Why do people come to the Classical Music forum to ask how they can learn to do something quickly?

Question

Learning to play an instrument and to read music takes time and practice. Does anyone else think this place is becoming an open forum for the "American Idol" crowd?

Answer 1

Though I sympathise with the thrust of your Q, I would have to take the candidates, who make it to the actual 'meat' of such 'Idol' events live, in protection to a degree, as they in the main have to work pretty hard indeed to absorb modern stage craft very, very quickly under considerable pressure and then perform in a pretty stark glare of public attention. And acquit themselves often remarkably well and consistently during their moment(s) in the sun.



That said, a world seems to have arisen -- it doesn't seem to have 'evolved' or I have not been paying attention -- in which craft, that takes years and years of application to get even close to, is now believed to be within the grasp of *anyone* who is merely in possession of the right 'tips', and just a year or two of (in my instrument's case) 'piano' apparently opens up a world of Chopin études being 'finished' and Alkan works roundly being declared as being 'easy'. (Wrongly on both counts, but adamantly even so.)



Why? I genuinely don't know, as 'finished' examples of such performances I have heard/seen offered couldn't stand up to scrutiny as even mere, sorry massacres of ones. Is it a home climate where anything little Johnny does 'has to be encouraged' so a saccharine puddle of 'yes. dear, very nice dear' eventually becomes believed by all, little Johnny inclusive? A world where justified and stringent criticism is always 'mean'? One in which elders are anything but, and simper to be the youngsters' 'friends' instead?



My training was in many ways distinctly harsh, but my upbringing was anything but. Perhaps the distinction between the two is getting comprehensively lost. And excellence at anything costs time, we learned, from the art of constructing sandcastles as toddlers onwards. No surprises therefore that, on the way, there would be endless frustrating failures to be absorbed and more or less maturely accepted and digested.



If this is starting to read as a litany, and I fear that it will for it's all I can make of it, maybe that is the 'why' you ask after. 'Quick' and 'good' very rarely share a bed in any form of genuine comfort & contentment.



FWIW



All the best,

Answer 2

Oh no, at first I thought this had to do with Scheherazade! Because I was going to say that we should put Yiruma in her place. We'd miss out on her stories, but on the other hand, we'd only have to put up with Yiruma for a night- he wouldn't have the talent to escape the axe! OK, three wishes (which is still a fun question!). I would never free the genie- if he has a taste for classical music, he needs to be enslaved forever. I would be certain to hand off the lamp to the other respected members of this forum :) 1) Exile Yiruma, Eunadi, Cater Burwell, Bella, and people who use classical pieces in commercials to Saint Helena. Does that all count as one wish? Probably not :( Of course, that's only a temporary measure- more like them will always crop up tomorrow. 2) Give me a time machine, so that I can take all the great composers of the past and give them access to the Berlin Philharmonic and a recording studio. (*dreamy-eyed*) 3) Make one hour of classical music study mandatory in all elemnetary schools. We'll scrap the American Revolution- it's useless anyways. [Do other countries do this- repeating the *same* thing every single year? "The Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill and Concord and Lexington... it makes me nauseous now. I got yelled at by my teachers every year for reading during class- God forbid I should learn about Chinese history or read Newberry books!] Anyways, those are my wishes. I would kill for Mutter's talent on violin, but I also think it would lose its magic without the years of training :)

Answer 3

I think that I, like many of the regulars here, often have a myopic view of this "forum." Y!A was ostensibly set up to provide an informal question and answer system for amateurs as well as seasoned veterans. Because it happens far too frequently, we chide those who miscategorize their questions assuming they should know better where to place them.



Because I grew up with classical music, it is sometimes easy to forget that there are people who have never been exposed to classical music outside of the context of a classroom or a cartoon. For those askers, "Classical" might well connect with "anything played on piano, or violin, or anything with no lyric."



That doesn't really address your question.



As humans we strive to create tools to make things easier. Think all the way back to stone knives, the wheel, and rock hammers. Fast forward a few thousand years and you hit the 1900s when having a piano in the home was a given. Everyone played, it was the entertainment of the day before radio and TV. Somewhere in our collective conscience we recall that grandma played the piano well; forgetting that "grandma" played and practiced hours a day for years. The people coming to piano now want to achieve all that in a week or two and not give up any of their other toys and time sinks.



I think what we see a lot of here are people who want to excel at something quickly; it seems that learning middle C is the foundation to a career. "Piano for fun" is just a hop, skip and a jump away from from the delivery of a $99 keyboard. The sort of thing touted by programs like Scott Houston's "Play Piano In A Flash." While that has a place, it isn't the road to a career.



Well the tools are still there and being developed. For very little money you can buy an "instrument" that will provide accompaniment to your one finger melody (much to the chagrin of those who dedicate their lives to the craft.)



What needs emphasis is that there is a huge difference between playing for fun and understanding music; banging out notes and understanding music.



As for American Idol ... It's always been true that there are people who float to the surface simply because they were in the right place at the right time. I have often wondered what music was being produced in the rest of the world while Vienna was at the forefront of classical music. Not just what was going on in Africa, or South America ... but what was going on in Cologne, Ravenna, Zurich, Oslo, Leeds, etc. It gives you pause to think just how centralized classical composition was.

Answer 4

Some people these days takes everything for granted.

Anyone competent at the piano knows they couldn't have gained the skills they have through 10 min of practicing lazily everyday.

I know some people feel that they had accomplished something if they could play a famous tune on the piano. Those people, are ones that are too lazy to put an ounce of honest hard work into learning.

The point is, many people just takes things as granted.

Answer 5

You have many excellent answers so far, I agree with them. To become a good musician requires to love music, to have a talent, much time and hard work, patience and full devotion, but many believe it can be achieved without all that.

But the same is required to gain perfection not only in the field of art, but in science as well. I have seen many similar questions in Y!A Mathematical Forum, where I answer from time to time, like 'How to learn algebra easily?' or 'What I need to solve difficult problems?'. The best answer was given 2300 years ago by great ancient mathematician Euclid (author of 'Elements', the famous Geometry schoolbook for centuries, considered by many to be the second most read book in the human history after the Bible - follow the link in Sources below, Section 'Life'): "There is no royal way to Geometry!"

Neither to Music!

Answer 6

i suspect most of the people who ask this are pretty young and haven't learned what it means to specialize in anything yet.



a lot of my students, when they first start, seem to think that the best players always learn stuff easily. they think it's more impressive when someone has an innate talent they didn't have to work for, rather than being impressed with a decade of diligent effort. but if they haven't done anything to learn a discipline yet, then they don't know to be impressed by it.



but there are still useful tricks you can learn from someone who has been doing something just a little bit longer than you have... so it's fair for them to ask, but they never know ahead of time if the thing they want help with has an easy fix or is just something they have to repeat a million times to get good at... they don't have the perspective, they hope we do, so they come here and get a reality check.



don't quite get the "american idol" crowd reference... i knew one singer who ended up doing pretty well on there, and he totally practiced and had a strong work ethic. i guess you're talking about the people who watch the show and really believe they get totally untrained musicians with zero performance background?

Answer 7

To some degree yes. It's the same group of people who think any pop song is automatically classical if it's transcribed for piano, violin, or another instrument.

Answer 8

I think that people don't understand what it takes to be a musician. They don't understand that it takes dedication and hard work if you want to do something well. If you try to learn something quickly and/or easily, you won't be doing that thing well. Especially if you are trying to become a musician.

Answer 9

If people's only experience of music is listening to recorded media or attending concerts, then all they've seen is the end result, and not the huge amounts of hard work that went into getting that result.

Answer 10

i think people are generally lazy nowadays and no longer have appreciation for the years and discipline it take to become sufficient at playing a musical instrument. everyone think they're the next Mozart or something and that they're a prodigy and can instantly be good at playing something. what a load of bull.

Answer 11

I agree with your statement. Learning an instrument takes a very long time, and even then, there is always room for improvement. I think it is rare to find someone who truly understands the beauty and dedication it takes to learn an instrument.

Answer 12

Over here in good old blighty, we are unfortunate enough to have the execrable programme "Pop star to Opera star"



Sometimes I just want to kick in the television screen





The worst questions on here are something like" give me all the letters to twilight piano for the one-fingered nose-harmonica"...........

Answer 13

I hear what you're saying, but you can go either way on this question.

It's wrong to be lazy, but it's good to be efficient.

Such questions might be good on the grounds that the people asking those questions are trying to be efficient.