The Schubert/Gershwin/Lady Gaga experiment
When I taught the theory sequence, I had a project I did with sophomores. We would analyze a Schubert Lied. We would analyze a Gershwin tune. Then, I let them pick a current pop song for us to analyze. The last time I did the project, it was “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga.
It was a useful tool to set some things in relief. We could talk about the care that Schubert and Gershwin used in constructing melodic lines that went through a path of intermediate goals while moving toward an overall goal. We could talk about how subtle shadings of harmony undergirded and supported complex intimations of the text. We could talk about analogies between a single phrase and the shape of the whole piece.
Of course, we couldn’t really do that as easily with the Lady Gaga piece. The lines are clearly more limited and haphazard in construction. The harmonic palate was more ancillary than functional when it came to undergirding the text.
After that, I liked to lob a little grenade of a question into the class: So can we say that Schubert is a better composer than Lady Gaga? That question always led to the most wonderful aesthetic discussions. “What do we mean by ‘better’?” “Is a ‘better’ question to ask, ‘better for what purpose?’” “If my purpose is to go dancing at a club, is Schubert really the ‘better’ composer?” Oftentimes, the students would wind up arguing that Lady Gaga was better for clubbing precisely because musical craft was not involved. If you had to pay attention to the music, it wouldn’t function properly.
My young musicologist colleague on the faculty — who had a decidedly post-modern bent — was always aghast that I would even ask questions like that. He didn’t believe that it was an educationally sound choice to ask students to make “normative judgments” about issues like this. I would often respond by saying, “Well, I’m a composer. I have to make normative judgments every day. I just wrote an F# today in a composition. I did it not simply because I felt like it or because it pleased me, though both of those things were true. I did it because it was objectively better for the musical construction. It tied things together on a micro and macro level.” Of course, he didn’t believe in that sort of thing. He thought Schubert and Gaga were equally valuable. They were just different.
I don’t mean to suggest that I brood around in a perpetual Schoenbergian seriousness only listening to depressing Schubert Lieder. Well, I do tend to do that, but what I mean to say is that sometimes I eat candy bars even though I know they aren’t good for me. Sometimes, I listen to the Smiths because it has sentimental value to me — not because it’s good music. What I don’t do is conflate the two things. Gaga may be better for clubbing, but if your concern is meaningful music, Schubert is really a better composer.
Read more of Kurt’s thoughts at the links below.
