It was with interest I read an article about how museums are struggling with using technology to enhance and supplement the experience for the viewers. The article postures that museums do recognize the need to invoke a judicious use of technology in their offerings, but the author admonishes museums to "hold back on ‘audience engagement’ shenanigans with mobile technologies and social media, and accept that museums are not to everyone’s taste." http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/technology_in_museums_less_is_more/14433#.UsMs2LRbRCA.
In many ways the article serves as an example of the dilemma facing musicians and Schools of Music today. We are just not sure what to do, how to give respect for the past, how to prepare students for the future, and how to design concerts and programs that reach people without sacrificing quality and integrity. We love music of the great masters, that which is highly regarded as the canon of music literature, and we believe in the value of that music and are convinced in its vitality and its quality, not just as something historical, but also as being meaningful in today's world. We are also further convinced that knowledge in how that music was created is essential to all music that came afterward. To know Bach is to know truth which is also to understand the future. After all, doesn't the past shape the future? Such is true in music. Trained musicians cannot eradicate, nor should they, the great music from the past, for to do so is to extract a vital and necessary part of what it means to be a musician.
[We have postulated this position for years and continue to do so, but the argument for continuing to teach the music of the masters (defined in terms of a 200 year period of white male European composers from the past), is beginning to crumble with the rise in knowledge of the world and the growth of technology. Somehow our argument is starting to sound stale and empty in light of the all the music that has been produced in history and in regard to music that is vital today. This is a major concern and another example of the clash that exists in culture.]
Yet, we are aware that not to react, at least to an extent, to current trends and not to benefit from modern technology is to relegate music entirely to the past, thus making it a museum piece that vacillates between being antique to being useless. The article about museums addresses how excessive technology almost detracts from the ability to "work things out" for yourself and to make your own interpretations. While the article does not address imagination, it does seem intuitively true that the more gadgets that invade our museums, the more our imaginations take a back seat to the process of learning. Perhaps it is true that when Dinosaurs become "alive" using technology, it tends to "obviate the challenge..." (http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/technology_in_museums_less_is_more/14433#.UsMs2LRbRCA) as well as the purposes behind a museum...to discover, to learn, to respect, and to apply the knowledge in some sort of way.
While I understand the author's point and could argue the same in all the arts, I do not think it is productive nor relevant to voice what smacks of Neo-Luddism and antiquated thinking. If museums can provide "real" experiences through technology or can enhance and supplement the knowledge using technology, then I am supportive, in spite of the expressed concerns. We have the technology, my vote is to use it and to benefit from its many advantages.
The music of Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, and Chopin, to name a few, is full of beauty, joy, expression, and displays unparalleled genius, and it is my hope that their music is performed and studied forever. Yet, those works by the great masters are in fact museum pieces that might benefit from some kind of technology, and, indeed, they have, albeit rather typically, through the use of recordings, midi, and digital transmission. Music, like technology, marches forward and the public market demands it stay current and relevant. But the tension between the music of the past through performance practices of old, and that of using modern technology to enhance that experience is likened to the problems of museums and their fears of invoking excessive technology. We can fight against the tide of progress or we can embrace it while retaining our commitment to quality and to education.
Regardless of the concern and the philosophical, perhaps educational, problems of the "live" dinosaurs at the London Natural History Museum, the display is popular and very fun. Without that element, they are just memories and likenesses of ancient animals that once walked this earth. When we breathe life into them through digital technology, they take on their own relevancy and historical significance. Maybe Schools of Music can find ways to "breathe life" into music of the past and use technology in ways to enhance and supplement the experience. Yes, we may lose some of the beauty of the past, but the gain is likely to be greater than the loss. It is at least worth the effort and may result in robust programs that make a difference for the future of music.
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