The headmaster of the school where children are forced to listen to classical music as a punishment for bad behaviour said infractions of school rules have dropped by about 60 per cent since he began the special detentions.
"What he's saying in effect is children don't like classical music and we will exploit this fact by using it as a punishment against them," O'Neill said in an interview Wednesday with CBC's Q cultural affairs show.
The state school system seems to have abandoned the idea of educating children about great culture, he added.
But making detained Islamic terrorists listen to rock music is torture…
Playing classical music in public areas like train stations also reduces violence and vandalism.
Undoubtedly, someone here will have a theory why…
“But making detained Islamic terrorists listen to rock music is torture…”
That’s right. Those of us on the left really get angry when we hear about terrorists being forced to listen to rock music. If it was chamber music we’d be fine with it.
Is this Tyler’s working hypothesis: Students who dislike classical music are more likely to get into trouble?
I think intuitively this rings true. Classical music would’ve be ridiculed by the cool, troublemakers in my class.
My grandpa always told me about how his Jesuit high school punished them by forcing them to memorizing poetry.
“Classical music would’ve be ridiculed by the cool, troublemakers in my class.”
But ridiculing it in public says little about whether they would like or dislike it in private.
I’ll bet seventies easy listening would work even better!
“The state school system seems to have abandoned the idea of educating children about great culture, he added.”
I’d bet good money the headmaster’s results are phony and this is mainly about making his grumpy point above.
But for Alex (of Clockwork Orange) just listening to classical music would’ve been a reward, not a punishment. The music wasn’t supposed to be the punishment, just an emotional heightener to help condition the violent videos to the pain they were putting him through.
To associate this with Clockwork Orange, the implication is classical music has been associated with physical distress by aversion therapy. That seems unlikely.
On the other hand, we know that the first performance of pieces now considered classic compositions caused riots, and others were booed. Through history, new forms of all sorts of art have brought protests and rejection, and only with context and experience has this new work been appreciated.
Few classic films were recognized at the time with awards, and I’ve found many naive film goers have much the same reaction as the films got at the time of release.
But perhaps Tyler is on to something. Today, most music is performed with synthesizers, and Clockwork Orange featured the earliest synthesizer performances of classic music. It might be playing music on traditional instruments, any music, instead of synthesizers, might evoke an aversive response because the sound isn’t quite realistic enough, but on the other hand sounds too natural, so it enters the “uncanny valley.” Imagines in the uncanny valley cause children to cry, so it follows that music performed on instruments not quite realistic and in the uncanny valley would cause students much discomfort as well.
Its not that it is classical, I don’t doubt that those people would like /good/ classical music. Its that the stuff they use is the horribly boring stuff.
Hmm, I guess that playing the classical music together with video of the orchestre could actually spark some interest in the kids.
Consider, for example, this video of Vivaldi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe-MIDDfckw
It adds another dimension to the already beautiful music; I think that it could actually motivate some of the children to try playing an instrument.
One factor here, believe it or not, might be downbeat vs upbeat. In classical music, emphasizing the downbeat is sacred. In most rock and dance music, the emphasis falls on the upbeat, for good reason. Evidence follows.
The upbeat reliably wakes most up and makes them want to do things, while classical music’s downbeat gives people lower energy levels. I learned that from a dance fiddler with long experience.
I’ve played both kinds to crowds, and seen differing results at least thirty times. I’ve seen the same huge audience at a concert be awake during some hungarian dance music, and quiet during hungarian classical music, Kodaly. People also are less energetic when I’ve played dance music emphasizing downbeat. The relative sell rate of rock and dance music is still more evidence. So, in short, I have statistical evidence.
It does have the bad side-effect, surely, of meaning they’ll like the pieces they’re played in the future even less than people like assigned readings afterwards.
“Its not that it is classical, I don’t doubt that those people would like /good/ classical music. Its that the stuff they use is the horribly boring stuff.”
Seconded. Is this Telemann or some of the more math-problemy Bach? Or perhaps something that sounds truly ugly like Schoenberg? Those would be punishment, while other composers might well appeal to a teenager.
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