Musicologist's Corner

Dear Students and Friends;

"And So this is Christmas..."

December 8th marks the 27th anniversary of John Lennon's assassination. Although there have been many great tragedies before, during and since, his murder still stands as a symbol of senseless violence -- deeply affecting many of us who where alive when this happened.

John was not a perfect human being but his music, especially after meeting Yoko expressed inclusive values for all of humanity.

For those of you not alive when this happened (I was almost 11 and already a huge Beatles fan - I don't remember a time when I didn't know the Beatles) here are links to some reports that can help put some historical perspective on this event. (this is better than any textbook could relate)

ABC News Nightline:

part I - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x479RD9HaL4&feature=related

part II - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CPtJV454KQ&feature=related

BBC News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvaRNxSZr38&feature=related

Bill Bonds (Detroit ABC affiliate with Commentary) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJIoTGH9IS0&feature=related

Below are some excerpts from Letters to the Editor in the January 22, 1981 Rolling Stone Magazine which was dedicated entirely to John Lennon. (these are the kind of primary sources that historians love to discover when they assess historical periods) (NB - on January 21, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President and the Hostages were freed from Iran after 444 days in captivity - 1981 also marks assassination attempts on Ronald Reagan (March 30), Pope John Paul II (May 13) and the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (October 6):

"When my daughter burst into the kitchen last night with the news that Lennon was dead, shot in the back, the association with John Kennedy was unavoidable; it was the same empty feeling of despair and tragedy, "You knew John Lennon, didn't you dad?" my eleven-year-old asked. I didn't know him personally, but I felt as if I knew him well. I had been listening to Double Fantasy for the last couple of weeks. It made me feel good to hear John's voice again, still rocking at age forty and yet mellowed and more satisfied than I had ever heard him. I had wanted to grow old with John, having followed him for nearly twenty years. My parents have had the pleasure of sharing the aging process with their favorite stars--Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, George Burns. Nobody knocked them off with a bullet in the back. Why is my generation plagued with gun-toting crazies whose sick morality must weigh on a bewildered world?

Rock critics have, for the last five years, urged John to play again. "You owe it to us," they wrote. When John and Yoko took out an ad in the New York Times last year and wished everyone, "peace," the pundits of rock found his language passé, "anachronisms from the peace-love era," they said, What did they want? I've learned not to read reviews, at least not until I've had the opportunity to digest the work myself. I did, however, happen to read a review of Double Fantasy that was so caustically unfair and ill-conceived that I wondered what planet the writer had come from. It seems that in our attempt to be new and artistic, abrasive and trendy, indignant and political, we've lost touch with something much more important: the human (and artistic) right to be honest and loving. It made me happy to see John happy. It makes me sad to see John dead. It makes me think we should take a good long look at ourselves before something like this happens again." - Kevin Samson, Santa Cruz, CA.

=-=

"Our generation has just lost its greatest cosmic clown. It was the Beatles' music that made life easier to cope with, and perhaps even to celebrate. Lennon was the wit and the depth of the group, and as we soon learned, its heart and soul. To think of facing the Eighties without him, just when his light was once again in our lives, is the bleakest news yet. I mourn the passing of a great friend I never even met." - Daniel Collins, Montreal, Canada.

=-=

"We've come a long way in seventeen years, from shooting presidents to murdering musicians." - Jon Grabill, Wayland, MA.

=-=

John Lennon is dead. Who killed the Beatle? Was it a clean-cut, straight, right-wing older man? No, it was a twenty-five-year-old fan...someone who grew up wanting to be the musician, the poet, the free spirit that John was.

God, did we think much of ourselves when we let our hair grow, when we were on the barricades, when we took LSD and made love instead of war? And yet, too many of us died in the war, too many of us died with drugs. Some of us -- the survivors -- joined the establishment and became successful, but what kind of success? Our selfish success achieved recognition and made money -- plenty of it. Our stomachs got fuller, rounder, our apartments more comfortable, our children more spoiled. What happened to our goals to change the world? Did we fight in '68 for the Eighties to give us Ronald Reagan?

It is time to react against our own apathy. It is time to grow up! Let's forget about our own small satisfactions. It is time to get together and fight, fight for the quality of life we deserve, the quality of people we can be...

We loved the Beatles. One of them was killed...killed stupidly by the very product they created. Let us not be the generation that killed itself. It is time for our generation to lead." Diane Von Furstenberg, NYC.

=-=-=-=-=

Sincerely,
K. Christian McGuire
kmcguire@bitstream.net
cell: 651-270-5807

Music History, Electric Bass, & Combo Ensembles
Augsburg College
Music Department
2211 Riverside Avenue
Mpls MN 55454
mcguire@augsburg.edu
http://www.augsburg.edu/music/

Instructor of Music History
McNally Smith College of Music
19 Exchange Street East
Saint Paul, MN 55101
651 291 0177
800 594 9500
cmcguire@mcnallysmith.edu
http://www.mcnallysmith.edu/academics/faculty/composition.aspx

Musicologist & Webmaster for the
Minnesota Music Listening Contest
http://www.musiclisteningcontest.org/h_kcmcguire2004.html

Thought you might enjoy this recent response I posted on the American Musicological Society list serv. (Most prominent musicologists around the world are weighing in that a Ph.D dissertation on Heavy Metal guitar IS a legitimate field of study - WOW I wish that were the case when I was a music major at Luther in 1988!) There are some who disagree.

K. Christian McGuire

>Dear Christian (if I may),
>Thank you for writing one of the best posts I have ever read on the AMS list! Your thinking about the purpose and practice of musicology is spot on, and your explanation of your perspective should be >read by every member of our field. The downfall of the classical canon as the only lens through which to understand all music does not mean the end of our field, far from it!
>All best wishes,
>--Elizabeth
>Elizabeth Randell Upton
>Assistant Professor
>University of California, Los Angeles
>Department of Musicology
>eupton@humnet.ucla.edu
=====
Fw: [AMS-L] Rock Dissertations and Job Prospects
From: "Maureen B."
>Despite everyone else weighing in the with the fact that it's a legitimate
>topic, etc. , what I see is quite different: a topic like this doesn't do
>anything for your language abilities, deep critical reasoning, or >deep
>knowledge of the wider field of musicology. At best, you get a snapshot of
>5 or 6 years of a changing style in a field where no one wants to talk
>about what really drives pop music: money and power.
=================
Christian McGuire wrote:

Seriously, there is a TON of excellent possibilities for dissertation topics
which would include language abilities, deep critical reasoning and the
wider field of musicology and ethnomusicology.

Refering to the majority of pop music and Rock texts which I have used while
teaching and the lack of "bibliographic tools", then yes Maureen might have
a good point. - I am constantly frustrated at the lack of depth in those
texts and omissions of such important and influential genre's (for instance,
Mod and Progressive Rock - as well as developments and methods of oral
traditions of rock in other countries). These texts seem to believe that
only those artists who made money are worth mentioning - which in the end
really skews our perspective of the development of popular music.

As mentioned previously in this thread, an ethnomusicological approach is
something which ought to be considered for anyone pursuing this field.
There is a WEALTH of oral tradition which is passed around. I used to
manage a prominent music store in the Twin Cities suburbs (before I decided
I could be poor and have no social life - on my own - and returned to academia
at the ripe old age of 31) while spending my late teens and my entire 20s
trying to crack the "market" as an electric bassist/vocalist.

In the case of metal guitar (and electric bass (please lets agree not call
it a "bass guitar" anymore)), in my generation (from my perspective as a
northeastern Iowan born in 1970) most kids who learned guitar (after Randy
Rhodes) wanted to play virtuoso style metal. As there were no texts save
for some tablature in specialty magazines, most had to learn the old
fashioned way, making their own transcription from a vinyl album. At some
time it became customary to learn hand-positions via the authentic modes
(Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian...Locrian etc) and then especially to read Bach
("he has a lot of cool riffs" - I find with my students at McNally Smith,
this is still the way many of them have been taught by their private
teachers as well as through their other friends - its also kind of nice in
that I only have to teach them the concept of Plagal modes.

I don't remember ever seeing this description of teaching in any guitar or
electric
bass publication (although in the 1990s I discovered Chuck Sher's Bass
Improviser's Method which was 1st published sometime in the 1970s), but it
is something crucial for any study of Metal Guitar - It is also interesting
to note that in our limited small town Iowa perspective there were two types
of Metal ("Real Metal" which was underground not radio friendly - Iron
Maiden, Megadeath, Fates Warning, Rush, etc) and "P***y Metal" (I didn't
invent the term, that is just what adolescent boys in Iowa called the radio
friendly music of Bon Jovi, Poison, Ratt, Motley Crue, Def Lepard, Brittany
Fox, etc.) - (I'm not even going to get into the changing term of the word
"Heavy" as the 76 BPM tempo played by a Gibson SG guitar detuned a M3 with
an extremely light gauge of strings which exemplefies the Heavy Blues/Metal
of Black Sabbath (Heavy) into its various incarnations as the New Wave of
British Heavy Metal, Speed Metal, Death Metal, Thrash, etc.)

But note this, those of us who practiced the underground metal which was NOT
played on the radio or shown on MTV, tended to get the paying gigs. - This
is the failing of the current state of texts and research in this field and
WHY exploring this as a legitimate oral tradition should be pursued.

Another aspect where study of oral tradition should be researched is the
Music Store as hub or roundhouse of information:
In my experience and travels as a retail manager, I became a top Martin
Guitar salesman in the state of Minnesota, Fender and Peavey instrument
product specialist/historian, UMI and Selmer certified specialist -
travelling to the plants, seeing who makes and how the instruments are made;
growing the presence of my retail store at the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old
Time Music Association over 5 years. In these environments, one encounters
musicians, producers, and enthusiasts from all stages and walks of life. In
these experience one who pass on information and their experiences:

= For instance a 96 year old man and his wife came in from North Dakota - it
was a slow day at the store so he went about telling of his on the road
experiences playing with Lawrence Welk in the 1920s. When we asked what
this gentlman played, we walked back out to his car, and brought in a
customized Saw with a violin bow and began playing a number of pieces
ranging from folk tunes to Mozart. We only wished we had the forsight to
record him.
= Another friend of mine who is a guitarist in a nationally fairly
well-known band, is full of stories: Playing a gig where James Brown was
headlining, before the show, he and James Brown drove around Phoenix looking
for fast food.
= And what of the Buddy Rich Stories? Any jazzer knows of at least 1 and
probably 1 in 5 has heard the backstage Buddy Rich rant of him chewing out
his band.
= My own experience playing as the house band of a biker bar in Waterloo,
IA - became privy to alot of "underground stuff", fights breaking out, but
even with rival biking gangs both would put down their differences to
protect the band - we would oblige by playing "Sweet Home Alabama" - AGAIN)

Why are the Blues Brothers and This is Spinal Tap such funny movies.
Because every working class musician has shared the experiences they relate.
==
So lets look also at what Bibliographic material there is? My friend and
mentor Carol Kaye (the great LA session guitarist and bassist from the
1950s-present) who started her own publishing company back in 1969 with her
instructional book, "How to Play Electric Bass", has quite an influential
body of work. There are the trade magizines with interviews and tips, and
educational articles: Bass Player, Guitar Play, Guitar World, etc. Not to
mention recordings themselves, master tapes, original manuscripts, union
records, paystubs, legal contracts (hmm sounds A LOT like the types of sources I use when
researching Hildegard von Bingen, the Cistercians, Tudor musicians, and
Mozart).
I do warn my students when they conduct their research that cross
referencing sources are key, I usually cite the dubious memory of Paul
McCartney. How many times has he changed the origin of "Blackbird" or does
he really know how to read music or not? He says he learned as a child in
one interview then 20 years later, that he never learned how to read music.

So I guess, Why should anyone be more interested in knowing how many singers
per part did Bach intend or how many players made up a typical 18th century
Vienese orchestra, than the performing forces of a local community theatre
production? Or what makes the lives of musicians in the Tudor courts (say
George and Innocent Comey) more interesting / publishable, than the lives of
working musicians in the Twin Cities? Linguistically, use (for instance)
the Parry/Lord model and compare and contrast the development of oral
traditions: Illiad, Mabinoginon, Charlie Parkers solo's, Rap, etc.
====

Here are some topics I offer my undergraduate students:
+ Detail the "musical dialogue" between these artists through these albums,
The Beatles "Revolver", The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds", Pink Floyd, "Pipers at
the Gates of Dawn", The Beatles, "Sgt. Pepper"

+ Describe how the Who's "My Generation" represents the African American
work song through the broken reflection of a Mod aesthetic. (be sure to
mention the use of call and response)

+ "That's not even Michael Nesmith's Real Hat!": The role of the session
musician in the 1960s LA music scene. Were the Monkees actually the first
band to play on their own album?

+ How does Rush's "Red Sector A" draw from the prophetic traditions of the
O.T. to relate the Holocaust survival story of Geddy Lee's parents.

+ Describe the Anti-war aesthetic and compositional form of Black Sabbath's
"War Pigs"

+ Describe how the music of Carol King provided a foundational kernel for
the Beatles, "Tell Me Why"

+ Diagram and Describe how the Beatles, "All My Loving" is an example of
synthesis from Girl Groups, Doo-Wop, and Rock-a-billy guitar.

+ How does Queen's "Prophet's Song" draw upon Western Musical Practices of
"Shelving-in Orchestration, Strict Canon, Coro Spezzati, Antiphonal Singing,
and Hocket." Be sure to include an example from Mahler, Gabrieli, and
Machaut."
==
My field of interest lies in 12th century liturgical music of the Rheinland
(really because the research involved simply trips my trigger), and
previously had no desire to pursue any study of Popular music. But after
reading this thread, perhaps I should reconsider.

Sincerely apologizing for the disjointed ramble,
K. Christian McGuire
www.musiclisteningcontest.org
=====================================
Michael O'Connor wrote:
> Well, I'd like to know on why you would make such a request. Aside from
> the
> fact that the term "bass guitar" has acquired a pretty universal
> acceptance,
> the term "electric bass" can also refer to the upright electric bass, like
> that used in salsa bands. I've played bass for years and have never known
> this to be an issue. I would be curious to know why you have this aversion
> to the term?
=
Good point - and it is an uphill, loosing battle ;)

To be sure, I might cringe, but I have no serious objection to the term
"Bass Guitar". Its just the emotional reaction of the elitist ('French')
Horn player in me rearing its ugly head ;)
But,
I usually make the distintion by refering to the harmonic and rhythmic
function of the electric bass - apart from the usual function of the
electric guitar. (drawing from my reasoning between 'violin' and 'fiddle',
aside from a usually flatter bridge, it is the style of playing which
differentiates).

Despite the fact that Leo Fender developed the Fender Precision bass in 1951
so that guitarists could easily sub in for bass players, (or for acoustic
bass players to travel from gig to gig more easily) it does require its own
technique unique from both the acoustic upright bass and Electric Guitar (of
course up until about 1969 players played either Bass (for Acoustic) or
Fender Bass (for any electric regardless of brand name). In my own
experience I have not felt much of a distinction between playing a 41" scale
Electric Upright and my Acoustic Upright. Whereas switching between the 25"
scale of an Electric Guitar and the 34" scale of the Electric Bass does
require me to think, feel and play differently. (again, "If one can teach
Violin...then Why can't/ won't they teach Cello?" - they are both part of
the Violin family, right?)

Further (and again I'm still running on all tongue-in-cheek emotion here)
A "Bass Guitarist" is a 'failed electric guitarist' who doesn't read music
and prefers playing only simple root position 1/4 pulse basslines (like
those minimalist classics, "Sweet Home Alabama", or "Takin' Care of
Business")
An "Electric Bassist" is more of an artist who develops the instrument
idiomatically (i.e. Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke, Paul McCartney, John
Entwhistle, Victor Wooten, Michael Manring)

Well, thats just my opinion.
Take care,
K. Christian McGuire
kcmcguire@mnmlc.org

This topic addresses the issue of teaching liturgical music (i.e. a huge portion of the Classical repertoire) in a public school setting.

This was originally published as part of the Music of the Middle East Section of the 2005-06 Minnesota High School Music Listening Contest
=-=-=-=-=

Separation of Church and State
You might be familiar with the age-old debate about the separation of Church and State, and it even may have been debated in your local school board meetings. By now, you have probably noticed that a very large percentage of the history of music, as well as literature, is tied to religious and spiritual practices. So what is one to do, ignore it and limit discussion to only secular works? Ignoring important aspects of the human experience would be contrary to the objectives of a well-rounded education. It would create an exclusive rather than inclusive curricula where only one side of the story is given, thus limiting, not broadening your worldview.

There is nothing that prevents one from objectively discussing religion and spiritual practices in public schools, but having publicly funded institutions subtly and/or overtly express one particular religious belief is forbidden. But you dont have to take my word for it...

The chief argument for the separation of Church and State reaches all they way back to the events and documents surrounding the founding of the United States Constitution. Many of the founders were Christians, but they did not want to make the mistakes of European countries which enforced Christianity as their legal state religion. James Madison from Virginia, who later became the fourth President of the United States is probably best known to us as one of the principle authors of the Federalist Papers as well as for his extensive notes taken during the creation of the Constitution. For his active participation, this 5 foot tall 100 lb. man is called the Father of the Constitution.

In 1785 while serving in the Virginia legislature he expressed fifteen key points advocating for the separation of church and state in a publication called Memorial and Remonstrance.

His chief argument is that enforcing an entire population to conform to a particular religious belief is contrary to freedom as well as injurious to the faith of those who are doing the enforcing.

3. ...Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?

4. ...Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man...

5. Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.

Enforcement of Beliefs
When we think about societies which have enforced beliefs at the expense of freedom, we often think of Ancient Romes persecution of the early Christians; the Christian persecution of the Jews and Muslims (esp. the Spanish Inquisition); within Christianity itself, the Catholic persecution of Protestants and Protestant persecution of Catholics. In historical examples during and AFTER Madisons time there is the persecution of Native Americans by various sects of European settlers, Nazi persecution of Jews, Stalin-styled Communist persecution of all religions, and most recently Taliban persecution of those who did not conform to their particular sect of Islam.

Speech as a Weapon of Oppression
In times of war, it becomes especially tempting to use emotionally charged slurs and sound-bites to attack a group of people and their cultural values. This is what we call hate speech. Hate speech is an inflammatory use of terms designed to incite emotions into action or reaction. It is not based upon logical reasoning of concepts. Hate speech is uncivil and contrary to the principles of freedom. It shows that the people using the terms have not bothered to learn about the other culture and that they do not respect the freedom of beliefs to which all are entitled as human beings.

For example, Nazi propaganda films used hate speech to depict all Jews as shiftless and greedy and as a threat to the Aryan race. Even in todays America there are pockets of people who still make common practice of this use of language. Most recently is has been spread through the use of e-mail and web-logs where it is used to attack Muslims.

A milder but no less destructive form of inflammatory speech is the political sound-bite. During elections politicians use 30-second propaganda commercials (aka negative-campaign ads) throwing around terms like reactionary right-wing conservative or radical left-wing liberal.

They expect that the average American voter will not take the initiative to dutifully explore the concepts each candidate actually represents, but be swayed to vote for one candidate over the other on the basis of emotion and fear. (not to mention late night talk show monologues)

Both hate speech and negative sound-bytes rely on ignorance. Those who use them assume that their audience is ignorant of the concepts or simply too busy to reason things out for themselves.

In essence using language in these ways demonstrate disrespect for the founding principles of the Constitution and the guaranteed freedom it represents for everyone in our multicultural society.

This was initially published in the epilogue to the 2005-06 Minnesota High School Music Listening Contest
=-=-=-=
Epilogue: History, Concepts and Terms
History, like the other disciplines of the humanities, is concerned with events, not facts. For example, the statement Beethoven was born in 1770. is a literal fact. It is something one can memorize and regurgitate on a multiple choice exam. Stating the fact however is insignificant, because it does not in itself tell us about Beethoven or what influences and experiences shaped his life to lead him to write is music. It also tells us nothing of the concepts which differentiate Romantic and Classical musical styles or how those styles relate in our own times.

I hope to have stressed enough that it is the concepts in this guide which matter the most. If you understand the concepts, you should be able to identify musical similarities and differences by ear. If you focus too much on rote memorization of terms without Listening to the music, you will most likely have a difficult time in the contest. It is ultimately up to YOU to listen to the music and to use the material in this guide to assist in making these connections.

Granted about 1/3rd of the contest is multiple-choice, but multiple-choice is a rather ineffective method of testing knowledge. Multiple-choice exams tend to demonstrate how well you can guess the correct answer, not how well you can apply the knowledge you have learned. When you embark on your career path, you will be expected to continually apply knowledge (this is why essay exams are stressed.) Those who can do so with ease are the ones who succeed.

I would hate to go in for heart surgery with a surgeon who had only been tested with multiplechoice (and graded on a curve!). Would it not be more comforting to know that the surgeon understands the concepts of the heart, its relation to the workings of the human body as well as the emotional impact of surgery on the patient, so that if something unexpected happens, the surgeon can actively handle the situation?

In all aspects of life, if you are consistent with your application of knowledge rather than consistent with your strict adherence to the literal terms you will succeed.

Let me put this another way using a metaphor from architecture. While studying in England between 1990-1991, I visited Lincoln Cathedral, one of the oldest and largest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe, At this time the building was undergoing a renovation to correct the huge mistakes made by the renovators in the 1920s. In the 1920s, the architects were so transfixed on maintaining the appearance (term) of the Cathedral that they injected key structural points with concrete so that it would remain rigid and unbending. The problem was, they did not go back to study the methods used by the original masons (concepts).

Had they done so, they would have understood that the mortar used to build the Cathedral maintained the form of the structure by allowing it a certain degree of flexibility. Today the Cathedral has a full time staff dedicated to the art of the original Medieval builders in order to preserve the form. Had they stuck with the rigid, inflexible, uncompromising terms of the concrete, it is likely that the Cathedral would not be standing today.

This debate between terms and concepts extends into all facets of life. Take for instance the United States Constitution. The Framers made their intentions about the Constitution very clear in the supporting documents and letters they wrote to each other. They knew that society and traditions change (just as you have discovered in this guide) and that the immediate values of 1787 might not be the same as values in 1987. So they designed the Constitution with a certain degree of flexibility in order to effectively ensure freedom in all eras.

There are however those, like the Lincoln Cathedral renovators of the 1920s, who get so emotionally fixated upon the words (terms) of the Constitution that they neglect its original concept - to protect freedom. They attempt to pass amendments to shore-up the Constitution for the appearance of patriotic tradition, just as the 1920s renovators used concrete for the appearance of the Cathedral. What happens is that the slight degree of flexibility, represented by the third equal branch of government (Judicial - those educated in the history of the Constitutions concepts of freedom) is forced into an uncompromising form without a notion of historical perspective.

The result becomes an ineffectual structure, crumbling under the weight of its own rigidity. Eventually the rooms become unsafe and are condemned one by one. People are forced to move outside of its once protective refuge of universal freedom. The more concrete is injected, the less safe it becomes until the whole building comes crashing down.

I like to use metaphors and parables because they demonstrate exactly what I have been stating in this epilogue, that is Dont get so mired in the literal interpretation that you miss the point of the concept. Learning and listening for the concepts will provide you with a foundational context.

The Real World: Application of Knowledge History, Music, Philosophy etc.
In the real world, businesses are spending millions of dollars each year on diversity programs and on consultants to train their workers to think outside the box. What this means is that many of their employees have had such specialized training in one field that they had never learned to apply that knowledge to other facets of work. This becomes especially problematic when they try to communicate with workers in other departments who are specialized in another field. It is like asking a group of accountants to engineer a nuclear sub or Putting all of your eggs in one basket.

For this reason they find the need to hire consultants (who tend to have degrees in philosophy or cultural anthropology) to identify the concepts and teach them to do the same so that their business can progress instead of spinning their wheels and going nowhere. When you think about it, philosophy is the root of all disciplines. Philosophers are trained in the study of abstract concepts, to analyze problems, ask questions and then answer them. They can therefore be set to learn any task, be it analyzing profit margins, leadership, computers programming, construction, engineering, human relations, music...anything. What can't one do with a Philosophy degree?

If you ask questions and work through answers to solve problems, you are doing Philosophy.

No matter how you do in the contest, I hope that you take the concepts with you as you pursue your career and continue to further your education. Never close your mind off to free knowledge, always strive to seek out new ideas, and what you can do to solve problems. Knowledge is the foundation of freedom; the cycle of continual learning is the source of American Ingenuity.

There are a few Television shows I watch, among them is Hogan's Heroes. What confuses me is the number of people I encounter who for some reason or another absolutely despise the show. For me, the show works in that it portrays the negative effects of a society whose structure relies on intimidation, fear, arrogance and hubris. How many times is Klink threatened to serve on the Eastern Front? Why do all of the Luftwafe officers get so jumpy everytime the Gestapo shows up? How is it that a group of POWs are able to sneak about in almost broad daylight without arousing suspicion. Well, for the last question, hubris is the answer. I mean, how could that Prussian Pride even contemplate that an American could outsmart them, since they cannot there is no need to worry...

Anyway, below is an excerpt I placed in the 2005-06 Minnesota High School Music Listening Contest. As I included an example from Wagner, I felt compelled to counter his anti-semitic views with Red Sector A by Rush as well as include this article after the Mahler example.[I will note, I have a love/hate relationship with Wagner. On one hand, I absolutely love his music, on the other hand I cannot stand his politics or anti-semitism. I feel the same conflicted way about O.J. Simpson. Prior to the trial his public image was the epitome of the friendly, good natured athlete. His role in the brilliantly comic opening sequence in the Naked Gun film (where he breaks into the houseboat to arrest the gangsters) is now tarnished by the post trial image our culture holds of him.

=-=-=-=
Thematic Transformations and Six Degrees of Gustav Mahler

Those who know me well know that I love puns, metaphor and tangential thinking. An example of the last is the game: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where people try to make connections from any actor to Kevin Bacon through the films they have been in. My variation is similar in concept, but involves some people who lived during historically significant times.

As you will learn in the opera section, the music of Richard Wagner influenced practically every late Romantic German composer who followed. Wagner was also a vocal anti-Semite as were many people in Viennese society. Gustav Mahler was Jewish, but he, being a late Romantic German composer, was inspired by Wagners music.

On account of his talent, Mahler rose to a position of prominence in Viennese musical society and promoted Wagners music. Mahler did, if perhaps only in name, convert to Catholicism.

Now, one of Mahlers protégés was a young Jewish pianist turned conductor by the name of Otto Klemperer, (1885-1974) who first met Mahler while conducting the off-stage brass for him in a 1905 performance of the Resurrection Symphony. Otto was a tremendous talent from a long line of musicians and ultimately became artistic director of the Cologne Symphony Orchestra in Germany. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Otto fled to the U.S. with his wife, a talented soprano vocalist, and their musically gifted son, Werner.

While Otto became renown as one of the great conductors of the 20th century and retired as a citizen of Israel in 1970, Werner went into acting and became forever linked with his twice Emmy Award winning role as idiotically egotistical Colonel Klink on the 1960s TV sitcom Hogans Heroes. Werner had a standing clause in his contract that if the Nazis were ever shown in a good light, he would quit the show.

Although the show was a sitcom about an Allied espionage unit located undercover in a prisoner of war camps during WWII (spoofing the movies The Great Escape (1963) and Stalag 17 (1953)), many of the actors in Hogans Heroes, along with the Klemperers, barely escaped Nazi Germany themselves. Robert Clary (Corporal Lebeau) a French Jew, barely survived several concentration camps in France and still bears a tattoo from the experience. Of his twelve family members sent to death camps, he was the only survivor. John Banner (Sgt. Schulz) was an Austrian Jew who for a time helped smuggle other Jewish Austrians into Switzerland. Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) born on Yom Kippur, was a subversive Jewish actor and writer in Vienna in 1938 who put on plays mocking the Nazi party. After being imprisoned and beaten a number of times by the Gestapo, he eventually, and barely, escaped to the U. S. where he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps (as did Klemperer and Banner) during World War II. Askins parents were burned to death in the Nazi death camp at Lublin. [Should also mention that Howard Caine who played Major Hochstetter was also Jewish and grew up in the Southern United States]

Where Wagner might have been expressing anti-Semitism in his music dramas, Jewish actors expressed anti-Nazism through American television only 20 years after the Holocaust!

* note: The Nazis ruled by fear, accusing those who disagreed with them as being unpatriotic and treasonous. They upheld Wagner as the pinnacle of Aryan cultural achievement. Coupled with their advanced industrialization and military might, they viewed their culture as superior to all others (which they deemed as primitive). The characters portrayed in Hogans Heroes provide us with a timely lesson that no matter how great a culture is perceived to be, arrogance and excessive pride (hubris) will always be its downfall. It happened to: Persia, the Ancient Greeks, Rome, Spain, Napoleon, Great Britain, the Third Reich...