Chinese play classical music; Americans play Xbox

Also, the Chinese aren't knee-deep in support for Zionism, a state which Spengler urges us to double down on.

Rod,

"Spengler" is a satirist. Mozart is as well. The Japanese play video games and study the piano. I predict a new era of well engineered autos with virtual keyboards in the heads-up display.

If I am wrong, may Yo-Yo Ma gore himself with his bow. I say this
avec la déférence la plus respectuese à un compatriote français et à un artiste superbe.

Isnt this the blog that makes fun of people with an education? Real Americans are people who make stuff with their hands.

Steve

Your Name @8:42 PM: The main thing we have to fear from the Chinese is their industry, not their artists.

As Rod perennially exhorts, read the whole thing.

Spengler writes: "Few of its piano students will earn a living at the keyboard, to be sure, but many of the 36 million will become much better scientists, engineers, physicians, businessmen and military officers."

There is indeed a correlation between musical ability and mathematical and scientific aptitude. Many of my engineering colleagues were musicians, not necessarily classical. I myself have studied classical piano and have marveled at the Pythagorean symmetry of the Greek and ecclesiastical modes as well as the lesser complexities of the the Western major and

minor keys coupled with the distorions of the wohltemperiertes Klavier.

The Chinese are ingenious and creative people and they will advance. Whether they exercise a geopolitical hegemony will depend on whether the Obama-sycophants in the West succumb obsequiously to the Dar al-Islam. For, doubt not, the Chinese will defeat the Mohammedans without a mea culpa.

Spengler further proffers, "Perhaps the only pursuit with comparable benefits is the study of classical languages." The "West" has already forfeited the war in this theatre. Non enim tam praeclarum est scire Latine quam turpe nescire. If you don't understand that locution and cannot identify its author, nor the work in which it occurs, then apply yourelf to the study of Chinese. Your boss will expect his coffee betimes.

I thought China was supposed to die off in a couple of generations if they don't intermarry with women from other parts of the world thanks to their government imposed "demographic winter." You know -- that one child per couple rule that makes all the pregnant women there abort their girls or dump them anonymously in orphanages.

(I had some stuff in here about statistics, but Erin beat me to it.)

Being a pretty good musician myself, I think it's interesting that the Chinese have gravitated towards Western classical music. It is, in many ways, one of the least creative and most rigid styles you can study. For most of those 36 million Chinese children, their musical training will consist of being force-fed technical drills and memorizing the approved interpretations handed down from their teachers. Very few will go on to discover the higher level artistic elements that Spengler talks about, and still fewer will develop their own coherent style of interpretation.

From personal experience, I know that intense musical training in America has a lot to do with notions of middle class achievement, activist parents, and college applications, moreso that the pursuit of artistry. I'd be surprised if it's all that different in China.

I'm really not afraid of the Chinese playing Mozart. If they switch to jazz, then I'll worry.

Being a pretty good musician myself, I think it's interesting that the Chinese have gravitated towards Western classical music. It is, in many ways, one of the least creative and most rigid styles you can study. For most of those 36 million Chinese children, their musical training will consist of being force-fed technical drills and memorizing the approved interpretations handed down from their teachers.

I've only ever been a barely passable musician myself, and I have to say that although I love Western classical music, I've always been struck by the fact that it is one of the few fields of endeavor in which you can have prepubescent virtuosos. I suppose this is because, in classical music, it's possible to focus on technique to the exclusion of everything else, which explains why you can 10-year-old virtuoso soloists giving concerts. I have trouble believing that a 10-year old can really play with a great deal of emotional sophistication, even if the notes are all in the right place. A child who starts early enough and works hard can learn technique to a dazzling extent, but backed up by a 10-year old's emotional level it's like a fire that is all light and no heat.

I notice that there aren't that many 10-year-old jazz musicians giving concerts. Or 10-year-old novelists or playwrights who get published, or 10-year-old painters or sculptors who get shown in art galleries.

Having said that, I have nothing against working hard to learn technique. I'm a Latin teacher, after all. If you don't work hard to learn the basics -- and you can't ever get entirely away from rote memorization and drill -- you won't have any basis on which to build anything else. But if all you have is the basis and don't go on to build *something* on it, what't the point?

Well, true, Reaganite in NYC, but should we be worried that 0.77% more Chinese than Americans are studying classical music (and gaining the habits of discipline that are said to go with this study)?

And does "studying piano with intensity and discipline" really translate across the board to "much better scientists, engineers, physicians, businessmen and military officers."? I think the point the commenters are making is that while learning technique does require a certain amount of focus and discipline, there is no guarantee that it will produce the kind of child who has the creative spark which many of these professions require at their most impressive levels. Show me the child who, bored with the endless practice of the piano, rigs up a complicated computer-run program to produce the notes of the day's lesson on an electronic keyboard (to satisfy the adults listening downstairs) and who then spends his "practice" time drawing complicated schematics for the space ship he hopes one day to build, and I'll see the better scientist, engineer, businessman, military officer in him. Whether there are more of these children in China or America or any other country is another question, of course.

Oh, no argument as to the numbers, Reaganite; but then, isn't the problem more our relative population sizes irrespective of what the Chinese are teaching their children?

And as far as the studies you cite go--again, you'll get no argument from me that American public education is a largely failing system. But unless we're willing to adopt a Chinese-style education system that puts high achievers on a different, and government subsidized, path that rewards not only the children but their parents as well, and which further punishes the low achievers in some way, I don't see how we plan to address this.

Sadly, merely giving more American children piano lessons isn't really going to cut it. A return to the values of discipline and self-motivation isn't going to happen overnight, especially when we adults fail to model those virtues to our children, insisting instead that it is the role of the government, via our tax dollars, perpetually to clean up the messes which irresponsible people make.

I studied piano for pretty much my entire educational career. The mathematical component to perfecting a piano piece is certainly part of the equation. But performing with musicianship is more complicated than just understanding how long to hold each note. Delayed gratification is key - you have to practice advanced pieces with drills so that you can highlight the melody and keep a steady pace. If you just sit down and perform every time, the result is sloppy and overwrought. The article is a good metaphor for the current economic crisis. The instant fix of easy credit and rampant consumerism has come at the expense of saving up (drills) for a few quality purchases

You are kind of right, Rod, however most Chinese parents don't teach their children to become musicians; they want them to learn an instrument. There is a difference. A traditional Chinese parent would be mortified at the thought of their child becoming a professional musician, or playing an instrument as more than a hobby or extracurricular activity.

In most of China a professional musician, even a successful one, is not considered something to be proud of by traditional people. Even the musician’s parents. Historically speaking, musicians were servants - little more than living furniture. The stigma holds true in Chinese culture to this day, and even those living/born abroad remember.

Traditional Chinese may teach their children an instrument, but it is not for the same reason a Western parent encourages musical interest in their children.

(My knowledge into this comes from a wide circle of Musician friends, several of whom are Chinese, and more than one who has been all but disowned by their traditional parents. The side-lesson here? Not all traditions are good, nor should they remain the same.)

Of course, the same could have been said of the USSR, whose children were learning physics, geometry, foreign languages and classical music and arts in elementary school while my generation played Atari (well, I was learning classical piano, violin, and composition in addition to playing Defender and PacMan, but you get the idea).

You know how that all played out. We now have an influx of Tchaikovsky appreciating immigrants to the U.S. because their nation collapsed while the Elvis nation played on.

I don't say that to make a justification for our nation's ways. Far, far from it. I just think the pictures a bit bigger than musical appreciation. Our children may very well be fetching coffee for a Chinese boss. It will be, I believe, more because of our moral and ethical failures than our ability to discern Chopin from Mozart.

I agree with your clarification comment Rob. I think the underlying current is that America is losing certain principles that made it strong. Like frugality, discipline, truth and personal responsibility. To the comment that "wasn't that supposed to happen with Russia too?" - we need to realize the US mirrors pre-collapse Russia in many ways, not least of which is bad monetary policy in the form of way too much government involvement. For the record, our six year old is learning violin and his three siblings will soon follow :)

Uh ... weren't the Russian kids all supposed to be learning classical music, dance, etc? From what I hear, Russia is drinking itself to death (and in a population collapse accordingly.) The drop in oil prices hasn't helped them either.

Classical training in music does *not* make you 'smarter.' That's a "Baby Einstein" myth which needs to be exploded. One interesting thing I've noticed about grown-ups who were made to take piano as kids - very few of them (in my observation, anyway) continue to play as adults; they don't seem to play just for fun, or noodle around. Several are terrified of improvisation; their student training didn't prepare them for it at all. I've also known a few good musicians (not piano) who basically taught themselves jazz by ear. Somehow I don't think the Chinese kids are doing that, either.

I'm with Sig, too - is it really necessary to cast everything in a zero-sum game of one-upsmanship?

It strikes me as resembling a lot of traditional Chinese arts, like calligraphy, in its unimaginativeness. Also, as the belle epoque of classical music is firmly in the past, it looks like China has gone from valuing its own frozen past to valuing the frozen past of Europe. Somehow, that doesn't look to me like progress.

The preferred Western musical instruments (violin, piano, cello) resemble some of their traditional Chinese instruments in appearance, tonal qualities, and playing style. So the leap may be even smaller than it appears.

I have a perceptive relative who is a young professional in classical music. She says it is a ritual art form with aging and declining real audiences. Keeping the audiences happy requires more and more visual drama and good looking people on stage, the musical requirements are for ever shorter and more well known/cliche pieces. As for creativity...everyone she knows, including herself, listen to and play in other music forms to ward off staleness setting in.

SiliconValleySteve: In another case a student begged to have his grade raised from a B+ to an A- explaining that his mother would keep the whole family up all night screaming.

This is certainly one way to achieve excellence. I wonder what Mom's transcript looked like.

My MD and my dentist are already Chinese.

They converted? Mine are still Jewish.

It's certainly true that classical music is rigid NOW. It wasn't once. Schubert wrote dozens of great creative pieces by his early twenties - he was a far more prolific songwriter than any rocker, over 600 by his death at 31. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Brahms were all capable of improvising creatively for hours at a time. Some people think that Beethoven's two sets of Bagatelles were improvisations that he thought were good enough to be written down, and his improv was sometimes better reviewed than his symphonies in major newspapers.

What's changed is how we teach and learn classical music. The rote education of the modern classical world is the education of a preservation culture, not a creation culture. But it's important to realize that the stiffness is our fault, not Beethoven's fault. The old dudes in wigs were pretty much the opposite of stiff dumb rote zombies.