One of the skills my wife the professor and her colleagues attempt to develop in her voice students is the ability to learn how to sing from sheet music. It’s not easy. It requires piano skills, the ability to sight-read music, the ability to pronounce foreign words (which they’re theoretically required to develop by using the international phonetic alphabet), working out the timing and breathing to fit their own voice, and a great deal of hard work. Most students resist doing the work. Instead, they find a UTube video of the piece and sing along until they think they’ve learned the piece.
Except… they haven’t. Many of them won’t even study the lyrics, even when the words are in English, at least until prompted, because they don’t even consider how they’re going to convey emotion, particularly in a foreign language, if they don’t understand the full meaning of the words.
That’s just the beginning. Even if they find a video sung by a truly great singer, it doesn’t that mean that particular version suits the student’s voice, especially if the student is young and the recorded singer is fully mature. It also doesn’t take into account that even good singers make mistakes, or the fact that even accurate copies are less vital and accurate than the original. Add to that that “copying” a range of singers will keep the student from truly developing their own voice.
And, of course, there’s the “small” problem that the student can’t learn music that someone else hasn’t already recorded, not to mention that not all recordings, especially off UTube, aren’t that good.
But “copying” is so much easier.
Unhappily, this tendency isn’t confined to would-be classical singers. All one has to do is listen to current pop singers. Until about twenty-five or thirty years ago, listeners could identify singers within a few bars. Now, the majority all sound the same.
The “copy culture” isn’t limited to music, either. There’s rough “copying” in writing as well. The advent of the computer, combined with the internet, has spawned widespread and persistent plagiarism. At the same time, I’m seeing more and more grammatical and technical errors in commercial and semi-commercial material appearing on the internet, suggesting a lack of basic technique.
One of the reasons why I wrote the first Recluce novel [The Magic of Recluce] was because all too many fantasy novels at that time were set in pseudo-medieval cultures and the magic systems were largely based on spells or tradition folk magic, and I didn’t feel like “copying.” That’s also why each of my fantasy series has a unique magic system.
But because the “copy culture” is far cheaper than good solid originality, it’s growing and invading everywhere. And what does that say about society?
I hear you LEM. But in modern societies this has always been true. Innovation is, by definition, rare. It always has been and always will be. There are a lot of people out there and they have to have a way to live and thrive. The most common path is to take the common path. Regression to the mean and all that. That’s just the way it is. Most of the things you buy are all copies of something that was originally a new idea or an innovation on an older idea.
In terms of learning something new, I wholeheartedly agree that it is best if people worked hard in learning the basics before proclaiming competency or proficiency. But, life is not like Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. :-))
REM, thanks for another thoughtful entry. I’m glad to have a chance to support a favorite author!
Meanwhile, you just may have identified one of the underlying reasons behind Sturgeon’s Law…
Yes, it’s only going to get worse with things like ChatGPT. It’s trained to copy. Then it’s trained not to reproduce the exact same words, but the same argument, thereby “avoiding” copyright violations. And then people think it’s intelligent… because in a world where they all copy, it behaves just like them.
One of the biggest problems I have with my students is that they don’t know how to read for content. They only know how to look for answers by copying directly out of the text, not actually understanding what is written and being able to analyze it. But considering they only ever read in school and spend the rest of their free time watching videos, it’s no wonder they are stuck at a 5th grade reading level.
Personally, I feel that school helped enhance my education and challenge me to grow in ways I normally wouldn’t on my own. However, the vast bulk of my knowledge and understanding has been gained from my own academic pursuits. In short, I did a lot of my own reading outside of school.
The vast majority of students today don’t read on their own at all. Even to the point where they rather ask simple questions rather than use the myriad of tools available to them to find out.
It seems to me that your criticism of copying revolves about the resultant inability to learn the inchoate elements of technique: no matter whether the technique is needed to accomplish an art or science or digging a hole. It does not help any when the “elites” blame meritocracy for the result of their misapplication of the term.
https://edsource.org/2024/for-a-true-meritocracy-education-must-not-be-one-size-fits-all/722887#:~:text=November%2021%2C%202024%20%2D%20Many%20California,for%20such%20programs%20dried%20up.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/meritocracy-critics-equality
It’s interesting that a similar phenomenon occurred in China, where innovation was discouraged, so as not to destabilize the Emperor’s rule, and everybody tried to imitate the masters of the past. They were pretty damn good at it too.
A relatively unknown and backwards part of the Eurasian continent then out innovated the Chinese leading to its century of humiliation. Now China, while still copying, is also innovating at quite the pace. Is it our turn for a century of humiliation?
Hopefully China will remember U.S. Secretary of State John Hay formulated the Open Door Policy and thus forgive the US; as it innovates it’s way passed our grand isolation.
Just as Westerners are subjected to a fair amount of propaganda, so are Chinese… So it will really depend on what they have been told.
It would be pretty easy to frame the Open Door Policy as just being a more efficient way for the evil foreigners to loot China… and they definitely looted the palaces.
Now that China is strong, let’s hope that they continue the view to promote their current more inclusive “all under heaven”, Tian Xia, view rather than “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
Nietzsche wrote an allegory about the camel, the lion, and the child. At first, we bear the burdens of society and work to be respected in conformity. Then we get angry at being used as a beast of burden and throw our load down and wander the wilderness refusing all strictures and burdens. In the end, we become the wise child, able to see the burdens with an open mind and decide what is worth keeping and what is useless baggage.
I suspect your wife’s students are less unwilling to work on learning than insecure about creating art which exposes their own creativity and personality to the world. It is psychologically terrifying to be vulnerable in that way, and far more comfortable to try to imitate what is already respected and applauded. It can even be more comfortable to fail at being someone else than to take the risk of being judged harshly for being who you are.
This is the problem heavy metal exists to solve. Our ideal is the authentic work of the individual- no matter if it sucks and our deadly sin is being a “poser”. Even a lot of the over the top evil stuff is a way to encourage authentic expression. We invite negative reactions and celebrate obscurity and stigma in order to face and pass through the fear of judgement. It’s no accident that most of the best bands start out with more cliche black metal and then work up the courage to venture out past Lucifer apron strings to find their own sound. Classical music education simply does students a disservice in not recognizing that even the most innocent soul fears scrutiny. Heavy metal throws up a smoke screen of intentional blasphemy to let people step out into that scrutiny a little bit at a time. Your wife’s students are trying to use the performances she is providing as an example as a cover to avoid putting themselves out there and maybe failing. Maybe they would apply themselves better if they didn’t feel the pressure to succeed so strongly? They are trying to be good camels- perhaps they need to spend some time as lions before they can become wise children?
You’re right in that many of her students don’t know who they really are, but her task is to get them to become who they are and not a copy of someone else — or multiple copies of other singers, but they can’t do that unless they’re willing to work and develop the tools. She also works with contemporary music students, and they have the same problems. These students want to perform, and most like being on stage. Many of them just don’t want to work hard enough to learn the tools that will enable themselves to go beyond being copies.