Eight Years
Date: (spring 2005)
At Harvard, we have a set of General Education requirements which have been pigeonholed into specific components of “the Core”, 7 subjects outside of our field which we Harvard students, as we are getting a “broad liberal arts education,” were supposed to experience.
In January of 2005 (second semester sophomore), I was considering the answer to that semester-ly question: “So Ben, what core do you think you’ll take?”
I had decided at the beginning of the school year in the Fall of 2004 that I would just get the Literature & Arts requirements out of the way — especially as I was not a big arts person. Yes, I loved listening to music and browsing art galleries, but I never really understood it in the sense that a music theory/musicology (whatever the hell you call yourself) does or an art history/artist type does. To me, art was just something that you took in — studying it seemed, at least to me, contrary to the purpose of it — the pure, raw enjoyment that it’s supposed to just elicit.
Of course, that was probably just my philosophical rationalization for why I didn’t take art classes — the real reason was because I wasn’t any good at it. I can talk endlessly about economics and comic book stories, but ask me to talk about music or art — and I can’t. I can say that a painting “looks nice.” But I can’t talk about its composition in any sensible way. I can’t remember the names of anything — is it Picasso? Or Pointillism? I don’t know. Is it Brahms? Or Bach? Oh wow — they’re two different people? Is this an oboe, or a piano? Uhh… I don’t know?
But, surprisingly, the previous semester (sophomore fall), I had taken a Literature & Arts C course on the concept of the Hero in Greek Mythology — something I had actually done well in and enjoyed. Fresh from that victory, I was willing to take a chance on the Lit&Arts B straight Music/Art requirement.
But what to take? I scanned the course listing and the syllabi for the classes that were available. No — I don’t care about the art of people conquered by the Mongols. Yes, I suppose I could learn about “the American city” but that seems a little too crazy/lefty/out-of-the-box/neo-modernist-whatever for me. “Frank Lloyd Wright”? Interesting — but, having written a biography on him a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away (7th grade I think) I know that I can’t stand writing about buildings. Uhh… Modernism… no. Bach? Who’s that?
And then . . . Opera?
It was a new class. No prior ratings, but the first lecture was nice and simple-seeming. The lecturer, Professor Anne Shreffler, seemed kind and seemed to emphasize that the class had no prerequisites. I had a couple friends in the class — making it more fun and likely that I’d attend lecture and making it more easy to find help if I needed it.
And besides. I rocked last semester’s “Literature” class — something I was positive I would fail no matter what. And opera is one of those upper-class things that I’m supposed to pick up while at an Ivy, right? So — I’ll take a nice intro class on opera and then *bam!* entertaining cocktail party stories. [You think I'm kidding with my thought process here. Believe me, I'm not.] Besides, how hard could this opera class be?
Sure enough, it started out nice and slow and easy, and it was certainly interesting hearing about the history of opera, its basic structure. “Yeah, I can handle this,” I told myself. “I can identify instruments… kinda. I can sorta understand rhythm . . . barely. Yeah I… a what paper? On what? Composition? What?”
And before I knew it, I was spending every free waking moment listening to opera. Handel’s Rinaldo. Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Rossini’s Barber of Seville. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And — it wasn’t that bad. As I said above, I actually do like a lot of music. So, even if I didn’t understand what was going on — hey, at least I was learning some of the more famous operas, and I was learning something interesting.
And then — I learned what atonal (or pantonal) music meant. I listened in agony to Berg’s Wozzeck — “Jahwoll… Herr Hauptmannnnnnn” — and with the papers with topics I didn’t understand piling on, any illusion that “this class is okay” vanished.
So, end of the story, what did I get from this? An abysmal paper, crap final, and enough experiences with atonal music for several lifetimes — that and one of the worse grades on my record. Oh, and a re-affirmed fear of the study of music.
But– if I were to be perfectly honest, I would have to admit that I did gain an experience into the actual study of music — however superficial — that will last with me. I can now talk to F. Chen about what she sings without being completely lost. And when P. Kehayova (new postdoc in the Maniatis Lab) invites me to an “opera night” at her house or plays the new Don Giovanni recording that she is absolutely raving about — I can politely decline but still discuss what she loves to listen to and sing without sounding like a total fool. Yes, you lose some — but you win some.