Sisyphus

Thanks for the break!

This Spring, I taught the first semester of the History of Western Art Music for the University of Minnesota. Today was the last day of class. 

I taught the second and third semesters last academic year, so I have the entirety of that portion of the required curriculum for majors under my belt. My style in each of those semesters has been erratic and freewheeling, which perturbs many of those students, who are used to the rigidity and perfection with which most music performance is taught in conservatory-style music schools.

By the end of each of those classes, students have been pretty thoroughly on board with my approach, which de-emphasizes the textbook, an expensive tome first published before John F. Kennedy was shot and updated by two editors since. It has accompanying scores and recordings that make the whole enterprise quite pricey for your average musician, to say nothing of your average college student. 

It is also history according to three White men, and it is primarily about White men. Since I was a college music major, I’ve had a deep loathing of the whole concoction. I wasn’t good at trivia and I really wasn’t good at the “drop the needle” exams that often accompany that trivia. For me, “drop the needle” was generally “skip ahead on the CD,” but the effect was the same: “Here’s a random spot in a piece of music you should be able to identify without context because you’ve memorized the specific musical passages deemed representative by the editors and publishers. I’ll give you points if you name the composer, title, genre, and year.” 

I try to spare my students the same indignity. It was not enjoyable for me, and I don’t think I am better for having survived it. Education has somehow turned into something punitive for my students. They panic at the thought of creativity because they think they will be wrong and, therefore, get a bad grade. This isn’t an ideal circumstance for a musician. Their educations have taught them to fear learning, mistaking it for high-stakes memorization.

For our last two weeks, I’ve set them loose to explore whatever they want to explore musically (constrained—kind of—by chronology). The only requirement was that they had to be in groups. They had to collaborate, compromise, think of interesting approaches that no single person dictates, but emerges in conversation. 

I’ve watched them do it. I get very frustrated when I hear people my age or older, or even younger because I’m no whippersnapper anymore, complain that young people are selfish, self-centered, or only interested in their phones. Let them talk to each other without regulating their thinking, and they are pretty affable. There were some awkward moments as they presented the results of their translations of my vague instructions, but there were also some laughs and some good ideas. A few of them stumbled upon ideas that I should have mentioned during the semester but didn’t, whether due to exhaustion or distraction.

Before class, a group approached me. I grudgingly took off the headphones on which I listen to Paul F. Tompkins or the McElroys at 7:30 am because I need to smile before I start talking. One of the students handed me a few stapled sheets of paper: 

“Can you read this to see if it’s . . . okay to say in class?” 

“Oh great. Are you about to get me in trouble on my last day?”

“We just want to see if it’s okay.”

It was fine. They had written “The Story of Orpheus & Euridice: A Modern Retelling.” It was pretty funny in places, with lots of young-people jargon and a decidedly happier ending than Ovid’s (I think that might be important). I was scanning for slurs or offensive language, anything, really, that might show up on a viral video that ends my career. I was so anxious that I missed that one part in the cast list was highlighted. 

Even though my biggest current disappointment is centered on a different university, my students know I’m feeling a bit beat up. 

My character only had one stage direction:

Thanks, Orpheus.