"Classical Training" as Pop P.R.

Tony Green attacks "pop music's longest-running semantic fudge jobs: 'classical training,'" in Slate.

Green's take is basically right: the slogan is far too often used to lend a gloss of depth to otherwise depthless pop musicians. ("Oh--she studied classical music!")

But Green also says this:

Since technique is usually defined by musical idiom—there's a classical way and a rock way of playing the guitar, for example—you'd have to be a hard-core monoculturalist to assume that European classical pedagogy is the overarching standard for all types of musical skills.

Fair enough, but let's not get too relativistic--we're talking about basic craft skills here, which can be assessed a bit more objectively than artistic quality.

For instance, I enjoy bluegrass fiddle as much as the next guy, and some of it is technically fierce. But there are no tunes in the bluegrass repertoire that require anything approaching the sort of total mastery (of the entire bow and the entire fingerboard) demanded by, say, Paganini's Caprices. If you wanted the flexibility of playing both classical and bluegrass violin, classical training would get you far closer to that flexibility than bluegrass.

Also, Green's remarks about the guitar are wrong. It isn't the idiom that primarily defines the technique--it's the instrument construction. A classical guitar and a Strat are entirely different animals (classical guitars use nylon strings, have wide, flat necks, and are designed to be played sitting down; electric guitars are heavier, used steel strings, narrower necks with a more curved fingerboard, and are designed to be played standing up, hanging from a strap). Classical and rock guitarists also use different right hand "equipment" (classical players use their fingers and fingernails, whereas rock players usually use a pick). Much as in the case of the piano and accordion, despite the similarities in how some of the playing mechanism is organized, you're really talking about different instruments, each calling for a different technique.

Comments

[16]

Talent is a gimmick.

No better or worse a gimmick than any other.

[Shag from Brookline]

Were Stefan Grappelli and Django Reinhardt classically trained? If not, did they end up training the classicists? I realize that jazz differs significantly from pop. But classical training does seem to have helped some jazz artists, especially pianists. How about Jim Hall and his jazz guitar peers? And listen to jazz clarinetists who have been classically trained. And listen to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie harmonizing. At the very least the disciplines of classical training should benefit jazz artists.

Chordially yours,

[obelus]

Good point about classical guitar and the electric being different animals altogether. Likewise, the idioms of pop/punk/rock/folk/bluegrass/country differ from that of the classical repertoire. There is a common thread, I believe, that runs through popular music, especially American music, that updates an ongoing oral tradition as Tony Green suggests. Just as most pop musicians would be lost on a concert stage in front of a piece from the classical repertoire, many virtuosos would be similarly at sea in a club setting playing requests. Luckily for both, these worlds rarely overlap.

The bluegrass supergroup Strenghth in Numbers produced musicians who have all gone on to perform orchestral music (widening the audience of the classicists in some cases). Edgar Meyer writes compelling orchestral music and is in demand as a conductor. His mastery of the double-bass is unquestioned. But it is very rare that musicians can travel comfortably between both worlds.

To me, someone who can improvisationally quote from anything from A.P. Carter to Elvis Costello within the context of a musical performance is far more formidible than someone who has a command of the classical repertoire on their instrument. If that person can also sight read, then he or she is simply a bad ass.