Hooked on Beethoven

I've got an earworm like I've never had before. You have to help me get rid of it.

It all started when I began listening to "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" from The Teaching Company.

For those of you who don't know what The Teaching Company is, you're in for a treat. The Teaching Company is an organization that takes the best college professors in the country and records their lectures on CD, tape, or DVD. Then you can listen to them whenever you find time. It's like being able to audit a college course while you're on the elliptical machine, or while you're walking the dog every day.

If you love learning like I do, this has been a godsend. I live in a very rural area, and now I can pick just about any topic, from algebra to zoolology, and have a college-level course delivered to my I-pod. As the valley-girls would say, it's totally awesome, dude.

But it also started this problem. The problem that won't go away.

The "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" series is 48 lectures, each an hour long. I got them on CD so I could take them anywhere (I figured who needs to see music?) The professor, Robert Greenberg, does a great job with the series. He takes us from the Greek dramas to the 1920s and the end of harmony as we know it (which is a massive mind-bender)

I grew up in a musical family. My mom played the piano at the local church, and I took keyboard lessons for twelve years. I believe I could have gotten a scholarship, but I made other choices. So I have always wondered what it would be like to learn music theory and music history in a college setting. That's why I ordered the lectures.

Bob took it a step at a time, introducing more and more complicated music ideas. I think anybody -- anybody with patience -- could understand the concepts he is talking about.

What I learned was that the idea of a "tune", a "motive", and a "melody" has kept evolving over the years. At first, people just chanted stuff out for church. But over time, there was more and more stuff we would consider a "song".

Somewhere around 1500-1600, music evolved into people singing songs like we do today. The things they sang about was basically the things we hear on the radio any day of the week: love, family, pain, triumph. The tunes were easy to sing and remember. Mostly, however, these songs were for church. (I vastly oversimplify here Bob, so please forgive me. The audience is not ready for polyphony or miasmas)

Then something quite strange happened. Music kept getting more and more interesting! How could music from two hundred years ago be more interesting than music today, you might ask. It completely amazed me, but it is true. Our great-great-great grandfathers heard much more complicated and intricate music than most of us will ever appreciate.

Why? Because of the phonograph and radio. Once there was a way to record music, music became a passive activity. This was such an amazing discovery I had to listen to Bob's lecture twice on this subject. Up until 1890 or so, when you wanted to listen to music, you stopped what you were doing and listened to music. There was no radio, or TV. People had very complex and complicated ideas about what music was supposed to provide them, and they expected a lot of detail and information from their music experience. So the composers provided it.

After we started recording material, however, it all changed. Then people wanted something to tap their toe with. They wanted something to play while they washed the car, or did the laundry. Music did not sit up on the stage with the spotlight on it: it became more like picking your nose -- something you do while waiting for something else to happen.

Back to my earworm. So Bob is telling me how Beethoven was such a great innovator because he was a genius (like Mozart and a bunch of others) but he made music just for himself. Beethoven made music to self-express. And the music he made! Wow!

So I thought I would give this a whirl. I found I had the complete set of Beethoven symphonies on CD. I got out Beethoven's Fifth and listened to it. Not just hearing the notes while I did something else: really listening to it.

It was like being hit on the head with a rock. There is so much information, so much melody and depth and emotion and power in what Beethoven was doing. As 21st century listeners, we have lost all of that. It's a crying shame, as they say.

So now I'm constantly thinking of Beethoven's Fifth. Not the main theme, which everybody knows, but the beautiful and majestic second theme. Beginning in the second movement, but really kicking butt in the third movement, this regal theme just is incredible. Amazing. Powerful. Dynamic. Addictive.

I didn't get it the first few times, so don't expect this to happen immediately. We have to "unlearn" how we listen to music, it seems. Most of us don't even know how to use our ears when it comes to complex music! I listened about four times before it started dawning on me. Now I can't get rid of it.

My next piece is Korsakov's Easter Overture. Talk about a well-designed set of music! Korsakov takes several famous melodies and mixes them together into a terrific overture. It's another great one.

And then there's Rossini, and of course Mozart, and Handel, and Bach. If you just have a passing appreciation for "classical" music, you need to get some education! There's a wonderful world of music out there for you to enjoy. More than you ever imagined. What are you waiting for?!?