Schumann at the Disco: my first 'WritMix'
Two things:
Words carry weight.
And I didn’t grow up listening to classical music.
My parents say the first thing I played at the piano was themes from “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.
So, words carry weight. We all know that. It sounds almost cliche to say. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of weight that one particular word carries: ‘classical’. It tends to be… well, elitist. Could a new word shift that weight?
In case you don’t already know, this word has never been particularly satisfactory to classical musicians or the academic community. People have tried to come up with various alternative titles, from “concert music” to “aesthetic music” to “serious music”. (I don’t like any of these options - more on that later.) The best alternative so far has been “Western Art Music”, but this mouthful isn’t exactly a quick and easy genre label in the vein of ‘jazz’, ‘hip-hop’, ‘punk’, etc.
So after literal years spent considering this question, I’ve been experimenting with the term ‘writ music’ as a replacement for the term ‘classical’, as a way of focusing on the distinct role that music notation plays in the genre. It’s not the only tradition of music or genre of music that has music notation and uses it in a significant way, but it remains a very striking aspect of the tradition. My hope is that by choosing a term that tries to describe the genre in a value-neutral way, we can focus on the strengths of the genre while stripping away some of the elitism wrapped up in ‘classical’ as it currently stands.
More on that later.
To the second point: I didn’t grow up listening to writ music.
There are times where I’ve felt rather self-conscious about this fact. Many of the conductors and musicians I’ve worked with and respect, they grew up in a musical family, surrounded by writ music in the home. But that just wasn’t my experience. I grew up listening to Coldplay. Or Something Corporate, or whatever was on the radio, or whatever my parents and siblings were blasting in the car on the way to school.
What’s particularly intriguing to me is that I’m not the only one who has had this experience. It wasn’t until age 19 that I truly started enjoying writ music in my free time. I spent 14-odd years practicing piano, playing Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, etc. I practically never listened to it on my own. I’ve talked to other music students, and many of them had a similar experience, where they didn’t really engage with the genre as a whole until well into their college years.
And that’s weird, right?
How do we bridge that gap? If our genre of music barely appeals to the kids making it, then what are we doing wrong?
I don’t know for sure what the answers are, but I’ve been trying to look for some. One possibility that I like: mashups. There are pieces of commercial music that I really connect with, and I adore the idea of hearing those songs re-imagined in a ‘writ music’ style. Let’s call it a ‘WritMix’.
The first of these ‘WritMixes’ I’ve done combined two songs that I truly adore. “Impossible Year” by Panic! at the Disco, and “Widmung” by Robert Schumann. The accompaniment borrows liberally from the kind of idiomatic piano writing present in “Widmung”, and tries to embody its general Romantic character. “Impossible Year” provides the melodic content and harmonic framework. Here’s what it sounds like.
Singer: Journey Schaubhut
It took some real work, but I adore what came out of this project. At times, it feels like there is a chasm between ‘classical’ and ‘pop’. And attempts at crossing this divide can come off disingenuous, or patronizing, or just inadequate. But what if we came to this with a sincere respect for what both genres have to offer? What if we combine them in a way that genuinely celebrates both?
Maybe then, we’ll start to make more real connections with new audiences. And if not, we’ll at least have made some heartfelt art.