Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Should Teach Music History Backwards

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 186 posts

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#151

Post by TeMPOraL »

o_____________o wrote: post #122
jcranmer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that approach is that you can end up begging the question and not realizing that your proposed answers start to deviate wildly from evidence. For Jared Diamond, the answer to the question of European domination is solely that Eurasia won the agricultural jackpot [1] and the Americas lost it, and anything that happened in the intervening 10,000 years doesn't factor into it. But... the Americas won the…

> For Jared Diamond, the answer to the question of European domination is solely that Eurasia won the agricultural jackpot This is oversimplified to the point of either being disingenuous or misinformed, and China was discussed in the book. There are valid issues with the work, including environmental determinism[1], but it was a wide ranging pop sci book and as such has many surfaces and incentives for attack. [1]:…

> including environmental determinism[1]

Why is this considered an issue? Is there a good discussion of this that you could recommend?

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#152

Post by dgellow »

bambax wrote: post #94
dgellow wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you misunderstood my comment. I’m not arguing about probability, I’m saying that the toss of coins have already been done, and cannot be repeated or changed. That’s exactly what defines the past. You can spend time studying the details of why you got a specific result of your toss of coin (wind strength, forces applied to the toss, etc), and you can speculate that changing a parameter would have given di…

But saying "what happened, happened" isn't teaching us anything, it's just a tautology. Also, random is just random. It's not "too many parameters for me to keep track of and account for". That's a very important distinction. Many people believe "chance" is a word used to cover our ignorance. But that's not what it means.

> But saying "what happened, happened" isn't teaching us anything, it's just a tautology.

That’s a very reductionist summary of what I wrote that I wouldn’t consider accurate.

I disagree that there is nothing to learn from what happened, even without considering alternative reality (by the way, I’m not arguing against that, as I said that’s just closer to fiction than history, but that’s still an interesting tool). You can see patterns and systems, name and describe them, try to see if we can find similarities with other events. But you cannot change their output, because it already happened.

Randomness is defined by the lack of patterns and predictability, in practice a system chaotic enough will be considered random (see your toss of coin, in fact it’s just a physic problem with a very high number of parameters).

I believe that you give way too much credit to the concept of pure chance (that you don’t define). I personally believe that human history is mainly the result of high level systems interacting with each other (thus can be described and analyzed), studying them backward seems to be prone to a lot of bias as we are trying to make them reach what we consider to be the contemporary state.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#153

Post by TeMPOraL »

forapurpose wrote: post #137
ramshorns wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the best explanation of history to teach, if not the most correct, is "history happened the way that it did because of trillions of choices that people made."

> Maybe the best explanation of history to teach, if not the most correct, is "history happened the way that it did because of trillions of choices that people made." Many times it's just luck. The existence of life at all, the death of the dinosaurs, the ice ages, droughts, famines, epidemics (e.g., the Black Plague) ... all luck. From an entire society's perspective, one or a few people who discover something big i…

> From an entire society's perspective, one or a few people who discover something big is luck.

Do we have cases of that in history at all? All the important scientific, technological and social breakthroughs I can think of are clear, incremental extensions of contemporary state of knowledge and societies. Individuals who were at the right place and with right skills are attributed the discoveries, but the truth is, if they didn't "make" those discoveries, short time later their colleagues would.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#154

Post by rumcajz »

bambax wrote: post #19

Not just music history, but history in general. History told forwards is superstition: trying to show that what came after was inevitable, when in fact it was one future among an infinite number of different possible futures. History told backwards makes sense: look for the seeds of post events, in the past. However the human mind loves nothing more than causation; we see cause and effect everywhere even where it's n…

Seconded. I've learnt history forwards at the school and all I've got was a mess on weakly connected facts.

Since then I was learning about the history the other way round: I kind of know what happened during my lifetime, I have an vague idea of what followed from what. What people thought, what people did etc.

I can get further back by asking my parents or reading press from. say, sixties. Books written by folks at the time help as well.

I can get as far back as WWII by remembering what my grandparents said.

Going even further back is hard as there's not a lot of survivors anymore, but you still have contemporary press and books.

Even further back... I've moved to Switzerland few years ago and I've started to understand how European culture worked before WWI. Switzerland, not taking part in the wars of XX. century preserved that past to some extent.

Going even further back is hard. The documents are starting to get scarce. Also, the world is getting more alien in XIX. century. There was an article discussed on HN about a message from 1880. The world there is strange on not one you can easily relate to: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44265475

But with enough trying, I think I can cover at least second half of XIX. century in next few decades, meaning that I will be able to think about it as if I was living at the time.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#155

Post by awild »

developer2 wrote: post #147
nautilus12 wrote: post #84

I disagree whole heartedly. This will end up putting an overemphasis on contemporary work, and not enough on classic works. Think about how often cirriculum never gets to the end of, when such seminal and formative composers such as Bach are fit into the last weeks you will inevietably gloss over them. We already make Gods out of our contemporary world view at the expense of downplaying the brilliance of past thinker…

Why is it _always_ Bach? Every single time I hear the entirety of recorded music's history being dissected, Bach is the first - often the only - example brought to attention. Have this many people subjectively decided for themselves that Bach deserves this credit? Or do schools of music have a habit of teaching that Bach is objectively the best, as if it's a fact grounded in science? Bach is to music as Shakespeare i…

> The current era (90s+) is so disgustingly cookie-cutter, superficially manufactured by record labels to shovel down our throats in bulk.

Have you actually spent more than 5 seconds looking for music? Contemporary music is the most diverse it's ever been, you just have to look for it.

Even just sorting rateyourmusic by rating will give you an acceptable overview of what's out there.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#156

Post by 8bitsrule »

That's an interesting theory, but it ain't the way I learned music history. When the music store in my home town was closing out 78 records, my dad went in and bought a big stack, a couple of hundred 78s with mostly classical music on 'em. At closeout prices.

As a little kid I was allowed to play those records any time I wanted to. And I listened a lot. Listening to that early music helped me, right away, to pick out what was good pop music on the radio, and what was bad. Cuz, I mean, the music on those records had stood the test of time for two centuries.

Happy father's day, pop. Thanks for the memories.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#157

Post by javajosh »

mehwoot wrote: post #138
jcranmer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that approach is that you can end up begging the question and not realizing that your proposed answers start to deviate wildly from evidence. For Jared Diamond, the answer to the question of European domination is solely that Eurasia won the agricultural jackpot [1] and the Americas lost it, and anything that happened in the intervening 10,000 years doesn't factor into it. But... the Americas won the…

100% completely ignores... why didn't China dominate? Have you even read the book? It's mentioned and he gives possible reasons for it, even though it isn't the focus of the book.

I read the book, a very long time ago, but my understanding is that China was never interested in expansion, culturally. China itself was a vast, insular monarchy for thousands of years, protected by the Himalayas to the west, an ocean to the east and south, and vast steppes to the north. The Chinese, culturally, were convinced of their innate superiority (like most cultures!) and only wanted to perfect their kingdom, not grow it.

European culture, on the other hand, was not homogenous and the in-fighting between "white" nations forced each one to find advantage anywhere they could find it, including overseas, and the valuable raw-materials a globe-spanning empire can give the homeland. The technical difficulties of running large navies, building ships, lead to lots of engineering advances.

So, I guess if China hadn't been unified, and had been more vulnerable, parts of it would also have been forced to seek advantage in trade, and history would have been a very different story.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#158

Post by simonask »

8bitsrule wrote: post #156

That's an interesting theory, but it ain't the way I learned music history. When the music store in my home town was closing out 78 records, my dad went in and bought a big stack, a couple of hundred 78s with mostly classical music on 'em. At closeout prices. As a little kid I was allowed to play those records any time I wanted to. And I listened a lot. Listening to that early music helped me, right away, to pick out…

Just a nitpick: Classical music from 200 years ago is definitely not "early music" by any cultural tradition. Western music 200 years ago was a highly developed art form, and this is even more true for other classical traditions that exist today, such as Chinese classical music and Indian classical music.

200 years ago, the symphonic form was already highly developed, which most would argue is the most advanced form of Western classical music.

I don't think music from this period necessarily gives you any pointers for gauging the quality of modern pop music, but it might influence your tastes in a positive way. Just keep in mind that very advanced music is still being written, and it mostly doesn't sound anything like what was written 200 years ago.

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#159

Post by setr »

skellera wrote: post #42
ellius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might actually work. In teaching "history," you are always picking an essentially arbitrary starting point. I think you could easily start with something like nuclear negotations between the Soviet Union and the USA, then work backwards from there. Why was it these two powers that had nuclear weapons? Well, let's talk about World War 2... How did this Hitler guy come to power in Germany in the first place?…

I think it only sounds like a good idea because you already know the details of what comes before. If you had absolutely no knowledge of history, I think this method would not work well. There are so many details that led up to WW2 that going backwards would just feel messy. All the things happening in Europe would have to be described in a way where you already know about the next war but now have to list off these…

I would imagine ww2 best described in both orders: you start with the main participants, their alliances, and their general strategies/incentives, then you iterate over each country prior to the war, and why they started to get involved in it, and finally you discuss the war itself, and its major events

Re: We Should Teach Music History Backwards

#160

Post by sailfast »

JasonFruit wrote: post #116
sailfast wrote: post #79

Counterpoint: learning in this way is a good method of keeping attention ("you should learn this because your favorite artists liked these artist!") but if you actually listen to the old stuff first, you can also appreciate it in the RIGHT order of things. It is, however, pretty difficult to listen to much of what's come before. I think a healthy appreciation in both directions, digging into whatever node you happen…

What do you think is difficult to listen to about earlier music? I can't say that music of the past was difficult for me, except for music written before leading tones became almost obligatory, i.e. before the advent of functional harmony — and that was a pretty rapid adjustment. I suppose some of the medieval music that uses parallel fifths between raised 4/7 and 5/1 at cadences took a little getting used to, as wel…

It’s not the listening - it is the sheer volume. If you track backward you know there will be a connection. If, however, you attempt to start with the past you’ll need to go pretty wide to get to all the things heavily influencing modern work.

I guess you could recommend a list. Start with medieval madrigals and then work your way to Stax records anthology? Haha

Post reply on HN