the emotion directly from the vocalists tonal qualities.
Brightest Blessings,
Raji the Green Witch