Joy of the Professorship
I have the honor and privilege of serving as a professor of music. There is always a job hidden in the work, even in work that is wonderful, joyous, and fulfilling. Certainly, there is the drudgery of red tape, there are forms, surveys, endless rounds of meetings, and reports to complete, BUT, there is the daily joy of sharing the joys of music with students. I can scarcely imagine a more wondrous way to spend my days. Today in music history, we will be looking at West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein's felicitous marriage of musical theatre and opera narrated in a peculiarly American vernacular voice. The remarkable quintet of "Tonight" creates a contrapuntal fabric in which Tony and Maria sing a love duet, Anita contributes her sexy aria, and the Sharks and Jets engage in interjections like a sonic gang rumble. The tension of all these voices and ideas woven together builds towards the remarkable resolution of inner city life and death. 
Bernstein at a kibbutz on Schvuat, Israel, 1950. Photograph source: Behr photography, Tel Aviv. (Music Division)
It is just a plain, old classroom--but the magic of West Side Story has the power to transfigure our lives for the 50 minutes that I am privileged to teach this today.
posted by Ron Pen @ 12:30 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Explain this to me, oh brilliant one....
Clearly you are excited about the prospect of teaching West Side Story today. Why is it, then, that there will be students in your class who won't give a rip about it? Obviously it won't be for a lack of enthusiasm on your part, nor a lack of ability or knowledge. How is it possible that there are music majors (and I'm speaking primarily of undergraduates) who don't love music? What a gift it is to be able to immerse oneself in music day-to-day, hour-to-hour. How to communicate that to students?
(Asking, as I taught Beethoven 9 yesterday -- one of my favorites -- and had two students sleeping through the entire thing. Yes, two of 40 isn't bad, but still somewhat disconcerting.)
Dear Keeks,
You are right...I got very excited about West Side Story, because it was fresh for me again. I have not "taught it" and it made me approach a very familiar work very differently. I was startled by the opening jazz gang encounters in the realistic cityscape. You raise some good questions as a teacher, of course.
Why would students slumber through Beethoven 9...There are many explanations, but I would suggest that familiarity breeds contempt. The piece is such a cliche, and is so widely used in commercials, etc., so that it is hard to make it sound fresh, as though this was the first time the students had ever heard it. It is hard because they are so used to hearing music though their own personal choice on ipods, etc. Sound is not special to them, it is not magical because they are totally bathed in it all the time. So, the trick is to make it magical and fresh. I connect the music in autpobiographical ways...my fear of Puerto Ricans growing up in the city in the 1950s and 1960s...and then played some Puerto Rican music of Los Pleneros with whom I played in the South Bronx on a Hillbilly/Puerto rican cultural interchange....I always look for one window that will lead them into the new room.
I do think music major love music...but it becomes work, it becomes quotidien, and they need to be reminded how magical and precious it really is...You can certainly be there to do so for them, Keeks....
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