What Classical Music Taught me

Classical Music and Me

Hi Everyone,

Today, while browsing my Facebook feed, I came across the picture above from Classic FM.  As a classical musician, I find it to be quite insightful and hilarious! Indeed, this picture shows that this type music has been threatened again and again throughout history, and yet still remains relevant to musicians.

The picture quotes that a variety of factors, including certain composers, money, YouTube, and an aging audience,has been accused of killing classical music since 1324.  Yet, classical music continues to survive.

While I am not a music historian, I can vouch for what classical music has taught me.

Three Thing I’ve Learned

1. It taught me how to say the same thing in different ways.
   1. Much of this style of music is written down, and this expectation is for musicians to perform from the score with the correct notes and rhythm. How the musicians interpret this blueprint, is the art of performing. No performer would perform the same piece the exact same way.
2. It taught me about emotions. 
   1. Although I am an avid listener to current music such as pop, RnB, and techno, there are not a lot of music that makes me feel the wonder of Claire de Lune, or the sadness from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. By exploring classical music, we explore ourselves and our emotions.
3. It taught me how to commit.
   1. Not only can advanced pieces be incredibly difficult and time consuming to learn, classical performers must commit 100% to the feelings of a piece to perform it. This music asks for both technical precision, and sensitive musicality.

The list can go on and on. The complexity of this historical music, is what categorizes it as a fine art. To be a committed classical musician, we must commit to up keeping our technical abilities, respecting the history of the pieces, understanding the music theory, and using our musicality to translate all our work to the audience.

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Eric Ng (B.Mus, A.R.C.T , ECE ) is a piano teacher based in Richmond, B.C. Mr. Eric has taught in a variety of early childhood education styles, including Reggio-inspired, Montessori, Play-based, and Outdoor-based settings. Along with his formal classical music training from the RCM curriculum and the University of Victoria, Mr. Eric brings a unique perspective to teaching music to young children today.