Musical Pedantry, where does it begin and end?

I don't think it is ever right to reduce standards to the lowest common denominator. Dumbing-down is a disease and insults everyone in one way or another.

How can any of us ever learn anything unless we are told? I learn something new every day. Sometimes I make mistakes. I don't want to make the same mistakes repeatedly and so I am grateful when someone puts me straight. I then don't make that mistake anymore (hopefully!).

You single-out music terminology because that's our subject here, but surely it's important to use the correct words in EVERY area of life. It's all very well to say that language is changing and evolving (which, of course, it is), but that doesn't equate to using words of one syllable which might have a vague meaning of the subject being discussed. Of course one can make oneself understood by using such language, but that's not really the point, is it? We have a language rich in subtlelty, meaning and diversity and it is wrong to undermine that.

Calling a symphony a 'song' is a bit like calling a lion a kitten. Sure, they are related to each other but they are not the same. For me, it can never be wrong to correct the misuse and abuse of language. A song is something very specific; many of us know that. Some people misuse the word (not helped by sub-standard websites such as iTunes and MySpace which call anything a 'song', whether it is or not). But how are they to learn that this is not the correct terminology if no-one tells them?

I say we should stand up for the standards we hold dear and do our utmost to uphold and improve them. Without such care, surely we run the risk of gradually sliding down the slope of regressing into grunts and snorts because we are too lazy to think of the words. 'Song' will NEVER be a generic term for me.

Edit, having seen Alberich's post:

Swimming against the tide? Yes, maybe so. However, 'going with the flow' is no excuse just because doing the opposite is a little difficult. Nothing in this world of any real value was achieved by people swimming WITH the tide.

'Who cares?' I do. You do. That's what counts. If we shrug our shoulders and join the apathetic masses, we become no better than they are. WE then reduce ourselves to the lowest common denominator. That's not really our style, is it?

Well, if it were a serious poster who were just ignorant, I probably would correct him/her. To play Devil's Advocate though (and I really am lenient in practice), I don't think we should get too bent out of shape about linguistic details.

I posted a question a while back about why I don't believe in grammar. I'm an English major, so it goes against my nature!, and I definitely I think it's important in the practical sense (getting a job); but philosophically, I don't believe in grammar. I've studied history and languages a lot, and in the process I've stumbled on some really interesting stuff. I have found records from Ancient Greece in which the educated members of society were freaking out about laxity in grammar. Their grammar rules, though, were so incredibly arcane and complex that they have long since become obsolete; has this really led to a "dumbing-down" of humanity? The world has always had its idiots and its geniuses, and it always will. I found a similar argument among Anglo-Saxon scholars around the year 1000; again, they were freaking out about grammar and insisting that it signified the end of cultured society. Um...? The gutter languages of ancient Rome turned into French and Spanish; who cares if French and Spanish don't distinguish between grammatical cases? The lack of the "ablative" and the "accusative" didn't stand in the way of Molière and Cervantes.

I think pedantry is all in the intent. When some people on this forum explain the difference between a song and a piece, they are polite and are just trying to help; others use their superior knowledge to show off and scoff. There's a difference, and that's why some are pedants and others are just wise and knowledgeable teachers. I have had professors who knew *way* more than I did, and yet I never felt that they were pedantic; it's because they were humble.

Edit: Well said OpernKatz!

To Doctor John: We all acknowledge your superior intellect. The point is that those "schoolboys" you speak of (and there are very few who still study ancient Greek) would be far better served by learning to think critically and creatively than by memorizing the alpha, omicron, and attic second declensions. The insistence on grammar seems as arbitrary and pointless to me as the Aristotelian unities. The French scoffed at Shakespeare for centuries because he didn't follow these silly, strict rules; now who is laughing? The French were snobs.

Pedantry is a bad thing because it is rude, proud, and it drives away people who might otherwise explore classical music. I'm sorry if you want the classical world to be an ivory tower for the "elite" to gloat over how superior they are; I'd rather it be a place for learning and teaching.

What I see often here is... some young folks who aren't familiar with classical music had heard bits of a classical tune that caught their imagination and want to find out more about it (like having it identified so that they can check the whole tune out properly... and possibly explore further into the classical music genre). So, they come here innocently asking for help. And what do they get but being dressed down just for not knowing that some classical music fans take great offense when a classical number is called a 'song'. Who'd have imagined that, eh? I know it's a four letter word, but from the reaction that word gets around here you'd think it's another type of four letter word altogether!

Sometimes I wonder if classical music itself is unpopular with younger audience or if it is the classical music fans who are going out of their way to turn people off from giving the genre a proper try. Song, tune, number, piece, whatever... you see the question, you know what the questioner is looking for. Then you have to decide: answer the question and perhaps gain classical music another young fan that'll keep it going or nitpick about his choice of what to call a number... missing the forest for the trees.

There is a reason why people dislike snobs who like to talk in specialize language that lay non-specialists can't understand. When someone really knows something, he talks so that others can understand him rather than sticking to technically correct lingo that goes right over other people's head. I see much of that going on here... Music is for everyone regardless of whether they know the correct term for things or not.

I feel answers to this sort of question which literally name Shostakovitch songs as an answer are a far worse form of pedantry. The asker, no matter how ignorant or lax, was not being disingenuous.

At least (if I recall) the party was asking about Shostakovitch, and had remembered an associated title "Leningrad." Give them credit and the benefit of your knowledge, I say. I often inform the party of the basic difference between the meaning of the terms song and piece. I recommend if you cannot have the patience to do that when answering to then not address that question.

We are all here to serve as well as be served. (some service includes the bluntness to inform people they are inadequately prepared, etc.) It is also a matter of how any of us wish to spend free time. Sometimes I'm up for it, others not.

Was the Shostakovitch question pedantic in that it was asked to satisfy a petty mentality to merely label things, or to answer a homework question? Impossible to say.

I'm equally irritated by more informed people asking questions like, "What other movies is this Chopin piece used in?" Again, what is the point of this type of question: is it not also a bit offensive as to a type of pedantry? I do not answer these. Simple.

I have learned to avoid, but have not yet been able to fully resist, questions with the outward appearance of teen style phone-text, simile those questions not posited with standard word usage.. This sort of outward appearance at least cues the reader as to what 'sort' of personage posed the question.

Choose your battles. I would prefer to TRY to help, selectively, than also be disingenuous in pretending there are not millions of uninformed people in the world, many of whom genuinely want information.

This forum requires you only be 13 years of age to join. I think it allows anyone to join who has the physical capacity to reach a computer keyboard and type a bit. The more versed and experienced YA members, I am certain in each category, could all wish for a forum where all participants were better informed, could spell, were not lacking even fundamental vocabulary needed to pose questions, etc. ad infinitum.

When it really gets to me, I tell myself, "Sir, back away from that computer. Do it now." Then I go eat, or brush my pet, or practice, or compose, or any of many other things more appealing and rewarding - at that moment. I agree sometimes YA is such an egregious mass of crap one would be much better off staring at a blank wall.

Best regards, p.b.

I noticed the Shostakovich question likewise.

Personally this would have been one of the occasions I would have allowed such incorrect terminology to slide as the person does later acknowledge that the work in question is actually a symphony.

As Alberich mentions it is indeed a constant battling against the tide.

I'm not advocating this though as I agree with every word Del_icio has said on the matter as regards refusing to dumb-down our language to make it more palatable.

However If the two-fold purpose of such correction is also to help the said person to understand musical vocabulary better, then I believe it is very important to always offer such correction in a tactful manner.

Sometimes the way we word things can so often be interpreted as contempt.

Simply correcting someone for improper use of the word 'song' without offering any further assistance for the overall context of question will more often than not be perceived as us coming across as haughty and pedantic and we wouldn't be helping that person one jot.

1. Oh yes. I started off here and was just into Pop Rock. I liked Cute Is What We Aim For, Jack's Manequin, The Rocket Summer, etc... I actually was extremely ignorant and thought my music taste was better then anyone elses. Wow, I was wrong. 2. Jake, Squiks, Kyla, Sarah C, Jay, Samantha, Fonzie Jake- He got me into deathcore. Squiks- Secret & Whisper. Kyla- Her username was "Kyla, Where's The Boat?" That made me get into Drop Dead, Gorgeous. Also because of her I found out about Craig Owen's side project. Sarah C- Radiohead and Porcupine Tree Jay- Once gave me a list of indie bands which included DLD. One of the best recomendations I ever got. Samantha- skate 4 cancer and some other good stuff. Fonzie- I was on one of my "I have a ton of money so I'll spend it all on CDs" shopping sprees and was going up and down the aisles searching for some music and I saw Rush's "Fly By Night" and noticed it as his avatar so I got it. I was actually thinking about how I would answer a question like this last night and bascially loving how I R&P has effected my music taste.

A generic term is only useful if what it designates is as generic as the word used. If I refer to an implement in the kitchen as a 'fork' when I need to cut something I'm going to get unpredictable, and likely unsatisfactory results if I'm consequently actually, and rightly, handed an actual fork. It is, after all, precisely what I asked for. Pedantry isn't the problem in that case -- I did actually want to cut something with a knife, after all, but asked for something by its precise name that cannot cut -- but obscurity, inexactitude. If I want to discuss 'tea', I'm unlkely to get the conversation I seek if I persist in calling 'tea' 'coffee'. If I don't know the difference between the two terms, like when I was tiny, my parents put me right. Was that pedantry? The issue is neither one of music nor pedantry, just of precision & clarity. Try talking with a builder and discussing the 'pointing' when you mean the 'footings'. In that case, however, the lesson might be more quickly learnt because he will charge you regardless and it will hurt.

I think that to improve and further knowledge is what we serious classical posters are about. It may seem to the younger, less experienced members of this forum that we are pedantic, but that's based on their inexperience, isn't it? ( give 'em 25 years to learn)

I agree that the choice of words is important. I agree with del on the value of learning something new every day.

For those of you who also happen to deal with music regularly in a 2nd or 3rd language, this becomes much more obvious as the correct point of view.

I recently checked a stage director on her political correctness.

We were into Aida, and she wanted a group of our younger tenors and baritones to portray fanatic soldiers, to be consecrated to death

( Act I Temple Scene) At the moment, there are a lot of very talented Asian performers in Germany, and most of them are at the age where they have learned from their grandparents the horrors of the Asian theater in WWII. Imagine being told you are supposed to be a kamikaze warrior. the word is "correct" in Germany, but the stage director did not take into account to whom the word was directed.

Let us please use the resources of languages to avoid misunderstandings of this nature. It is too easy to be sloppy.

It is so much more fun to be intelligent, and carry on a real conversation.

I think it would behoove those of us who are serious-minded, responsible regular posters on this forum, to continue to point out such distinctions; and try to correct misconceptions in any regard to those misinformed(to put it "kindly"). And will have to admit that I don't do this very often - in fact, rarely(do as I say, not as I do).

But in all candor, we would be/are swimming against an inevitable tide of "who cares?" in my experience.

Thanks for asking, but I fear it's a lost cause.

With profound regrets,

Alberich

I am that pedant. the thing that distuinguishes us from animals is our ability to communicate through the spoken and written language.The confusion caused by mis-using 'song' in this manner diminishes us all.

I tell people off for referring to electric lamps as bulbs too! A more annoying trait in British English is the super abundance of a redundant pre- on words that indicate future action. pre-book, pre-reserve, pre-plan and saint' preserve us, pre-prepare !

We live in an age where icons are preferred to words, and grant degrees to the barely literate. Only yesterday I was chatting to an ex-colleague who took early retirement as he was expected to pass students for a degree scheme who quite frankly wouldn't have passed 5 O-levels twenty years ago.

Sorry, ranting off topic yet again !

Perhaps I am a pedant, perhaps Beethoven's 5th Symphony is a catchy song with a wicked beat.

Macauley said, "As civilization advances, poetry diminishes",.

the forum should be art music/western

[EDIT fo KALIBASA]

Ancient Greek grammar obsolete, It wasn't obsolete at my school thank-you. If it is so arcane why is it learnt so easily by thousands of school boys each year?

[General EDIT]

Why should anyone consider pedantry a bad thing? It is surely a desirable quality along with rigour.