Well, I’ve finally done it, I have started a blog. I have high hopes indeed - my hope is that I actually write for it.
I admit, I’ve been a blog lurker for a few months now, mostly just seeing if there was anything that would inspire me to join the fun – those in the blogroll on the right are partially responsible for this inspiration, so really, don’t blame me…
So here’s what the blog will be all about…
(we’ll check in a year or so to see how accurate my predictions are, deal?)
So here’s the first little tidbit.
I have, for the last week and half, been teaching an undergraduate course called “Popular Music Since 1960: The Rock’n’Roll Era and Beyond.” This, for many years, has been my dream job. It really is a privilege (one I’ve worked for, mind you) to get to spend each day teaching young minds about the history of this music that has defined my existence. There’s also nothing like knowing that you know things, and that you can pass them on to others.
It was expressed to me once in an email: “Who goes to school to study pop music, when all you need are the recordings!?” I’ve heard similar opinions, many just in disbelief that one can have a job doing it, but just as many are thinly veiled criticisms which suggest that studying popular music (as a scholar, or just as an option for an undergraduate course) is somehow less important than say, math or science. Those who criticise in this manner are, I believe, suggesting that learning about culture is a pointless pursuit.
Because really, that’s what teaching pop music, and studying it is all about – the study of cultures, and the society which fuels it. That’s what I try to impress on anyone who questions the point of having pop music courses. Indeed, in this course the students learn how the music of the last fifty years had influenced and been influenced by key social events. Events like the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s Movement, the Vietnam War (OK, Conflict), McCarthyism, and many others. They get to see the interrelations between the crucial changes of the twentieth century and movements in music like the explosion of Rock’n’Roll, Blues and Folk revivals, Motown, psychedelic rock, etc. The fact is, that a society and its cultural products are not mutually exclusive, and that the art produced by a society gives us as many clues to how it functions (and importantly, how it may better function) as its science.
I’d be last person to dismiss sciences outright. I love technology, am fairly adept at mathematics. More importantly I acknowledge that however one must, we should be involved in learning about our world and our place in it. I see very little reason for sciences and humanities to be opposed. However, it seems that those who are a little less thoughtful about it are willing to dismiss the humanities in favour of the sciences, seeing in the former too much room for “error” and interpretation, and in the latter the “hard truth” of numbers. In fact it was just recently brought to my attention that a former high-school math teacher (not mine) that I know is just confounded as to what it is that I do, and what use it may have. A retired high-school teacher! It wasn’t just the pop music, but also the lack of the requirement of a teaching certificate to instruct at the university level. Now I figure that anyone who spent 30-plus years teaching in the school system would understand that it’s a different world in the post-secondary institution. Not a better world, not a harder world, just different. I’m fairly new at this, and have never taught high-school, so I won’t begin to itemise the differences. I had also figured someone with this lifelong experience in education would understand the importance of the humanities in the moulding of a young mind. Of course, I suspect the teacher knows all this, and is choosing, like many, to passive-aggressively question and criticise the use of studying culture – and that, to me, is a clear signal of why we should keep doing it.
There it is, blog entry number one. OK, number two if you count my little tease from a month ago which Claire so rightly pointed out really wasn’t very nice at all…
Hey Paul,
Glad to hear things are going well at Dal. The site and blog looks great! I look forward to the manifestos.
Sean
First off, just wanted to say that the week and half you taught the class was amazing. I mean, overall the course is great as it is, but you brought a new enthusiasm into the room. You taught the material with what I took to be as more of a personal touch, and I could really feel your desire to get through to the students, and enlighten them with your knowledge. I just wanted to say I really enjoyed having you as the temporary prof.
Your written introduction here is phenomenal. I am a science (psychology) major, but I definately see the need for people to connect music with culture, as well as be able to feel it on a more personal level. This course is fantastic because it does cover such a broad range of “genres”, and especially now with undergraduate students being so young, I think it is great that they are being exposed to the true roots of folk, rock n roll, beats, soul, etc. I overhear so many students (and other people) these days talking about new music, and comparing it only to the other new music that they have heard of that genre. It is a big disappointment because these people are so ignorant as to what is really out there, and how it all evolved into what we hear today. Mind you, I must admit that a lot of what we hear today is just manufactured crap, but if you look hard enough there are so many good artists and bands of all ages and all genres.
Thanks so much for your kind words Melanie. I enjoyed lecturing that class a great deal. (Oh, and I had to shorten your post just a little, I hope you can understand why)