I spent the weekend slacking off from the computer and doing frivolous things like hauling AJ to a street carnival, gardening and playing music loud enough to drown out the neighbors� Kenny G. CD. It was a lovely weekend, thank you. But today my Protestant work ethic has kicked in, leaving me feeling all disciplinary and polemical while at the same time resenting the fact that I can�t just run and play today. This is the closest I seem to get to a hangover these days. Kind of pathetic.

Lately I�ve been reading quite a few books and articles printed between 1900 and 1930 on music as a tool for social engineering. What? There�s more than one? That was my reaction too, but it seemed to be something of an epidemic. In the book I�m reading at the moment, a slim volume from a series about music written in the mid-1920�s, music is attributed with having turned America from a �trackless wilderness� into a modern civilization. It makes neighbors of all religions, nationalities and economic strata get along (alas, race is never mentioned � it appears that there are some differences music cannot surmount). It sobers the town drunk and reforms the school hoodlum. Does this not put you more in mind of Mao�s little red book than the American dream?

When early industrialist tycoons were planning the new Chicago after the fire, one of their priorities was creating an opera and a symphony, not so much because everybody wanted them (indeed, they went ahead and raised money for and built an opera house before ever figuring out who was going to actually perform there) but because that was what you needed to do if you were going to build a real city. There�s a new book coming out about this phenomenon in Chicago and also about how music was used as a tool for social mobility, especially among immigrant communities. I haven�t read the book yet, but the dissertation it�s based on is great and very readable. Take a look at it.

The type of music being used for reform isn�t always specified (although �dance music� is written off as a waste of time and energy and sometimes is labeled �corrupting�). But it seems fairly clear that they�re generally talking about classical music, albeit sometimes classical music of the super-lightweight variety. Although symphonies and operas are generally associated today with major urban areas, they are certainly not considered organizations that level the socio-economic playing field. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think that�s why I find all this ink on musical social reform so interesting. I also think this mindset still affects traditions of funding arts institutions in this country, emphasizing educational rather than artistic value. That seems to be the only way Americans can stomach supporting money-losing ventures, as almost all classical music organizations are.

I�m not really sure where I�m going with this, except that I think this arrangement makes it difficult for us to just like or not like the music we listen to. We seem to feel the need to place value judgments on musical genres rather than being able to listen with an open mind. And I wonder what kinds of social reform we�ll attribute to genres like, say, rap or emo. Let�s get Anita Bryant and Lynne Cheney on the phone�

And why music as opposed to other art forms? Is it the interactive nature of music making? But theater�s interactive too, and it seems like it might easier to get a social message across in a theater than in a musical performance. Perhaps it�s the semi-anonymous quality of performing in a large ensemble that makes it more accessible to the �man on the street or woman in the home� as one of these articles.

Enough pontificating for today. Clearly I should be working on my dissertation.

A brief footnote: I apologize for my broken links over the past couple of entries. I was having a problem with importing text from my word processing software, but it should be all fixed now.

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