Columbus, Ohio, is like many other Middle American cities, only
more so. In other words, it’s predominately white and
boring.
I was there to attend the annual national conference
of the American Musicological Society, and while the fresh air and
nice waiters were a welcome change, the trip showed how desolate
the place was ““ the hockey arena had nothing around it and
the mall was closed, and it was only 9 p.m.
Not to be rah-rah, but UCLA is an incredibly lively place,
musically and otherwise.
Almost all the UCLA musicology department professors came to the
conference with the intention of raising hell. On my flight, I
overheard some snobs talking about post-modernism as devoid of
meaning and relevance. That’s a bit like saying Michael
Jordan had no impact on professional sports. Apparently, for the
obnoxious people, being smart means avoiding reality and
appreciating anything going on now, such as musical sampling.
UCLA North Campus folk, on the other hand, embrace postmodernism
and popular, present music. Half of the graduate musicology
students are pop music specialists. The professors have written
about Monteverdi and Prince alike. They’re interested in
being alive, they’re interested in both the past and the
present.
Similarly, at the conference, I gravitated to lectures of
Steve Reich and the Beatles. I avoided lectures of Beethoven,
Mozart, and Wagner. This reflects my interest in being alive.
Living art and studying art are two different animals. The art
of listening (a popular class, I’m told) is not so
important as the art of being. Here again, UCLA triumphs over
stodginess. At a recent concert of new orchestral music, UCLA folk
were talking about the works as if they mattered. That wasn’t
hard because the composer was not a dead entity (such as
Beethoven), but a breathing human bobbing his head to his own music
in the fifth row.
Backstage was even more impressive. A professor had me shaking
the hands of people I had a minute ago thought were untouchables. I
chatted with a famous Russian conductor about his financial woes
that I had previously only read about. I met both the star
conductor and composer of the night.
At the AMS conference, both schools of thought ““ the
distaste for and embracing of of popular music ““ made it into
the entertainment. There were two competing parties, neither
alike in dignity. One was a ball, where I imagined a big band group
and a disco ball to top it off. Instead, it was old people
imitating attendees at a high school dance, where everyone sits
around, nervous to be the first to get up and dance.
The UCLA party, on the other hand, combined bebop jazz with
intense discussions. Jumping from conversation to conversation was
like plugging yourself into a socket and getting electrified. An
exciting Yale student hung with us as well as a jazzer from
Harvard. We spent time exchanging keyboard solos instead of
watching the band from afar.
The whole point of the trip (which had been paid for by the AMS)
was to see if I’d want to grow into a musicologist’s
shoes. The only ones that seemed to fit were the UCLA ones, which
are filled by humans full of life.
Don’t take my word for it. Go talk to UCLA
people about music. They’ll love it, even if the music
you like happens to be thriving.
Ho’s column as the North Campus Avenger runs every
Monday.