Studying music at university has been daunting. It's an incredibly deep and complex subject - Politics, maths, gender, religion, science, drugs; all have all had an impact on the subject in some way. Why is it then, that knowing the intricacies of the subject isn't important to gaining a career in music?
Why do many of the famous and credited contemporary musicians know very little about Shostakovich's plight during the Russian Revolution or neapolitain, French, German and Italian sixths? You would, after all, expect a surgeon to have been thoroughly taught the mechanisms behind the knee joint he's about to operate on as well as having a technical understanding of all the equipment he's working with. Ok, so some musicians and bands just seem to make things 'work' without knowing why, but if a Civil Engineer said "I'm not sure why that bridge stands up... It just does" someone would be asking serious questions...
Maybe it's to do with creativity? Perhaps talent and flair overrule the neccessity for knowledge? Many of the world's most famous musical stars are ex art students: Bowie, Ferry blah blah blah blah blah... Perhaps it is the 'artist' in the musician that makes an 'uneducated professional' a credible reality? I don't think so. If you had an artist who claims to have created a new way of thinking, he would almost certainly have been taught where the impressionists, pre-raphaelites and dadaists sourced their (probably similar) preconceptions.
Having been in a higher learning environment for the best part of an academic year now, I think I can see why the academic music route is a big turn off for those trying to make it in music these days. The physicists, medics and biologists are all in laboratories practising cutting edge theories on cutting edge equipment. They are the ones who, after graduation, will be the best in their field; the ones making the new discoveries and researching new theories. Based on that same model, music students are the ones in four years who will be the misunderstood artists; the ones bending the rules of what is acceptable of music as a contemporary art form - the Hirsts and Emmins of the music world if you like. Alas, that is not so. The drive just isn't there.
The background and history of music is fascinating and given the chance I would probably indulge in journals, books and papers to understand why Bach may have preferred F-sharp to G-flat, but that doesn't help in the progression of modern music. No one cares about where music's going because no one's really asked. The music press doesn't help either: Doherty, Kings of Leon, U2 and Madonna are STILL the ones bending the boundaries. Apparently...
So is studying it a benefit or a curse?
Maybe I should have gone to art college or something instead...
Maybe I'll just drop out...
