About Classical Music
I remember when I started to study the history of music, I did not know what I was getting into. I had a notion that music history was like a trivial pursuit. Honestly, I only followed my history of classical music course because I wanted the credits. I did not know how completely fascinating music history could be. You see, in our culture a lot of us do not truly study to understand music. For a lot of people, music is a language, but for our civilization it is a thing that we consumed passively. When I began to study about the history of Western music, however, it changed all that for me. I have had some experience using musical instruments, but I have never mastered one enough to truly appreciate what music is all about. This class taughed me.
When most of us think about the history of music, we think of the history of rock music. We assume that the history is plain because the music is plain. Actually, neither is the case. The history of music, whether you mean classical music, rock music, jazz music, or any other kind, is always complex. New chord structures are established taking with them new forms of comprehending the world. New rhythmic patterns are established, bringing with them new ways of understanding time. And music reflects all of it.
Even when the class was ended, I could not stop learning about the history of music. It had stimulated my appetite, and I wanted more. I got a hold of all the music history volumes that I could discover.
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